Tag: Betsy DeVos

Minnesota Leaders Call Out Trump and DeVos’s Chaotic Approach to School Reopening

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, DFL Party leaders, educators, and Minnesota parents hosted a call speaking out against Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s chaotic approach to school reopening, and the major challenges it has created for Minnesota’s families. Featured on the call were DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin, Education Minnesota President Denise Specht, House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler (46A), State Senator Jason Isaacson (42), and Saint Louis Park resident Bethany Penna.

Excerpts from the call

DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin: “Seven months into this crisis, Donald Trump still does not have a plan to address COVID-19, and he has no real plan to allow kids and teachers to return to school safely. As a parent of two teenagers in District 196, I’m concerned about the complete disregard the Trump administration has had on reopening schools safely. Trump’s failure to lead is the very reason that many schools can’t reopen safely. Trump continues to ignore and contradict medical experts, downplay the threat, and claim that COVID will miraculously disappear. Health experts, educators, and parents oppose Trump’s demand to unsafely reopen schools and his threat to cut funding to those that don’t reopen. Dr. Fauci has directly contradicted Trump saying that schools in coronavirus hotspots should not reopen in person, yet Donald Trump and his administration continue to ignore the advice of these experts. Trump continues to falsely claim that children are virtually immune and will not spread the virus even as students across America get sick and have to quarantine.”

Continue reading “Minnesota Leaders Call Out Trump and DeVos’s Chaotic Approach to School Reopening”

Betsy DeVos actually says the pandemic has been a ‘good thing’ for American schools

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On the heels of two federal judges halting a controversial rule that allows private schools to get more Covid-19 relief funding than Congress intended, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said Friday that she believes the viral pandemic has been a “good thing” for the nation’s education system, a comment that quickly drew criticism from Democrats and public education advocates.

“Betsy DeVos calling Covid-19 a ‘good thing’ for our schools just goes to show you how divorced this administration is from reality,” the Michigan State Democratic Party—of Devos’ home state—tweeted. “Let’s not forget: Millions of kids are forced to stay home from school because Trump failed to handle the virus.”

DeVos made the comment in a Friday interview aired on SiriusXM while discussing how the pandemic has affected the nation’s schools. She claimed the pandemic—which caused teachers nationwide to switch to emergency remote learning plans—has shown that the U.S. education system is “static” and unable to adjust to changing circumstances. Continue reading.

Federal judge halts Betsy DeVos’s controversial rule sending coronavirus aid to private schools

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A federal judge in Washington state temporarily blocked Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from enforcing a controversial rule that directs states to give private schools a bigger share of federal coronavirus aid than Congress had intended.

In a lawsuit filed by the state, U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein on Friday issued a preliminary injunction and castigated the Education Department over the July 1 regulation about the distribution of federal funds. The money, about $13.5 billion, was included for K-12 schools in Congress’s March $2 trillion-aid package — known as the Cares Act — to mitigate economic damage from the pandemic.

Rothstein slammed the Education Department for arguing that states would not suffer irreparable damage if forced to implement the rule and said there was cause to put a preliminary injunction on the rule while the broader issues are worked out. Continue reading.

Yes, kids can get COVID-19 – 3 pediatricians explain what’s known about coronavirus and children

We are three pediatric infectious disease specialists who live and work in West Virginia. The West Virginia University health system serves 400,000 children and according to our internal data, to date, 2,520 children up to 17 years of age have been tested for the coronavirus. Sixty-seven of them tested positive and one became sick enough to be admitted to the hospital.

We are asked almost daily about children and COVID-19: Do they get COVID-19? Should they attend day care or school, play sports, see friends and attend summer camps? What are the risks to themselves and to others?

Based on current research and our own experiences, it would seem that kids 17 years old and younger face little risk from the coronavirus. Nearly all children have asymptomatic, very mild or mild disease, but a small percentage of children do get very sick. Additionally, there is evidence that children can spread the virus to others, and with huge outbreaks occurring all across the U.S, these realities raise serious concerns about school reopenings and how children should navigate the pandemic world. Continue reading.

DeVos’s claim that children are ‘stoppers’ of covid-19

Washington Post logo“More and more studies show that kids are actually stoppers of the disease and they don’t get it and transmit it themselves, so we should be in a posture of — the default should be getting back to school kids in person, in the classroom.”

— Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, in an interview on “The Conservative Circus” (iHeart radio), July 16

Our eyes popped out when we first heard this comment by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, as she pressed the administration’s case for reopening schools in the fall with in-person classes.

Could children actually be “stoppers” of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus? That would be great news — if true. The interruption of school threatens to create a learning deficit — and many parents may find it difficult to return to work if children are not in classes.

Let’s examine DeVos’s evidence that children do not transmit the coronavirus, as it appears to be influencing administration policy. President Trump echoed her claim in a news briefing Wednesday evening. “They do say that [children] don’t transmit very easily, and a lot of people are saying they don’t transmit,” he said. “They don’t bring it home with them. They don’t catch it easily; they don’t bring it home easily.” Continue reading.

DeVos slammed for meetings with conservatives while school reopening debate rages

The National Education Association says DeVos needs to cancel the events and focus on helping educators reopen schools safely.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is holding three virtual meetings this week with members of the conservative Federalist Society, prompting the nation’s largest teachers union to criticize her for spending time on political events rather than plans for reopening schools shuttered by the pandemic.

The organization announced that she and high-level staff are holding virtual meetings on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with its chapters in Alabama, Ohio and Arizona to discuss her recently published Title IX regulationgoverning sexual misconduct in schools and colleges. It will go into effect on Aug. 14.

The meetings are closed to the press and are not listed on her public schedule. DeVos has no events on her public schedule this week. On Sunday, she appeared on two news shows to defend the Trump administration’s push to fully reopen schools for the coming academic year, as a national debate rages over whether it’s safe to send kids back to classrooms. Continue reading.

Trump and DeVos want schools ‘fully’ open, but not many are listening

Washington Post logoPresident Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spent much of this week pressuring and cajoling schools to reopen. DeVos, in particular, made clear she means five days a week.

But school systems across the country have already decided on models where students learn from home part of the time. That includes a charter school network that DeVos has repeatedly praised for its approach during the pandemic.

Like many other systems, Success Academy Charter Schools, a network in New York City, says it cannot safely reopen with all children in the building because there is not enough room to keep them apart. Continue reading.

Betsy DeVos changes rule to funnel more than $1 billion of COVID-19 relief to private schools

AlterNet logoCartoon dubious rich person Betsy DeVos issued a new rule on Thursday that will require public schools to share more of the CARES Act relief funds—meant for public schools—with private schools. Specifically, DeVos’ rule will cut into the already low $13.5 billion allotted for the country’s public K-12 schools. According to NPR, the education secretary’s new rule would re-imagine the intention of the CARES Act funds to mean that public schools must pay for tutoring and transportation for private school students. This new “reading of the law” would take the $127 million already being received by private schools and add another $1.23 billion. That’s a 10-fold increase.

As Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson reported back in May, DeVos’ Department of Education has attempted to cajole the public into believing that private schools—particularly religious private schools—are in the same boat as public schools. A claim that is not exactly true, regardless of decontextualized reporting by The New York Times. More importantly, the new rules set out by DeVos restrict public school districts’ ability to use the funds for broader pandemic needs, like paying all staff and cleaning all facilities.

DeVos, like all Trump administration officials, is a Clue-caricature villain. She has already made sure that people in need of the coronavirus relief, like DACA students, will get none. The pandemic is exposing the very tough reality that there are things and institutions in our society where if we want them to survive, we will need to give them money and help them weather our country’s leadership’s incompetence in handling the pandemic. The problem that private schools—or “non-public” schools, as DeVos and others like to rebrand them—have is that they only work if American taxpayers fund them. This is identical issue to the issue that public schools have. The difference is that public schools must follow considerably better vetted policies of equality than private institutions. Continue reading.

Steve Mnuchin and Betsy DeVos sued for unlawful seizure of student loan borrowers’ tax refunds during pandemic

AlterNet logoTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and the federal departments they run were hit with a class-action lawsuit Friday for illegal seizures of thousands of student borrowers’ tax refunds during the coronavirus pandemic, which has left over 40 million Americans jobless and familes across the country struggling to stay in their homes and keep food on the table.

The suit (pdf)—filed by Student Defense and Democracy Forward in the U.S. District Court for D.C.—accuses the Education and Treasury departments of violating the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act from late March, which halted all involuntary collection of federal student loans, including tax refund offsets, until the end of September.

“Secretaries DeVos and Mnuchin have inflicted needless financial pain on student borrowers and their families by failing to stop the illegal seizures of their tax refunds,” Democracy Forward senior counsel Jeffrey Dubner said in a statement. Continue reading.

Over Veterans’ Protests, Trump Vetoes Measure to Block Student Loan Rules

New York Times logoPresident Trump sided with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over veterans’ groups, vetoing a measure that would have blocked new regulations that tighten access to student loan forgiveness.

WASHINGTON — President Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution on Friday to overturn new regulations that significantly tighten access to federal student loan forgiveness, siding with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over veterans’ organizations that say her rules will harm veterans bilked by unscrupulous for-profit colleges.

The veto will allow stringent rules for students seeking loan forgiveness to take effect on July 1. The rules toughen standards established under the Obama administration for student borrowers seeking to prove their colleges defrauded them and to have their federal loans erased. Even if some borrowers can show they were victims of unscrupulous universities, they could be denied relief unless they can prove their earnings have been adversely affected.

The resolution “sought to reimpose an Obama-era regulation that defined educational fraud so broadly that it threatened to paralyze the nation’s system of higher education,” Mr. Trump said in his veto statement. “The Department of Education’s rule strikes a better balance, protecting students’ rights to recover from schools that defraud them while foreclosing frivolous lawsuits.” It was the president’s eighth veto. Continue reading.