TRUMP PROMISED TO GET THE “BEST OF THE BEST”, THEN HE BROUGHT US BETSY DeVOS

…The Education Secretary that said she purposely didn’t visit under-performing public schools.

 

America’s strength of an education for everyone is not what the Education Secretary wants for the country.

 

Who would have thought that a Republican run Congress would be coming to the rescue of America’s public school system?

 

Well, when you are as inept of an education secretary such as Betsy DeVos, apparently even a conservative congress can recognize what is wrong with what the secretary is trying to do to public education.  I never thought that in any case I would ever say “God bless the Republican Congress for saving the public schools.”

 

Don’t get me wrong, for years the GOP has done much to de-value American teachers, the teacher’s unions and the US public schools.  But even the tight-fisted conservatives seem to understand that there are some things that just won’t work in the nation’s public  school system.

 

In addition, the congress seems to understand that Ms. DeVos does not have the background or the education to properly run the education department.

 

Yes, she comes from a very wealthy, multi-millionaire family, but that’s only because she married into the wealthy Amway family, not because she earned her way there.  And her only experience in education is that she rose up to be recognized by the system because her family has donated millions to supporting  the nations focus on Charter Schools and for running the public schools out of business.

 

Here’s a list of what she was trying to achieve with her latest Budget Proposal for the Education Department.

 

Betsy DeVos wants to:

 

·       Eliminate funding for schools for needy youth.

·       Spend $1 billion on “Choice-Friendly Policies” and “Private Schools”.  [i.e.: Charter Schools]

 

·       Cut national Public School Funding by $3.6 billion (5%)

 

·       Ax school grant programs that help low-income families send their children to college

 

·       Eliminate public after-school program funding

·       Cut funding for the Office of Civil Rights because they had “become so efficient….?”

 

·       Eliminated grant programs that supported student mental-health services 

(BTW: A move that received serious scrutiny in the wake of the disturbed former student involved in the school shooting in Parkland, Fla.)

 

·       Roll back the role the federal government plays in the nation’s schools.

 

·       Finally, DeVos had the gall to say that her budget would: “Serve the students by meeting their needs”.  “Really?”

 

·       She also said: “President Trump is committed to reducing the federal footprint in education, and that is reflected in this budget.”

 

So how did the Congress blow a hole in the secretary’s and the president’s plans?

 

Instead of cutting, the US Congress is increasing the department funding by $3.9 billion, with no funding for the school choice program DeVos envisioned.

 

The spending bill, which must be passed by Friday to avoid another government shutdown, boosts investments in student mental health, including increasing funding by $700 million for a wide-ranging grant program that schools can use for counselors. The bill calls for an additional $22 million for a program to reduce school violence and $25 million for a Department of Health and Human Services program that supports mental-health services in schools.

 

The new spending bill provides $40 million for the popular D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant, which gives city students (Those who don’t have access to a robust in-state university system — affordable college options.) The White House had proposed cutting all federal funding to the program, but the Congress ignored the White House.

 

It also increases funding for the Office for Civil Rights and after-school programs.

 

This was the second year in a row that Congress has rejected the DeVos proposals. The bill includes additional investments in early childhood education, including $610 million in new funding for Head Start, which she was also against.

 

“After more than a year on the job, I would have hoped Secretary DeVos would have learned by now that her extreme ideas to privatize our nation’s public schools and dismantle the Department of Education do not have support among parents or in Congress, but unfortunately that does not seem to be the case,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. “I’m proud to have worked with Republicans in Congress to flatly reject these ideas, and increase funding for programs Secretary DeVos tried to cut, including K-12 education, civil rights protections, college affordability, and more.”

 

A number of higher-education programs received a boost from appropriators, in a repudiation of the Trump administration’s plans to reduce the federal role in the sector.

 

Congress rejected DeVos’s proposal to freeze the maximum Pell Grant award to low-income students at $5,920, a ceiling that would have remained in place for the foreseeable future without any directive to adjust the award to inflation. Instead, lawmakers have raised the maximum by $175 to $6,095, to help an estimated 8 million low-income college students who rely on the program to pay for school.

Rather than eliminate the $732 million Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant as DeVos proposed, congressional Republicans and Democrats agreed to pour an additional $107 million into the program. 71% of the 1.6 million recipients of the grant hail from households earning less than $30,000 a year.

 

The Trump administration also wanted to cut-in-half the funding for federal work-study programs that help more than 300,000 students work their way through college. Congress decided to increase its allocation by $140 million, for a total of $1.1 billion.

 

Lawmakers have also created a $350 million discretionary relief fund to support Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that wipes away federal student debt for people who take jobs in the public sector after they have made 10 years’ worth of payments. The spending bill also expands the program to borrowers who were enrolled in an ineligible repayment plan but otherwise working in the public sector.

 

This program includes a combined increase of $106 million for programs supporting historically black colleges and universities as well as other institutions serving minorities. The bill also sets aside $1.01 billion, a $60 million increase, for programs that help disadvantaged students enter and complete college. And it pumps an additional $35 million into the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program that assists low-income college students with child-care costs.

 

Hopefully, these moves will stop the secretary from trying to kill what has made this a great country.  All Ms. DeVos wants to create is an aristocracy nation where only the wealthy can afford to get a higher education. 

 

If that were the case for myself, because of the great California public school system, I for one, would not have been able to achieve an MBA.  Shame on Betsy DeVos, and shame om Trump if he veto's the bill.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2018