Tag: Secretary DeVos

Betsy DeVos is using school shootings to justify draconian new discipline guidelines

The following article by Casey Quinlan was posted on the ThinkProgress website March 28, 2018:

A White House commission plans to consider a rollback of Obama administration guidelines on student discipline.

Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican lawmakers are considering moves that may undo years of progress in dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline.

A White House commission on school safety plans to hold its first meeting on Wednesday. According to Politico, the first meeting will be closed press, but subsequent meetings will have open press. There are already a lot of critics of the commission since teachers and students will be missing from the conversation, and the commission seems to be more interested in media coverage of school shootings and the influence of video games than on reforming gun policy.

But one of the biggest concerns is that the commission is considering rolling back Obama administration guidance on school discipline that discouraged officers from disciplining students and pushed for more positive and less punitive responses to student behavior. In other words, the federal government will undo the Obama administration’s work to keep students in school and out of the criminal justice system. Continue reading “Betsy DeVos is using school shootings to justify draconian new discipline guidelines”

As DeVos Approves Education Plans, She Finds Skeptics in G.O.P. Governors

The following article by Erica L. Green was posted on the New York Times website February 11, 2018:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has approved plans from six states states where the governor refused to sign on. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The majority of states now have the green light from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to begin implementing a sweeping federal law passed in 2015 to replace the much-maligned No Child Left Behind law.

But state and federal education policymakers are running into a surprising source of opposition: governors.

Ms. DeVos has approved 35 plans, including those from Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., that provide a road map for complying with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, a bipartisan law passed under President Barack Obama that returns the reins of education reform to states. The law required every state education department to submit a plan. Continue reading “As DeVos Approves Education Plans, She Finds Skeptics in G.O.P. Governors”