EDlection 2016 – ��Ӱ��

Opinion: Campbell Brown: On Betsy DeVos

Campbell Brown — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Social media attacks aren’t famous for accuracy, but it’s a pity that Betsy DeVos has been so misleadingly caricatured since Donald Trump asked her to serve as secretary of education last week.

Not just because she’s a friend. Also because her attackers needlessly reopen late-NCLB fault lines and deepen the clamor that follows Trump everywhere.

It will be harder than ever to be heard above the noise.

The following outbursts could have been chosen at random (they weren’t; I omitted a conservative editor who said she would commit seppuku, a form of ritual suicide):

“She wants her million[aire] and billionaire friends to profit off of childhood education,” of the Michigan Federation of Teachers.

: “Trump has chosen the most ideological, anti–public ed nominee since the creation of the Dept of Education.”

And , Michigan’s Democratic Party chairman, claimed DeVos wants “to channel her family’s massive wealth toward destroying Michigan’s public education system.”

Really?

Point of correction: Shiva the god of death was not asked to serve.

Point of correction: Charter schools are public schools.

And an anecdote about traditional schools. Dillon hails from Betsy’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., and presumably believes DeVos wants to destroy the schools there. It’s recommended that he grab coffee with Teresa Weatherall Neal, the superintendent of that very poor (85 percent free lunch) but district, the state’s fifth-largest.

that DeVos had partnered closely since the superintendent’s arrival five years ago, helping her form a plan, paying coaching costs and, to this day, sending encouraging notes. “She was part of the transformation that we have done in the district,” Neal said.

As to DeVos’s selection: “I’m really excited for the children across the nation,” Neal said. “She has been a wonderful supporter of GRPS and our transition plan. She knows education. She knows what it is going to take in order for our kids to be helped.”

The suggestion that Betsy’s work with children is ideologically or financially driven would be disputed, I’d guess, by just about everyone who has spent time alongside her during the past 30 years as she founded, helped run and advised education groups and initiatives that have helped improve education across the country — including thousands of teachers and poor families.

Part of the difference between the politician’s and practitioner’s view of her efforts stems from the fact that she understands what things are supposed to look like at the school level and has been single-minded in improving opportunities there for children.

Politically, that means she can be agile when she needs to be and dig in on core principles when she must. She is tenacious in defending the best interests of children rather than interest groups and their political patrons.

She is a born decision-maker, thick-skinned, never long discouraged by setbacks and impervious to hostile criticism. Like many friends, she and I agree a lot and disagree a lot; I never doubt her intelligence, good faith and inclination to think on all sides of a problem.

While we wait for “tireless” to be discharged from the army of clichés so that I can use it on her, I’ll emphasize that her life’s project is to help children; she works as hard at it as anyone I know; and she will support and build on and keep pushing to improve whatever model is working — traditional or charter or voucher or something we haven’t yet imagined.

Before long, I hope, a lot of people will be surprised by how much someone truly committed to educational excellence can accomplish for parents and children.

Related Coverage at ��Ӱ��

Keierleber: New to Team Trump, DeVos Has Long Been on Team Pence

Phenicie: Did Senate ‘Nuclear Option’ Help DeVos Rise Above Rhee for Education Secretary Nod?

Petrilli:

The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation has provided philanthropic support to ��Ӱ��, which I co-founded. I sit on the board of directors of the American Federation for Children, which Betsy DeVos chaired before her nomination. The American Federation for Children also sponsored ��Ӱ��’s 2015 New Hampshire education summit.

Opinion: Bradford — Why Do I Hope DeVos Boosts School Vouchers and Scholarships? Because They Changed My Life

Derrell Bradford — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Back in September, with the presidential election and Freddie Gray’s death as backdrops, my sister organization hosted annual summit in Baltimore, which included a dinner at the church of one of its board members. The city’s Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood, where Gray lived and where I grew up many years ago, had been on my mind a lot during the days leading up to the trip, and I felt distant as we boarded the bus and started our ride to the church from downtown.

Baltimore is a distinct city, and it is a deeply familiar place if you have lived there. But as the bus turned onto Calhoun Street, I realized that it was familiar not because we were driving through Baltimore but because we were driving through my old neighborhood. Down the very streets I used to walk. On one side, there was the staccato of boarded-up row houses and the occasional stoop with small kids playing. On the other, the first school I attended; then the corner where I rode my bike. And, just out of sight, the little red house of my childhood — now an empty and collapsing husk.

I mentioned this, quietly, to two of the people sitting closest on the bus, and it sounded like thunder. I talk of the place often, but I don’t think any of my colleagues understood that “this” place was the one I meant: a place where the majority of houses sat vacant, a community devoid of its people — and opportunity.

An eerie calm hung over everyone, making the bright edges of the sparse conversations blunt and dull. And in my head, all I could think was: If I had to wait for this neighborhood's school system to right itself — for a “talent strategy” to be implemented, or for the central office to “right-size” — I very likely would still be sitting there, watching this bus roll by, speeding away with one of my life’s possible futures locked up in it.

Instead, a scholarship to the right school—a in a time before charter schools even existed—lifted me up and made my education possible. It wasn’t a reform that took years of pursuing; it was a scholarship implemented on a single day with my admission to school. I did not have to wait. Why should any child?

With the nomination of Betsy DeVos—the soon-to-be former chair of the and a lifelong school-choice advocate—as the next secretary of education, many folks are now trying to understand for the very first time the role vouchers and private school choice play in the reform universe. Over the holiday weekend, several people approached me to ask where I stand on them as a matter of public policy and principle.

For clarity and context, a “voucher” is a way to pay for something, and in this case that something is private school. There are numerous devices that can achieve this goal (tax credits and education savings accounts, for instance), and some offer greater flexibility than others, but through the policy lens, they all accomplish the same thing: giving families and children who would not normally have the chance to choose private school the opportunity to do so. There are different flavors of private-school-choice advocacy, just like there are different flavors of charter-school advocacy, but they are broadly unified by this goal: more choices, more opportunities.

Private-school-choice supporters (among the bedrock of the reform universe writ large, as their advocacy typically crosses sectors and supports the work of those reforming school districts as well — support that is, incidentally, infrequently returned) have two general overriding philosophies. One is that competition and the marketplace, driven by parent choice, are the best ways to create, reward and regulate schools. They believe the government should not have a monopoly over the operation of schools with enrollment based on ZIP code. They also believe — and — that competition can drive improvement in public schools through the pressure generated by parental choice.

The second guiding belief is that there is something fundamental in the right to choose and in the ability of the right school to actualize human potential, in particular for low-income kids of color who grow up . Which is to say, there is a moral imperative about the future of children who traditionally don’t have access to great schools that animates the support of the policy. These sorts of dichotomies are all the rage in education reform right now, but they are an older and long-standing dinner-table exchange among the private-school-choice set.

I am a fierce supporter of school choice — and that includes vouchers, tax credits, opportunity scholarships and all the other devices that make private schools part of the choice equation — and I am broadly on team two, believing we have a moral obligation to empower parents with more choices and greater freedom in how they choose to educate their child. My reasons are simple. Every local public school is not the right fit for every child, and no child should have to wait for a school to get better when there are other opportunities available regardless of governance. Nothing less than a child’s future is at stake every day they attend a school that is the wrong fit or that does not work simply because they did not win the parent lottery.

As we’ve heard since the DeVos announcement on Wednesday, some education pundits seem to believe that supporting vouchers is dooming the republic; that there is some larger good served by state-run school monopolies where low-income kids have the least leverage and the least opportunity. Though his support of charter schools has been laudable, one of these people, President Obama, currently sits in the White House. I’ve always found the president’s blind spot on private-school choice troubling given his own schooling, which included St. Francis of Assisi and the prestigious in Honolulu, which he attended from grades five to 12 — on a scholarship. Though he is not the first political figure to ignore that his own life and success were profoundly affected by a private school, his lapse on this issue may be the most profound given his role as the country’s first black president. I’ve agreed with the president on a great many things, but in denying children the same opportunities we both had, we will disagree violently and always.

I imagine this discussion of private-school choice will only intensify as Betsy DeVos makes her full-blown transition to Secretary DeVos, working across states and in concert with Congress to create leverage for greater educational opportunity than exists today. From a technical perspective, this will prove difficult given the limited role the Department of Education is allowed to play within the framework of the Every Student Succeeds Act — a limiting supported by numerous Democrats in addition to Republicans. What the policy ultimately looks like may also be a creature of what is politically possible given the congressional agenda and the backlash in certain states against perceived meddling from the federal government. But those big caveats aside, it seems likely that “choice” in its broadest form will be a priority of both DeVos and the president-elect’s DOE.

But while lobbyists and editorialists bicker over the role vouchers and scholarships should play, I’ll be thinking of the kids in Sandtown, who need DeVos to use every bit of leverage she has, and to use it as quickly as possible.

When discussing the power of levers, Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.” I imagine that, for Secretary DeVos, that place will be the Department of Education and that lever will be school choice. And for far too many children, who have been relegated to the margins of our priorities for far too long, she can’t start pulling on it soon enough.

More Betsy DeVos Analysis:

Keierleber: New to Team Trump, DeVos Has Long Been on Team Pence

Phenicie: Did Senate ‘Nuclear Option’ Help DeVos Rise Above Rhee for Education Secretary Nod?

Petrilli:

The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation provides funding to ��Ӱ��, and the site’s Editor-in-Chief, Campbell Brown, sits on the American Federation for Children’s board of directors, which was formerly chaired by Betsy DeVos. Brown played no part in the reporting or editing of this article. The American Federation for Children also sponsored ��Ӱ��’s 2015 New Hampshire education summit.

��Ӱ�� is supported by donations from foundations, corporate sponsors and individuals. Our reporters play no role in cultivating financial relationships with any of our contributors. Donors do not dictate editorial content and understand that ��Ӱ�� may publish content that does not reflect their views or preferences.

Analysis: How Betsy DeVos Could Scramble the Ideology and Politics of Education Reform

Matt Barnum — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Updated Nov. 27

The nomination of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education garnered fairly straightforward partisan reactions, falling along predictable political fault lines. By and large, Republicans and conservative interest groups praised the choice, while Democrats and left-of-center groups reacted skeptically to the pick.

In the world of education, however, this is surprising.

For some time, a bipartisan political coalition — including successive presidential administrations of both parties — has backed policies to expand school choice through charter schools and to institute higher standards and tougher accountability for teachers and schools. Choice and accountability — or, as critics refer to them, privatization and high-stakes testing — have dominated reform efforts for the past couple of decades.

For better or for worse, DeVos threatens this already uneasy alliance. Politically, she seems unlikely to garner progressive support; philosophically, she is likely to oppose aspects of the accountability portion of reform efforts.

Fodder for the opposition

DeVos’s nomination may embolden opponents who have attempted to portray reform policies as a well-intended failure at best and a money-making scam at worst.

That argument has been weakened in recent years by the fact that one of the chief proprietors of reform, President Obama, has impeccable progressive credentials. So teachers unions, for example, instead focused much of their fire on former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, as if he were a of the administration.

In sharp contrast, for those skeptical of market-based reforms, DeVos is the perfect foil. A billionaire and long-time Republican whose influence stems in large part from her deep pockets, she is particularly supportive of school vouchers, a policy than charter schools and lacking much bipartisan backing.

Meanwhile, the charter sector in Michigan and especially Detroit — which DeVos has heavily supported — is dominated by for-profit schools with an uneven track record, which even many charter supporters are concerned about. In fact, current Education Secretary John King, a supporter of charter schools himself, has specifically Michigan’s charter sector as lacking appropriate oversight. A large-scale expansion of school vouchers of the type that President-elect Donald Trump has promised and DeVos is likely to support has limited research support and will likely face .

(More at ��Ӱ��: Vouchers Could Be the Big Winner in Trump’s School Choice Plan, but Is That a Victory for Students?)

Opponents of that agenda will have an easier time making the case against DeVos personally to progressives. Indeed, both the and the put out highly critical statements immediately upon her selection.

The tepid reaction to DeVos’s selection among liberal and moderate education-reform groups such as and may indicate new and deepened fault lines within the ed-reform coalition. For example, Peter Cunningham of Education Post , “Betsy DeVos is a well-known proponent of school choice, but her home state of Michigan, where she has played an active role in expanding choice, has a mixed record on charter school authorizing and accountability.”

In contrast, during Duncan’s confirmation hearing, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander , “President-elect Obama has made several distinguished Cabinet appointments. From my view of it all, I think you are the best.”

Alexander’s view, however, soured, and Duncan’s successor, John King, was confirmed on a largely partisan vote. These and other more-recent developments suggest that bipartisan support for education reform has been fraying for a while, in part because of new opposition to some reform policies, particularly testing and Common Core. DeVos may help hasten — or at least cement — this crack-up.

Choice and accountability or just choice?

Mixed reactions to DeVos’s nomination even among groups that support charter schools reflect the deep ideological fissures among backers of school choice. While the prevailing reform movement has focused on dual policies of choice and accountability, these have always been strange philosophical bedfellows.

One line of thinking goes that families generally should be able to choose schools, but that low-achieving schools, including charters, should face consequences, including closure. This is one reason some left-of-center reformers prefer charter schools over money diverted to less-regulated private schools.

“There is clear evidence that competitive market forces, by themselves, don’t prevent bad schools,” David Leonhardt in The New York Times, arguing this perspective. “The market is too complicated: Parents and students can’t always judge what makes a good school and can’t easily leave one they have chosen.”

Another view holds that parents ought to be able to select schools based on their own definition of quality and that families’ decisions should rarely if ever be overruled. This vision is by a spokesperson for Bobby Jindal, the former Republican governor of Louisiana who supported school vouchers: “We think parents are the best accountability measure, not government.”

DeVos seems likely to land in the “choice as its own form of accountability” camp, as opposed to pushing for standards and testing.

For instance, in the hours after her nomination, she immediately disavowed the Common Core standards (despite founding and funding a that backed the standards). She has virtual schools, despite their abysmal test scores and in contrast to a trio of pro-charter groups that have sharply criticized online charter schools. DeVos and her husband to Michigan legislators and groups that successfully opposed legislation that proponents said would bring greater oversight to Detroit’s charter schools.

On the other hand, DeVos has for assigning letter grades to schools for performance, which is roughly in line with draft regulations put out by the Obama administration under the Every Student Succeeds Act. And, even in stating her opposition to the Common Core, DeVos also said she “high standards [and] strong accountability” alongside “local control.”

If DeVos takes a skeptical view of standards and accountability, this will put her in line with a relatively new version of Washington politics: Democrats may continue to back standards and accountability measures, while Republicans will likely continue to support voucher and charter initiatives. Teachers unions will largely align with Democrats but may continue to support Republican moves to limit federal oversight, during ESSA negotiations.

(More at ��Ӱ��: What Happens When a School Gets a Failing Grade? It Gets Better)

DeVos may be the final nail in the coffin of Republican support for strong federal accountability rules, as in No Child Left Behind. Her backing of vouchers and relatively unregulated charters may also weaken progressive backing for charters that is conditional on oversight and accountability.

Still, a note of caution is in order: DeVos may make a difference, but the work of education policies still, by and large, gets done in 50 different state legislatures. This makes the political effect of the new secretary of education — particularly one limited by the new federal law returning power to the states and districts — all the more unpredictable.

More Betsy DeVos Analysis:

Keierleber: New to Team Trump, DeVos Has Long Been on Team Pence

Phenicie: Did Senate ‘Nuclear Option’ Help DeVos Rise Above Rhee for Education Secretary Nod?

Petrilli:

Analysis: Did Senate ‘Nuclear Option’ Help DeVos Rise Over Rhee for Education Secretary Nod?

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Why did Donald Trump pick Betsy DeVos over the other purported finalist for the education secretary job, Michelle Rhee?

One simple if unexpected answer: Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

Republicans had stopped confirmation of many of President Obama’s executive and judicial appointments in late 2013. Reid, then the majority leader in charge of the Senate calendar and procedure, so that all nominees except those to the Supreme Court would need a simple majority of those voting, rather than 60 votes, to be confirmed. (Education Secretary John King, for example, was confirmed this spring in a 49–40 vote.)

That change eliminated the need for nominees with bipartisan appeal, but with the GOP holding just 51 or 52 seats in the Senate next year (pending a runoff in Louisiana), it is essential that Trump’s nominees maintain near-universal support among Republicans.

And that’s perhaps one of the reasons Rhee’s nomination was doomed — her staunch support of the Common Core would be a deal-breaker for many Senate Republicans.

Rhee is a Democrat, but that wasn’t enough to win her wide support among Senate Democrats. The reforms she advocated as chancellor of DC Public Schools and in years since through Students First — specifically the push to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom — won her few friends among teachers unions, an influential group for Democrats, already disinclined to help the president-elect.

Rhee might have received a few votes from reform-minded Democrats, but likely not enough to offset defections by Republicans opposed to the Common Core. In short, the votes for Rhee just weren’t there.

Rhee removed herself from the running the day before DeVos was named, releasing a that said she was “not pursuing a position with the administration.” She effectively cleared the decks for DeVos while also providing a sharp contrast that made DeVos seem more appealing to some Republicans.

Unlike Rhee, there is little in DeVos’s background likely to scare off fellow Republicans.

She’s been a GOP stalwart, party leader and major donor for many years, and her work through the American Federation for Children has long focused on school choice, through charters and various private-school-choice programs, such as vouchers.

On her website Wednesday, she criticized the Common Core, saying she supports high standards but that the Common Core has turned into a “federalized boondoggle.”

(More at ��Ӱ��: Common Core, Trumped: Ed Secretary Hopeful DeVos Aligns With Pence in Pushing Local Standards)

Sen. Lamar Alexander, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, on Wednesday and vowed to move swiftly on her nomination in January.

“Betsy has worked for years to improve educational opportunities for all children. As secretary, she will be able to implement the new law fixing No Child Left Behind just as Congress wrote it, reversing the trend to a national school board and restoring to states, governors, school boards, teachers and parents greater responsibility for improving education in their local communities,” Alexander added.

That doesn’t mean Democrats will make DeVos’s confirmation easy.

Sen. Patty Murray, who will retain the top Democratic spot on the HELP Committee, put out a late Wednesday promising to “scrutinize her record closely.”

“President-elect Trump has made a number of troubling statements over the course of his campaign on a range of issues that a future Secretary of Education will be charged with implementing and enforcing — from education policy, to civil rights and equality of opportunity, to his personal views on sexual assault and harassment, and more,” Murray said. “Right now students, parents, teachers and school leaders across the country are demanding to know how his Secretary of Education will ensure the safety and respect of all students, of all backgrounds, all across this country—and I will be focused throughout this process on how his nominee intends to do just that.”

More Betsy DeVos Analysis:

Keierleber: New to Team Trump, DeVos Has Long Been on Team Pence

Stringer: The First 6 Things to Know About Betsy DeVos

Petrilli:

Common Core, Trumped: Ed Secretary Hopeful DeVos Aligns With Pence in Pushing Local Standards

Naomi Nix — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Breaking coverage of Betsy DeVos today at ��Ӱ��:

—Kate Stringer: 6 things to know about Betsy DeVos

—Exclusive: DeVos talks about why school choice should be a bipartisan issue

—Mark Keierleber: New to Team Trump, DeVos has long been on Team Pence

—Michael Petrilli:

Get more news on the Trump transition and analysis of the DeVos nomination; .

United States Education Secretary–nominee Betsy DeVos moved quickly Wednesday to answer the question of whether she supports the Common Core by tweeting emphatically she does not.

“I am not a supporter — period,” DeVos said in a brief Q&A she released, before pivoting to say she favored rigorous academic standards.

“I do support high standards, strong accountability, and local control. When governors such as John Engler, Mike Huckabee and Mike Pence were driving the conversation on voluntary high standards driven by local voices, it all made sense.”

The alignment of her stance with that of the vice president–elect, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who heads Trump’s transition team, sheds additional light on what DeVos’s views might mean in practice if she is confirmed by the Senate.

In 2010, under Gov. Mitch Daniels, Indiana became one of the first states to adopt the Common Core. When Pence became governor, he opposed the standards, arguing they were an example of federal overreach in local education. DeVos, a prominent GOP donor who supported Pence, said in her statement that the Common Core had “turned into a federalized boondoggle.”

By 2013, Indiana had dropped out of the Common Core–aligned test, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. The next year, Pence and Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz endorsed a new set of standards that were criticized by some as being too close to the Common Core. They were anyway.

Pence said the standards Indiana ended up with were “written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers, and are uncommonly high.”

Choice, standards and naming an education secretary have been a bit of a delicate balance for President-elect Donald Trump.

During the campaign, Trump appeased staunch conservatives by repeatedly criticizing the Common Core State Standards, saying they were a imposed by the federal government that should not continue. (Fact-check: They were developed by states and implemented on the local level).

His other education priority pre-election was school choice. In his only speech devoted to schools, Trump announced a plan to funnel $20 billion to states that implemented school choice, from charters schools to vouchers.

I have been consistent in my opposition to Common Core. Get rid of Common Core— keep education local!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Finding someone among well-known education reformers who both opposed the standards and liked school choice narrowed Trump’s field of potential candidates for education considerably.

In nominating DeVos, who founded the pro-school-choice American Federation for Children, Trump clearly signaled that he plans to aggressively implement his school-choice agenda. That DeVos would disdain the Common Core was far less evident, and Trump’s own transition team said after the two met last weekend they “the Common Core mission and setting higher national standards and promoting the growth of school choice across the nation.”

DeVos hadn’t said much publicly at all about the standards, which are meant to better prepare students for college and careers and to set some shared benchmarks for what children should learn and know in math and English across states and school districts.

Others saw more in DeVos’s past alliances and jumped on them to criticize her nomination. Breitbart, the online site formerly led by Trump’s chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, stated her Common Core position as fact : “Donald Trump Announces Pro–Common Core Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary.”

DeVos appeared to chide those forces in her Q&A.

“Have organizations that I have been a part of supported Common Core? Of course. But that’s not my position. Sometimes it’s not just students who need to do their homework.”

Among those organizations is former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, on whose board DeVos sits. The Foundation and Bush strongly the Common Core, and Bush took considerable heat — particularly from Trump — for sticking by them before he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race.

In 2013, DeVos co-authored an with former New York City Schools chancellor Joel Klein that advocated for awarding A–F grades to schools, like those championed in Florida under the Bush administration.

“School grades are no panacea, but they are an important step in creating a transparent system that holds schools accountable for students,” she wrote. “To begin with, these grades help us to identify which schools are doing a great job, so that we can learn from those successes and scale them up.”

DeVos was an at the Republican convention this summer for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the only other GOP presidential candidate who favored the standards widely derided by the rest of the Republican field.

DeVos also sits on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project, a Michigan-based school-choice advocacy group that is pro–Common Core.

“The Great Lakes Education Project strongly supports efforts to improve academic achievement, increase accountability and empower parental choice in our public schools. Implementing the Common Core State Standards is an important step in this process, and we urge the Governor, legislators and state policy makers to stay the course,” GLEP Chairman Jim Barrett .

In addition to DeVos, Trump met last weekend with former D.C. Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, a vocal and consistent Common Core advocate. Rhee, a Democrat, Thursday that she was not considering a position in the Trump administration but appreciated being able to share her views on education with the president-elect and root for his success on behalf of the “millions of American school children who desperately need a better education.”

Trump Picks His Education Secretary: The First 6 Things to Know About Betsy DeVos

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Breaking coverage of Betsy DeVos today at ��Ӱ��:

—Naomi Nix: DeVos distances herself from Common Core, aligns with Pence on local-driven standards

—Exclusive: DeVos talks about why school choice should be a bipartisan issue

—Mark Keierleber: New to Team Trump, DeVos has long been on Team Pence

—Michael Petrilli:

Get more news on the Trump transition and analysis of the DeVos nomination; .

Shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday, the transition team for President-elect Donald Trump announced he will nominate billionaire Michigan philanthropist and school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos to serve as his secretary of education.

“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” Trump said in a . “Under her leadership we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families.”

DeVos has never worked in the public school system but has long been active in education and GOP causes. The selection appears to reflect Trump’s promise to give billions in federal funding to school-choice programs and to scale back the Education Department.

“I am honored to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again. The status quo in ed is not acceptable,” DeVos tweeted.

I am honored to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again. The status quo in ed is not acceptable.

— Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos)

Together, we can work to make transformational change to ensure every student has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential.

— Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos)

Here are six important things to know about DeVos’s views and history.

She’s a passionate school-choice advocate — DeVos helps fund or lead several organizations and initiatives that work to expand school choice through charter schools, vouchers and other forms of choice. She founded and leads the American Federation for Children, which lobbies in states around the country for voucher programs that allow lower-income students to use public funds to attend private schools.

She also sits on the board of the Jeb Bush–led reform group Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelInEd). In her home state, after a failed attempt to change the constitution to allow the use of school vouchers, she created the Great Lakes Education Project to promote expansion of charter schools.

DeVos’s record implies support for what so far appears to be the centerpiece of Trump’s education agenda: $20 billion promised to states that support charter and voucher options — as well as a president who will be the “nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” as Trump has described his prospective presidential role. In 1993, she and her husband, Dick, were instrumental in passing Michigan’s first charter school bill.

She founded and runs the American Federation for Children — DeVos is chairwoman of the AFC, which she helped create in 2010 to lobby for state choice programs. She cites Florida’s school-voucher program as the AFC’s biggest success, according to an interview with . In Florida, more than 92,000 low-income students use vouchers to attend private school.
She’s devoted to Michigan — DeVos was the daughter of a successful industrialist and married Richard DeVos, an heir to the Amway direct-sales fortune; they are worth more than $5 billion, according to . Their four children and spouses also have foundations, for a total of five family foundations, according to .
She is a Republican Party stalwart — The DeVos family are strong backers of the Republican conservative platform and have donated $44 million to support Michigan’s Republican Party since 1997, according to . DeVos served as chairwoman of the state party for six years; her husband is a former Republican National Committee finance chairman and was the state’s GOP nominee for governor in 2006.

Initially, she supported Ohio Gov. John Kasich for president, casting her vote as an at-large Kasich delegate at the Republican National Convention, according to .

She supports lifting standards, but not via Common Core — In a , DeVos declared that she is not a supporter of Common Core, which she said has become a “federalized boondoggle,” but rather a supporter of “high standards, strong accountability and local control.” Organizations she has previously supported have advocated for the Common Core State Standards; ExcelInEd the Common Core. Wednesday, DeVos also pointed to Pence’s leadership in advocating for “voluntary high standards driven by local voices.” When the vice president–elect was Indiana governor, his state was the first to back away from the Common Core, replacing it with newly named academic standards that are very similar in rigor. Since the start of the 2016 campaign, Trump has been vocal about his opposition to Common Core.
She and Mike Pence go way back — Though DeVos was not immediately sold on Trump, she and her American Federation for Children have long Pence and his work on school choice. As Indiana’s governor, Pence expanded the state’s school-voucher program into one of the largest in the country, extending vouchers to include middle-income students. His use of tax dollars to finance private-school tuition was challenged in court, but the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in his favor in 2013. Charter schools in Indiana grew as well under Pence. DeVos has said she counts the state as one of AFC’s successes.

Analysis: Trumpism Goes to School — What Our New President Means for Local Choice and Control

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

In the week since he was elected president, Donald Trump has indicated that the contours of his policies — to the extent that he articulated them during his largely detail-free campaign — remain an open question.

The president-elect now suggests he will keep some provisions of the Affordable Care Act despite vowing early in November that he would “immediately repeal and replace Obamacare.”

He has backtracked as well from perhaps his most famous promise: The border wall he would build to keep immigrants out of the U.S. now, in places, “could be some fencing.” He has also discussed deporting many fewer undocumented immigrants, at least for now.

What might this mean in education? It’s anyone’s guess, but the trend of his few pronouncements, as well as the views of those known to be advising him and floated as possible education chiefs in his administration, allow a reasonable guess.

In different ways, Trump has sought to convey that the transfer of policymaking power from the federal government to states will be a guiding priority — it may include a push to move states off of the federally incentivized Common Core standards, which Trump has often said he reviles, and shrinking the U.S. Department of Education — along with a large expansion of school choice.

Ironically, as we’ve pointed out, the president-elect may need to exert federal power to increase local control.

As a refresher, here’s a reprise of Trump events and statements bearing on education as reported by ��Ӱ�� during the past 15 months.

Donald Trump’s Half-Plan for America’s Educational Future

Trump was educated in private schools and allegedly hit a teacher before being transferred to a military school, where he was considered competitive as both a student and an athlete and earned a reputation as a ladies’ man.

One of his first public education appearances, as principal-for-a-day at a poor elementary school in the Bronx nearly 20 years ago, was a PR disaster. He famously held a lottery to award free Nikes to only a few kids out of the large group of cheering students. One student asked why he wasn’t awarding scholarships instead.

“I’m not so sure that he — he didn’t understand, to give low-income kids a lottery for sneakers was an insult,” the principal later said.

Similarly, when he came across a bake sale held by the chess team to pay for travel expenses, Trump handed over a fake million-dollar bill. He ultimately donated $200.

“The thing that it really left me with was that this man had absolutely no clue about education,” said the chess coach.

(��Ӱ�� Exclusive: NYC Educators Recall the Day Trump Played Principal at PS 70 – and Offended Their Kids)

From the start of the campaign, Trump has been staunchly opposed to the Common Core, in keeping with conservative dogma.

But as with many of his statements on other issues, his characterization of the standards has been exaggerated.

“Common Core is a total disaster. We can’t let it continue. We are rated 28th in the world … and frankly we spend far more per pupil than any other country in the world. … Third-world countries are ahead of us,” Trump said in a .

He also charged in a primary debate that the standards effort has been taken over by the federal government — a big stretch. And his conflation of the standards with American students’ ranking against their international peers has been .

Apart from his flawed criticism of the Common Core and a possible rise in bullying of immigrants and Muslims that advocates say he inspired (which surged after his election), Trump largely left the education world scratching their heads about his relationship to public education.

(��Ӱ��: Who’s Advising Donald Trump on Education, Anyway? Is Anyone?)

In August, however, a breakthrough seemed possible: The campaign announced that it would focus on education for a week. A probable pivot to charters and choice made sense as a way to help reach groups where Trump has been underwater, particularly black and Hispanic voters and reluctant members of his own party.

Trump unveiled a plan of sorts at a floundering charter school in Cleveland; as anticipated, it focused largely on school choice. Like everything else in Trump World, it included outsize promises and few details.

(��Ӱ��: Trump Goes All In on School Choice in First Major Education Policy Speech)

The plan hinged on moving $20 billion in federal funding to bolster school choice. The money would be given to states in block grants, according to the plan, and funding — about $1,800 for each of the 11 million children the campaign said were living in poverty — would follow them to public, private, charter or magnet schools.

“Our government spends more than enough money to easily pay for this initiative, with billions and billions of dollars to be left over,” Trump said.

But $1,800 is generally insufficient for private school, and Trump suggested that state politicians could chip in more to get to a number closer to the actual cost of tuition. He said he would press the issue as president.

“As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” he said.

He also argued for merit pay and continued his sharp criticism of the Common Core.

GOP VP nominee Mike Pence, currently the governor of Indiana, was aligned with Trump in his opposition to the Common Core and promotion of school choice. Under Pence, the Hoosier State was the first to back out of the new standards; he praised Indiana’s robust charter sector and worked to expand the state’s voucher program.

In October, Trump unexpectedly spoke for six minutes on higher education during an unrelated speech, endorsing income-based student loan repayment options, and criticizing what he characterized as administrative bloat in colleges and their refusal to spend money from their endowments. He also pledged to protect students’ free speech rights, according to .

Trump said his education agenda, which he called the “School Choice and Education Opportunity Act” — expanding choice, ending Common Core, improving vocational and technical education and making college more affordable — .

Snyder: Make School Safe Again — Why We Must Speak Out Against Surge in Election-Related Bullying

Steve Snyder — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Editor’s Note, Updated Nov. 11:

We knew America was divided by this election. We knew campaign tensions had carried over to America’s classrooms. (Just last week, we canvassed — harassment that echoed the words and themes of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.)

But we had no idea just how bad things would get for minority students. Or how quickly.

Yesterday, reporters at ��Ӱ�� started seeing scattered reports of school bullying, intimidation and violence. We decided today to begin compiling accounts from across the country. The volume and intensity of what we’re now finding, though, has left us astonished.

We’ve compiled more than 50 of these terrifying episodes, and are adding additional incidents every few minutes. You can see them all here (warning: most contain extremely disturbing language and imagery). To get notified when we’ve done a big update,

What we’re seeing: Students are terrified that they will be humiliated. Or attacked.

They’re afraid their parents will be deported. Or that their families will be ostracized.

They’re scared their teachers won’t be able to protect them.

Meanwhile, superintendents are working to assure minority families that they will keep their schools safe for these children. Students shouldn’t hide at home.

Everyone seems aware this free-floating anger and chauvinism could build and spiral out of control.

Everyone but our newly elected president.

Presidents set the tone. They establish priorities and expectations in what they choose to address — or to decry. The bully pulpit has the power to both normalize and stigmatize.

Disturbingly, candidate Trump allowed vile outbursts to go unchecked at his rallies. He said he could act presidential when the time came, and it has come.

He must speak out for decency and civility by addressing this escalating crisis. He must tell the nation, especially young people, that acts of bullying and intolerance are not what he or this country is about. They will not be tolerated. Classrooms, hallways and playgrounds are safe spaces; they belong to every student equally.

Silence is not an option. Even a tweet would be a good start.

We will continue to update our rolling roundup of these incidents until the problem begins to de-escalate. If there has been a bullying incident in your school, or that happened to your family outside of school, we want to know about it. Email us at bullying@the74million.org.

If you’re a parent whose child has been bullied, or a teacher whose student has been targeted, find resources at .

Ask any education expert and they’ll tell you that students under extreme stress can’t focus. Anxiety blocks learning. And bullying can have lifelong consequences. Until we successfully defuse the new atmosphere at many schools, our children’s learning and safety remain at risk.

Follow our continuing bullying coverage by . (And see our bullying flashcards: 14 Ways to Confront Bullying in Your Schools)

Make Our Schools Safe Again: 500 Scary Incidents (and Counting) of Election-Inspired Bullying at School

Mitchell Trinka — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Updated Nov. 15, 2024: A digital tool that was used by ��Ӱ��’s reporters to gather and publish a series of social media posts in the wake of president-elect Donald Trump’s 2016 victory no longer exists. The content that once appeared at the bottom of this story is no longer viewable as a result. Apologies to our readers.

Updated Nov. 21, 2016: Since posting our original roundup, and publishing my editor’s note that called on President-elect Trump to speak out against the escalating school violence, we have been inundated with emails from parents and educators, and we continue to see dozens of new reports on social media of school tensions boiling over. Our list below now includes more than 500 incidents. We will continue updating this list, and this story, every school day until things de-escalate.

Please note the email address below, and share your story with us, if something has happened in your school or to your family. We will be posting daily updates in our 74 newsletter. More updates to follow.

In the days since Donald Trump was elected president, horrifying incidents of election-inspired bullying have been reported at schools across the country. ��Ӱ�� is tracking these terrible stories. If something has happened in your school or to your family, we want to know about it; please email: bullying@the74million.org. (CAUTION: Many posts below contain disturbing and harsh language and images.)

Opinion: Rees: Elections Come and Go, but Movements — Like School Choice — Endure

Nina Rees — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

My first experience in school choice politics came in 1993. That year, Prop 174 asked California voters to decide whether parents should be given vouchers that they could redeem for their children’s education at the school of their choice. The proposition failed badly. Looking back, it probably should have. It was too expansive and not well structured. Most state leaders opposed it. But its defeat didn’t mean the end of school choice.

At around the same time, charter public schools were being introduced onto the education landscape. California had passed its charter school law the year before. Nearly a quarter-century later, charter schools and school choice have taken hold in California. According to the latest report on charter school enrollment from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Los Angeles has 156,000 students in charter schools — more than any other school district in the nation. Two other California districts have more than 30 percent of their students in charter schools.

The lesson here is simple: Elections offer temporary victories or defeats, but movements endure. School choice is right for students and parents. It’s a movement that won’t be stopped, even amid occasional setbacks.

One of those setbacks occurred yesterday in Massachusetts, where voters rejected Question 2, the measure to allow 12 additional charter schools in the Bay State. The campaign for Question 2 had a much different dynamic than the campaign for Prop 174 back in the day. Major players on both the Republican and Democratic sides supported Question 2, including Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, and state House speaker Robert DeLeo, a Democrat.

The measure was limited — it would have allowed just 12 additional charter schools in a state where charter school waiting lists exceed 30,000 students. And today, of course, charter schools are a proven high-quality option. As The New York Times’s David Leonhardt noted over the weekend, the evidence of charter school success in Massachusetts is so overwhelming as to be hardly even debatable.

Yet the union-led opposition to charter schools continues to try to convince voters that charter schools make other public schools poorer. The reality is that charter schools make other public schools better. But reality doesn’t always prevail in elections. Facts are important. So are a strong ground game, persuasive advertising, voter enthusiasm and even the presence of other races on the ballot. School choice supporters need to keep improving on tactics and strategy to raise our chances of success in the future.

Persuasion will be especially important at the federal level, as we work to build the same kind of rapport and trust with Donald Trump as we’ve had with Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton and their secretaries of education. President-elect Trump has voiced support for charter schools, though he hasn’t fully fleshed out the details of his education policy. To convince him of the merits, it will be important for all choice supporters to reinforce how vital school choice and charter schools are to ensuring better opportunities for all students.

Choice advocates will also be working with a Republican Congress that has, to date, shown strong support for charter schools and the Charter Schools Program — the main federal funding vehicle behind charter school expansion and replication. To maintain this support, choice advocates must show Congress’s new and returning leaders and key committee members how charter schools are making a difference for students in their districts and around the nation.

Several state results beyond Massachusetts will also have an impact on students, for better or worse. In Kentucky, voters elected a Republican majority to the state House of Representatives. The previous Democratic majority had been a sticking point in Gov. Matt Bevin’s efforts to bring charter schools to Kentucky. Given this new opportunity, the National Alliance will be working with state and national allies to make Kentucky the 44th state to allow charter schools. (Any Kentucky legislators reading this can take a look at the National Alliance’s for suggestions about how to move forward.)

In Georgia, voters rejected a new opportunity school district that would have allowed state leaders to employ innovative and intensive efforts to improve the state’s worst-performing schools. A similar district has had early successes in Tennessee, and it’s a shame that Georgia students won’t see the same benefits. Yet the struggle isn’t over. Gov. Nathan Deal has already signaled that he’ll look for other ways to turn around underperforming schools.

In Denver, voters approved two measures to increase funding for public schools. Students with special needs and from low-income families will see the biggest benefit, and many schools will have their facilities and technology improved. Charter schools as well as traditional schools will have access to these funds, so the measures will help to ensure that all families benefit from robust school options in Denver.

California made news by rolling back its 20-year-old prohibition on bilingual education. Now, local communities and school districts will be able to decide what’s best for their students and try a variety of approaches to helping all students become proficient in English. The school choice movement has been an important factor here, busting the myth that every student should be taught the same way.

What we saw this week was democracy at work. Voters don’t always decide the way either side wants them to, but hearts and minds change over time, and no decision is ever set in stone. In between elections, school choice best reflects this democratic ethos. When parents choose their child’s school, they’re voting — voting for a school, a way of learning, an approach to teaching, a set of values. It just makes sense that in a democracy as vibrant as ours, parents should have a variety of choices about who will help them educate their children.

The best way for school choice advocates to convince parents and voters that we’re right is to keep getting results. Quality matters. Parents want options that work for the children. We need to continue providing these good options, building the evidence and amplifying the voices of parents and students who have benefited from school choice. With these elements in place, we’ll see even more election victories in the future.

Opinion: Whitmire—Why Question 2 Lost in Massachusetts: The Better the Charter, the Bigger the Threat

Richard Whitmire — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

A lot of people across the country are left scratching their heads this week over the results in Massachusetts — a 60–40 blowout — as voters there decided to prevent the from expanding.

Did the voters not hear about the research showing these schools are? Did they not understand that the very best of these charters completely level the achievement gap between white/Asian students and black/Hispanic students? Aren’t we supposed to be nurturing and growing great schools?

But that may be the wrong way to view this result.

All the advocates, politicians and columnists (myself included) who spent months pointing to the of these Boston charters probably missed the point: Those schools got intensely targeted by the unions months in advance because they are so good.

This odd phenomenon is something I came across while researching my new book on top charter schools, : The better the charter school, the bigger the threat.

To anyone new to the toxic world of education politics, that probably sounds like upside-down logic.

To make sense of it all, you have to realize that the fight in Massachusetts, and elsewhere in the country, is only partly about the issues covered in the news, like preserving union teaching jobs and recouping money lost by traditional districts when parents choose charters.

In truth, the real nut of this battle was about poverty. Or, to put it another way: Can schools make a significant positive impact on children who grow up poor?

Everyone knows of the multiple inflictions visited upon poor children. It makes the job of educators in high-poverty schools exponentially more difficult. And when those schools struggle, with students turning in math and reading scores that may fall in the single-digit range, the answer is often: This can’t be fixed.

As long as the poverty argument holds up, educators don’t get blamed. Which means a lot of educators have a lot at stake in maintaining that underlying logic.

And that’s where top charters stir up all kinds of problems for those educators, especially the best-in-the-nation charters found in Boston.

When a charter operator such as Brooke Charter Schools, which serves a poor and minority student population, turns its students into scholars who rival the white and Asian students attending amply funded public schools in the suburbs along the Route 128 corridor, the question has to be asked: If Brooke can do it, why not others?

Good question, and it appears that multiple charter schools in Boston are doing nearly as well as Brooke.

If these charters can do it, why not the public schools? Attempts to explain away the performance differences usually turn into finger-pointing squabbles, with traditional educators arguing that the poor kids in charters are “better” than their poor kids.

But here’s where things get even stickier. The more researchers dip into this question, the more they conclude that really smart teaching and an exacting curriculum actually account for the difference. Want to know how Brooke succeeds? Watch it free of charge, . Open to all takers.

Again, if Brooke can do it and offer its “secret sauce” via video, why can’t other schools achieve the same?

To some, that’s a dangerous question.

In Massachusetts I got a taste of that threat when reporting a story on the beginnings of the campaign to raise the charter cap. I arrived on the scene four months in advance of the actual vote, but soon realized I was late.

My reporting noted that the Massachusetts Teachers Association was already rolling up one town council after another, raising fears of financial ruin if charters were allowed to expand. Just one example: On April 14, MTA President Barbara Madeloni appeared before the Easthampton City Democratic Committee to warn of growing school budget losses. Just 12 days later, the Easthampton City Council voted 7–0 against raising the cap on charters.

The two takeaways from that meeting were, first, the MTA had a formidable ground game that was already running smoothly. Second, the union had settled on a shrewd tactic of keeping the focus on money rather than school quality.

That strategy was implemented across the state, with more than 200 school committees voting against raising the cap. The result was a sea of “Vote No” yard signs even in the wealthy Boston suburbs unaffected by charter schools.

But there’s more. Keep in mind, all this played out in Easthampton a full seven months before the referendum — before anyone even knew that a legislative stalemate would lead to a referendum.

That told me something even more important: This was a measure of the threat presented by high-performing charters. No surprise, then, that the national unions, the NEA and AFT, poured so much money into the Massachusetts ballot question.

Lose the poverty argument, lose everything.

Will the Massachusetts moratorium on charters spread to other states? It already has. Unions can afford to lose some union teaching jobs. Superintendents can afford to lose a few seats to charters. But neither can afford to lose the poverty argument. That risks losing everything.

The better the charter, the bigger the threat.

What Will Trump Do on Education? Seeking Clues on Common Core, School Choice, ESSA

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Americans are taking stock of what Donald Trump’s election as president and the accompanying tectonic political shift means for the country going forward. In education, the best bet may be to examine known quantities — officials already in charge and those likely to join a Trump administration.

Rick Hess, education policy director at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, that Trump’s early priorities are likely to lie outside education: in health care, foreign treaties and trade agreements, tax cuts and the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

“When education does come up, who really knows what a Trump administration would actually try to do on schooling?” . “Sure, Trump’s said some things. … As I’ve noted before, ‘There’s no reason to believe that Trump necessarily means what he’s said on any issue. In truth, he seems to regard policy declarations as performance art.’ So we’ll see if he devises a clear agenda on school choice or higher education, and whether he pushes it.”

Those “things” have included advocating for expanding school choice, ending the Common Core, instituting some reforms in higher education and doing away with gun-free school zones — the latter of which would require Congress to overturn an existing law and probably doesn’t have enough support outside a very limited, very conservative wing of the Republican Party.

During his victory speech Tuesday night, Trump said that “we are going to fix our inner cities” and rebuild schools, along with other infrastructure projects.

In the past, he has talked about abolishing the Education Department – probably unlikely, given the sheer complexity of doing so and the fact that the department is the primary conduit for issuing student loans. More likely is a scaled-back agency, one that could well halt the Obama administration’s active work in areas like school discipline disparities and Title IX enforcement regarding sexual assault on college campuses and protections for transgender students.

Far-reaching regulatory proposals implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act, like the controversial “supplement not supplant” rule on school funding, will probably be gone too.

Mike Petrilli, president of the conservative-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute, wrote in a Wednesday morning that Trump’s election “is going to throw a huge wrench into the implementation timeline” for ESSA. He urged Education Secretary John King and the department to pull their proposals and work with Trump’s transition team to keep implementation on track.

For all the questions that remain, there are some people in power, either in Congress or who have Trump’s ear, whose views are well-known. For a President Trump, who has indicated he isn’t particularly interested in the machinations of policy, looking to those loyalists may provide a better preview.

• Vice President–Elect Mike Pence: The Indiana governor was a hero to school choice advocates in his home state, where he pushed for charter schools and expanded voucher programs. He also signed the first bill pulling a state out of the Common Core.

• Sen. Lamar Alexander: The chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has pushed back against the department’s ESSA regulatory proposals. (Read ��Ӱ��’s interview with Alexander from this summer.)

• Rep. Virginia Foxx: The likely next chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee has a background in higher education and generally holds mainstream conservative views that value limited federal regulation and intervention in education.

• House Speaker Paul Ryan: In a speech Wednesday morning, Ryan again touted his “Better Way” agenda that calls for the kind of school voucher program Trump has supported.

• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: The leader of Trump’s transition team made headlines for his fights with teachers unions – groups sure to have diminished influence going forward.

• Dr. Ben Carson: Trump’s former political rival has been rumored to be among the possibilities for education secretary. He’s a fan of school choice — including homeschooling — and against the Common Core.

Gary Herbert, Who Changed Positions on the Common Core, Wins Utah Governor’s Race

Naomi Nix — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Republican Utah Gov. Gary Herbert sailed to a re-election victory on Tuesday, beating Democratic challenger Mike Weinholtz by a wide margin, . Herbert faced criticism over his record on education throughout the Republican primary and general election. Considered a supporter of the Common Core State Standards after they were adopted in 2010, he changed his position during a heated primary campaign against Republican business executive Jonathan Johnson.

Earlier this year, Herbert the Utah State Board of Education to adopt “uniquely Utah standards.” He also called for a review of the state’s SAGE testing, which was created locally, and for the elimination of the requirement for high school students to take the test. Johnson accused him of flip-flopping. In 2014, Herbert commissioned two studies to examine the effectiveness and implementation of Common Core in the state. One from the Utah Attorney General’s Office rebuffed criticisms of federal overreach in the state’s adoption of the standards, arguing that the state controls what students are taught. Another , conducted by a state panel, argued that Utah Core Standards were more rigorous than the state’s previous standards. During the general election, Herbert was criticized by for underfunding local schools in a state that on education per pupil than most other states.

Oklahoma Voters Reject Initiative to Raise Teacher Pay

Matt Barnum — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Oklahoma teachers will not get a raise. A ballot question to boost teacher salaries Tuesday, garnering just over 40 percent of the vote.

The initiative, known as Question 779, would have raised the state’s sales tax from 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent to give every teacher in the state a $5,000 raise. Oklahoma’s teachers are among the worst-paid in the country, and their average compensation, adjusted for inflation, has since 2009. The state has faced shortages of certified teachers in recent years, and research has shown that pay is a key factor in recruiting and retaining educators.

Though many states in the country in education spending since the Great Recession, Oklahoma’s have been the deepest: Since 2008, state education funding in Oklahoma has dropped by nearly 25 percent.

The ballot question was and in part by Stand for Children, a national nonprofit that generally promotes reform policies like charter schools and accountability measures. The National Education Association — the country’s largest teachers union, which is often at loggerheads with Stand for Children — also the measure.

Supporters’ ads have showcased teachers arguing that they deserve a raise and that Oklahoma students deserve well-compensated educators. In one , Jon Hazell, the state’s 2016 teacher of the year, says, “Other states recognizes the value and the training and effectiveness of Oklahoma teachers. That’s why they come here and recruit every year and take as many as they can.” The Tulsa World has that Oklahoma teachers regularly move to schools in neighboring states like Missouri or Kansas, where the salary is several thousand dollars higher.

featured country music star Toby Keith endorsing the measure.

Opponents of the tax hike have that it amounts to a slush fund for school administrators, pointing out that not all the money raised will go toward teachers and dismissing it as a waste of taxpayer dollars. (Some of the additional revenue pre-K and the state’s higher-education office.)

Multiple in the state have also opposed the measure, raising concerns about the increased tax burden. The Oklahoman editorial board , “We believe Oklahoma’s K-12 teachers deserve better pay, and understand proponents’ frustration with the do-nothing Legislature. Yet the permanency of this tax combined with the question’s sweeping approach, its lack of clear reform and its potential to harm Oklahoma’s cities, towns and businesses make [Question] 779 a plan we can’t endorse.”

According to Ballotpedia, backers of the initiative more than $4 million, while opponents spent virtually nothing.

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

Massachusetts Voters Say No to Charter School Expansion

Mark Keierleber — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Massachusetts voters handed a massive defeat to education reformers Tuesday, overwhelmingly choosing to block a ballot initiative to lift a cap on charter school expansion, . Possibly the most consequential education fight this election cycle, Tuesday’s vote could have huge implications for education reform battles nationally, shifting political capital to teachers unions and their allies.

If approved, Ballot Question 2 would have allowed charter operators to create 12 new or expanded schools each year, anywhere in Massachusetts. Currently, 78 charters serve more than 43,000 students across the Commonwealth. With Question 2 failing to grab the needed support, a cap will continue to limit Massachusetts to 120 charter schools. A cap also limits spending: For this year, funding for charters in the lowest-performing 10 percent of school districts cannot exceed 18 percent of the district’s total net spending. Other districts are unable to spend more than 9 percent of their net spending on charter schools.

In a contest that was considered by some education pundits to be more crucial than the outcome of the presidential race, advocacy groups on both sides of the issue bombarded residents with record-breaking campaign spending. More money — more than $38 million — has flowed into this contest than any other ballot initiative in the Commonwealth’s history. Much of that money came from out-of-state donors. The debate over expanding charters in Massachusetts was so fierce, at least in part, because charter schools in Boston have made large gains in reducing the achievement gap between white and black students. In their successful campaign, however, charter opponents argued the schools siphon off money from traditional public schools, lack accountability and perpetuate inequalities.

Georgia Rejects State Intervention in Chronically Failing Schools

Mareesa Nicosia — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Georgia voters answered with a resounding “no” to a ballot proposition that would have allowed the state to intervene in schools deemed chronically failing. With nearly all precincts reporting, 60 percent of voters opposed amending the state constitution to give the state the new powers, .

It was a loss for Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who ushered the proposal through the state assembly. Deal had support from education reform groups; opponents included teachers unions, the state PTA and school boards, for whom the results are a big victory. Gov. Deal and advocates argued that the measure was a moral imperative, necessary for improving the lives of tens of thousands of poor Georgia children. Opponents fought what they call bloated bureaucracy and loss of local control. The creation of a statewide Opportunity School District would have made schools that receive an “F” grade from the state for three consecutive years eligible to be transferred to the new district, which could then make significant changes, convert them to charter schools or close them. , 127 schools were eligible for takeover, including 50 in Atlanta and surrounding DeKalb County. (See ��Ӱ��’s breakdown of how the constitutional amendment would work.)

Georgia would have joined Louisiana, Tennessee, New York and other states that can assume control of failing schools to varying degrees.

California Brings Back Bilingual Education

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Millions of children in California will have greater access to bilingual education, after nearly three quarters of voters said yes to Proposition 58 in early voting, a race called late Tuesday by the Associated Press. Supporters — like the unions and the Democratic Party — hope the proposition will allow local districts to decide how to educate ELL students as well as expose other students to multiple languages. Research bilingual education produces similar results to English-only instruction. English-language learners make up one in five students in California.

The proposition overturns a 1998 law that required these students to be placed in English-only classes rather than bilingual ones. While some bilingual programs remained, this measure reduced the number of students who were in bilingual classes from 30 percent to 4 percent. Those opposed include the Republican Party and the businessman who originally created the law limiting bilingual education. Although the measure arose in part from immigrant resentment, the , it also sprung from a reaction to schools that failed to adequately teach Spanish-speaking students English, putting them behind for college and career readiness.

Sen. Pat Toomey Re-elected in Pennsylvania

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Sen. Pat Toomey, the Republican incumbent in Pennsylvania, has won re-election, according to the Associated Press. Toomey had been polling a few points behind Democratic challenger Katie McGinty; given Pennsylvania’s history of voting for Democrats in presidential years, the Keystone state seemed ripe for a Democratic pickup.

Yet Pennsylvania, like the other swing states across the country, seemed to follow the pattern of straight party voting. Donald Trump pulled ahead in Pennsylvania by about 59,000 votes as of 1:30 a.m., the same time that the AP called the race for Toomey. Other swing states, including North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, voted for Republican Senate candidates as well as for Trump — or remained uncalled, with a Trump lead. The Democrats’ only likely pickup seems to be one seat in Illinois. Senate races in New Hampshire and Missouri had yet to be called, though the Republican incumbents were leading in both. As a senator, Toomey crafted an unsuccessful bipartisan compromise on gun control in the wake of the shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school, and he focused on expanding background checks on teachers.

Education at the Polls, Coast to Coast: 22 Big Races and Ballot Questions to Watch Tuesday Night

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

While education has barely registered a blip in the presidential race, voters in 11 states must decide ballot questions and contests for various statewide offices that could have an enormous impact on schools and students around the country.

(��Ӱ��: Clinton vs. Trump — The Final Education Election Guide)

Among them are eight school-funding initiatives, five state education superintendent seats that are up for grabs and, of course, the Massachusetts charter school cap and a potential state takeover of failing schools in Georgia.

Here are 22 big education votes to watch Tuesday night:

California: School funding, English-language learners

Among the 17 questions facing Golden State voters are three education-related issues: whether to continue a tax hike on personal incomes above $250,000 to fund K-12 schools, whether the state should float $9 billion in bonds for new schools and whether to lift limits on how schools can teach English-language learners.

(��Ӱ��: California Voters to Decide Future of Bilingual Education for Country’s Largest ELL Population)

Georgia: State takeover of failing schools

Voters will decide whether to create a state takeover district, being called an opportunity school district. The campaign has pitted Gov. Nathan Deal and education reform groups, who say the measure is a moral imperative to improve the lives of tens of thousands of Georgia children, against teachers unions, the state PTA and school boards that are fighting what they call increased bureaucracy, additional costs and loss of local control.

(��Ӱ��: Moral Duty or Impending Threat? Georgia Ballot to Include Proposed State Takeover District)

An October by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found widespread opposition to the measure: 34 percent of likely voters polled said they back the measure, while 59 percent were opposed and 8 percent remained undecided.

Indiana: Governor, state schools chief

Republican Jennifer McCormick, a district superintendent, is challenging incumbent Glenda Ritz, a Democrat and former school librarian, in a race for state superintendent of public instruction. As of early October, Ritz had a substantial advantage in fundraising, and she could be boosted by popular Democratic candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate. (Check out our coverage of the superintendent race from earlier this year.)

Over the summer, Ritz released an , which calls for increasing the availability of preschool, reducing testing, proposing a “fair and adequate” funding formula, treating teachers like professionals and reaching a 91 percent graduation rate.

�ѳ��ǰ��’s emphasizes increasing broadband access in schools, establishing a “meaningful and manageable” assessment system, attracting and retaining teachers, closing the kindergarten readiness gap and reviewing funding problems.

Education has also become a big issue in the race to replace the current governor, Mike Pence, now the Republican vice presidential nominee. Democratic candidate John Gregg tried to tie GOP candidate Eric Holcomb, currently the lieutenant governor, to Pence’s record, which focused on expanding school choice and issuing A–F school grades. “Broken down, going nowhere. On schools, that’s the promise of Eric Holcomb,” the ad says.

Holcomb, meanwhile, to “support and respect” teachers, expand pre-K and replace a much-maligned state test.

Maine: School funding

Voters will consider whether to institute an additional 3 percent tax on personal income over $200,000 per year, with the revenue dedicated to K-12 education funding, specifically teacher salaries. , including unions and the state PTA, say schools are underfunded statewide and that the state isn’t meeting a 2004 mandate to fund 55 percent of education costs. , primarily Republican leaders, the state Chamber of Commerce and business groups, say it would burden small-business owners and prevent funds from going to sorely needed school infrastructure improvements.

Massachusetts: Charter school cap

Question 2 on the ballot asks voters to raise the cap on the number of charter schools, the highest-performing in the country, by 12 per year. Voters have been bombarded by ads from both sides. Polling has been close, with a slight advantage to the “no” side.

(��Ӱ��: All Over the Cap: The Fight for the Future of Massachusetts’s Charter Schools)

Montana: State schools chief

Melissa Romano, a Democrat and an elementary school teacher, will face state Sen. Elsie Arntzen, a Republican, in the race for superintendent of public instruction. (Current superintendent Denise Juneau is term-limited; she’s running for Montana’s lone House seat. If elected, she’d be the first Native American woman in Congress.)

Romano and Arntzen about preschool (Romano says there should be a state-funded program; Arntzen says it’s a local issue) and Common Core (Arntzen says it doesn’t have enough local input; Romano was part of a group of teachers that weighed in). Romano has also criticized Arntzen for backing school choice bills as a state legislator.

Romano has outspent Arntzen by more than $100,000, , and accepted a big contribution from the state teachers unions. State affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have spent $300,000 so far, the paper reported, dwarfing the $50,000 they spent on Juneau’s 2008 contest.

Arntzen has put in a substantial amount of her own money; her husband is the CEO of Century Gaming, a technology firm.

Democrats have held the office since the 1980s, but Arntzen was ahead by four points in mid-October, according to a by Lee Newspapers. Twenty percent of respondents were undecided.

North Carolina: Senator, governor, state schools chief

The marquee race is for governor, where incumbent Republican Pat McCrory faces Democrat Roy Cooper, currently the state’s attorney general. Discussion of education issues, like teacher pay and spending, have largely been drowned out by HB2, a state law that overturns local anti-discrimination ordinances protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and that requires transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate.

(��Ӱ��: Anti-LGBT Bill Drowns Out Discussion of Education Issues in Critical North Carolina Races)

In addition to the gubernatorial contest, three-term incumbent June Atkinson, a Democrat, faces lawyer Mark Johnson, a Republican, in the race for state superintendent. And Republican Sen. Richard Burr, a member of the Senate education committee, is in a tight race against former state Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat.

North Dakota: State schools chief, school funding

Incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Kirsten Baesler is facing a challenge from teacher Joe Chiang. (The race is officially nonpartisan, but both are Republicans. The state party endorsed Baesler.)

Baesler has touted passage of early childhood education funding, creation of a student cabinet to make kids’ voices heard on education issues, and formation of a panel to rewrite the Common Core State Standards, . Chiang said he’d require any new program to have an 80 percent proven success rate of bringing students to proficiency, and that he would work to revamp education funding.

North Dakota voters will also consider whether to make it easier for the governor and state Legislature to use a specific fund from oil tax revenues for education purposes.

Oklahoma: School funding

Voters will consider whether to institute a 1 percent sales tax to be devoted to education. Most of the additional funding, 69.5 percent, would go directly to school districts, with a mandate that teacher salaries be raised at least $5,000. Districts have had to dramatically cut budgets the past two years in the face of huge state revenue shortfalls.

The rest of the tax revenue would be divided among higher education, career and technical education and the state Department of Education. Supporters, including Stand for Children and the state school boards and teachers union, say it’s the only way to ensure a dedicated stream of badly needed revenue. Opponents say there are other ways to raise revenue and that a sales tax is regressive and hurts low- and middle-income families.

A found 60 percent of registered voters support the new tax, known as Question 779.

Oregon: School funding

Measure 98 asks voters whether the Legislature should fund an $800-per-pupil grant program to be spent on dropout prevention, career and technical education and “college-level opportunities.” Oregon has one of the worst high school graduation rates in the country: 73.8 percent in 2014–15, 10 percentage points lower than the national average.

(��Ӱ��: Oregon Ballot Measure Looks to Turn Around One of the Worst Graduation Rates in the U.S.)

Oregon voters will also consider measures to raise taxes on big corporations, with the new money allocated for pre–K-12 education, health care and services for senior citizens. A third ballot initiative would set aside lottery revenues for outdoor education for fifth- and sixth-graders.

Washington: State schools chief, state Supreme Court justices

Erin Jones, currently an assistant state superintendent, is running against Chris Reykdal, a state legislator, to be superintendent of public instruction. (Check out our previous coverage of the race and interviews with the five candidates who were running at the time.)

Reykdal has been endorsed by the outgoing superintendent, Randy Dorn, and the Washington Education Association in the nonpartisan race. He’s running on his experience in the state Legislature and as an educator, and he said his first act would be to bring a bipartisan full school funding plan to the legislature to meet an ongoing state Supreme Court requirement, .

Jones, meanwhile, is banking on her reputation as an outsider, . She’s garnered support from a of progressive and education reform groups, Republicans and newspaper editorial boards. Stand for Children Washington, for instance, has spent nearly $165,000 to back her campaign, according to state campaign finance records.

Washington voters will also decide whether to keep three state Supreme Court justices, all of whom signed on to pivotal decisions requiring the Legislature to increase K-12 spending and declaring charter schools unconstitutional. This is the first time in two decades that .

Greg Zempel, for instance, has received backing from the pro-charter group Stand for Children, to the tune of $130,000 to run against Chief Justice Barbara Madsen, who authored the charter decision. The state teachers union, meanwhile, has contributed to Madsen. Justices Charlie Wiggins and Mary Yu are also facing challengers.

(The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation provide funding to ��Ӱ�� and Stand for Children, which played a prominent role in the Washington judicial races, as well as the Oklahoma and Oregon ballot initiatives.)

Oregon Ballot Measure Looks to Turn Around One of the Worst Graduation Rates in the U.S.

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The nation’s graduation rate, which has climbed to an all-time high over the past few years, has become a point of pride for the Obama administration and state education leaders across the country.

Oregon is a different story.

There, the high school graduation rate was 73.8 percent in 2014–15, nearly 10 percentage points below the national average, according to released in mid-October. That put Oregon at No. 48 out of 51 in the country, above just the District of Columbia (68.5 percent), New Mexico (68.6 percent) and Nevada (71.3 percent).

(��Ӱ��: High School Graduation Rate Hits New High as Obama Credits Federal Investments in Education)

In response to years of lagging graduation rates, advocates launched a campaign for a ballot initiative, now known as , that would require state legislators to dole out an additional $800 per high school student per year for districts to use for dropout prevention, college-level courses and career and technical education.

Advocates could have pushed for any number of education-improvement efforts that have been tried elsewhere, such as offering universal preschool or increasing teacher pay. But they noticed that Oregon eighth-graders’ test scores were high — above the national average on the benchmark NAEP math and reading tests — and so deduced that the problem arose specifically in high school, said Toya Fick, executive director of Stand for Children Oregon, the primary backer of the initiative.

“We’re really seeing this as a problem between ninth grade and 12th grade,” she said. “We’ve been staring at this problem for a little while and really wanted to make sure that anything that we proposed would actually move the needle.”

Fick said it isn’t entirely clear why Oregon has such a low graduation rate, though it’s likely at least partly because the state doesn’t give more funding per student for older students even though they require more teachers in a greater variety of subjects. Districts have put more money into elementary and middle grades, in some places as much as 20 percent more per student, leading to larger class sizes and cuts to electives in high school, she said.

“That compounds over four years, and you get so many kids who get to senior year and drop out, or push through and aren’t prepared,” Fick said. found that 75 percent of Oregon students who went straight to community college needed remedial classes.

Monique Coleman Davis, a marketing teacher at Aloha High School in suburban Portland, taught other subjects, such as culinary arts and travel and tourism, in Texas for 12 years before moving to Oregon two years ago.

In Texas, students felt lucky to be studying something that interested them. In Oregon, classes are full, but students are in them mostly because there are few other options, Davis said, not because they’re particularly interested in the subject.

“The kids that I see that aren’t graduating on time, truly they’re overwhelmed [by huge class sizes] or underwhelmed — there’s no excitement about the programs that are available,” she said.

Carmen Rubio, executive director of the nonprofit Latino Network, said the school system wasn’t designed to meet the needs of the current multicultural, multiethnic student population. Her group, which started in 1996 and is part of the coalition backing Measure 98, provides .

“Nonprofits have been there to try and fill in the gap as much as we can, but what we need is some systemic change, and I think this is a great opportunity to start to make some shifts in the system,” she said.

In forming their plan of action, Stand for Children, Latino Network and other advocacy groups looked at schools in districts in Oregon and across the U.S. that had high graduation rates. They settled on three initiatives: dropout-prevention programs, career and technical education, and “college-level educational opportunities” such as AP programs and dual enrollment.

“These three things are not brand-new for anybody,” Fick said.

The dropout prevention was inspired partly by the , Fick said. The college-level opportunities were inspired by examples in eastern Oregon, where districts that provide them have graduation rates over 95 percent. A from the state education department earlier this year found that students enrolled in CTE (career and technical education) graduate at a rate 15 percentage points higher than the statewide average. The boost for students of color in CTE is even greater.

Education-reform group Stand for Children has contributed most of the funding — more than $4 million — to push the ballot initiative. Civil-rights and disability groups , as do many trade unions. Both candidates for governor, incumbent Democrat Kate Brown and her GOP challenger, Bud Pierce, also back it.

The state teachers union, the Oregon Education Association, is neutral on the measure, . There is no organized opposition campaign.

A majority of voters — 58 percent in an early-October — supported the measure. Twenty-nine percent were opposed, and 13 percent were undecided.

Oregon voters will also consider two other education-related ballot questions. would designate $22 million from lottery funds for outdoor education for fifth- and sixth-graders. would impose a 2.5 percent tax on corporate profits over $25 million to be used for K-12 education, health care, and senior citizen services.

More than two thirds of respondents in the Oregon Public Broadcasting poll backed the outdoor-education measure. The tax measure is much closer — 43 percent said they would vote in favor of it, with 49 percent against and 10 percent undecided.

Much of the publicity around Measure 98 has focused on career and technical education and how much it has been cut over the past few decades.

The cuts started sometime in the 1990s, said Gary Young, business manager at the Oregon chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Jon Jensen, another official with the union, tied the decrease in CTE to the larger push to get all students to college — an admirable goal, but unrealistic for the students who just don’t have any interest in continuing on to higher education, he said.

“Those are the kids who sort of got left behind in the last 20 years,” he said.

Davis, the marketing teacher, worked as a substitute teacher before landing her current job.

“What I saw was just tremendous neglect of all the CTE programs,” she said. “The equipment that they did have was usually outdated and often not even functioning.”

The union had to switch its programming to accommodate those left-behind kids who did wind up in the building trades, Young said. Sometime around 2000, the union added a two-week basic safety and skills boot camp to its apprenticeship program — teaching things those apprentices should have learned in CTE or shop classes in high school.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation provide funding to ��Ӱ�� and Stand for Children.

Clinton vs. Trump: The Final Education Election Guide

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

What a long, strange trail it’s been.

Since ��Ӱ�� launched in July 2015, we’ve aimed to make education front-page news, including extensive coverage of education in the presidential election. From our New Hampshire education summit to countless debates that came up short on K-12 talk, to a day on the campaign trail with high school volunteers in Maryland, to both the Republican and Democratic conventions, we’ve covered it all.

And now, in little more than a week, Americans will vote for a new president, one whose administration will be responsible for implementing the new, still-contentious Every Student Succeeds Act, working to enroll more young children in preschool, cutting down on college costs and expanding education options for American families.

Although both candidates selected running mates with extensive K-12 education records, there is no contest at the top of the ticket. Hillary Clinton’s record stretches back to the 1970s, and she has released detailed policy proposals covering preschool, K-12 and higher education. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has made little imprint, relying on talking points and a “plan” that raises as many questions as it answers.

Without further ado, and for the final time, here are the education records of the 2016 presidential candidates.

Clinton: From the Children’s Defense Fund to free college

Keeping Score, Election 2016: Where Hillary Clinton stands on education

Clinton’s education advocacy began early. Before she entered public life upon husband Bill Clinton’s election as governor of Arkansas, Clinton worked with children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman to in the South, getting the administrator of a local private school to admit it didn’t admit black children — a violation of its tax-exempt status.

She also worked with the Children’s Defense Fund, surveying students in New Bedford, Mass., about why they weren’t in school. Her work was combined with others across the country in a that found that thousands of children with disabilities had been “treated as uneducable” and kept out of public school. The report’s 1974 publication fueled the push for the federal law, passed in 1975, that requires public schools to provide an appropriate education to children with disabilities, today known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.

“It became clear to me that simply caring is not enough,” Clinton said during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. “To drive real progress, you have to change both hearts and laws.”

(��Ӱ��’s DNC Live Blog)

While she was First Lady of Arkansas, Clinton worked on both preschool and K-12 education issues, pushing to bring an early-education program — Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters — to Arkansas and leading an education-reform commission that proposed new standards and a host of other changes in 1983.

“I called the legislature into session hoping to pass the standards, pass a pay raise for teachers and raise the sales tax to pay for it all,” Bill Clinton said at the Democrats’ convention. “I knew it would be hard to pass, but it got easier after Hillary testified before the education committee — and the chairman, a plainspoken farmer, said, ‘Looks to me like we elected the wrong Clinton.’ ”

Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, was previously governor of Virginia, where he worked to expand early childhood education. In the Senate, he’s written bills focused on career and technical education. His wife, Anne Holton, who resigned as Virginia’s education secretary shortly after Kaine was picked, has carried the Democrats’ education message.

On the campaign trail this year, several of Clinton’s policy proposals have addressed early education, most notably her call for universal preschool for 4-year-olds.

“It’s time we realize once and for all that investing in our children is one of the best investments our country can make,” she said at a day care center in Manchester, N.H., in June 2015, .

Since then, she has also announced plans to extend the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program to an additional 2 million young children. The program sends nurses and social workers on regular visits to pregnant women and new families to help with health-related issues, better prepare children for school and instill positive parenting practices. Clinton has also proposed increasing pay for child-care workers and boosting tax credits for low-income families.

(��Ӱ��: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Latest Push to Improve Early Childhood Education)

Clinton’s most controversial education-related moment came during an interview with commentator Roland Martin last fall, when she stated that charters don’t enroll the “hardest-to-teach” students or, when they do, don’t keep them.

The remarks roiled education advocates: She was accused by charter supporters of flip-flopping to please teachers unions and praised by charter opponents for speaking out about how charters appear to succeed.

(��Ӱ��: Hillary Clinton Rushes to Clarify Charter Critique in Sit-Down with AFT and Data-Driven Blog Post)

(She would later praise successful charters during a National Education Association speech in July, eliciting boos during an otherwise warmly received performance.)

The Every Student Succeeds Act shifts much K-12 education policy previously under federal control back to the states, but Clinton praised the law for its support for preschool, “a better balance on testing” and new funds for charter schools.

She also released a detailed proposal designed to stanch the school-to-prison pipeline: a plan that would put an extra $2 billion into schools to reform overly punitive school discipline policies and support guidance counselors, school psychologists and social workers. Clinton said she would encourage the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights to intervene in states that don’t change their discipline practices.

“The bottom line is this: We need to be sending our kids to college. We need a cradle-to-college pipeline, not sending them into court and into prison,” she said.

(��Ӱ��: Clinton Doubles Down on Obama’s K-12 Agenda, Commits $2 Billion to Fight School-to-Prison Pipeline)

include a call for a national campaign to “modernize and elevate the profession of teaching,” expansion of computer science classes for all students and updating of school buildings.

Shortly before the end of the campaign, Clinton released a plan to funnel $500 million to states to develop anti-bullying strategies. The plan, and an accompanying campaign ad, were fueled by what the campaign says has been a rise in bullying, particularly of Muslim and immigrant students, in the wake of Trump’s incendiary claims.

(��Ӱ��: Clinton Says New Bullying Plan Will Undo Harm of Trump Campaign)

On higher education, Clinton released a that would make community college free, provide debt-free college for all and free tuition for students from families making under $125,000 a year, and add supports for historically black- and Hispanic-serving institutions.

Trump: From offending Bronx children to a half-plan

Keeping Score, Election 2016: Where Donald Trump stands on education

Donald Trump was educated in private schools and allegedly hit a teacher before being transferred to a military school, where he was considered competitive as both a student and an athlete and earned a reputation as a ladies’ man.

“I’m not so sure that he — he didn’t understand, to give low-income kids a lottery for sneakers was an insult,” the principal later said.

Similarly, when he came across a bake sale held by the chess team to pay for travel expenses, Trump handed over a fake million-dollar bill. He ultimately donated $200.

“The thing that it really left me with was that this man had absolutely no clue about education,” said the chess coach.

(��Ӱ�� Exclusive: NYC Educators Recall the Day Trump Played Principal at PS 70 – and Offended Their Kids)

From the start of the campaign, Trump has been staunchly opposed to the Common Core, in keeping with conservative dogma.

But as with many of his statements on other issues, his characterization of the standards has been exaggerated.

Apart from his flawed criticism of the Common Core and a possible rise in bullying of immigrants and Muslims that advocates say he inspired, Trump largely left the education world scratching their heads about what he thought.

(��Ӱ��: Who’s Advising Donald Trump on Education, Anyway? Is Anyone?)

In August, a breakthrough seemed possible: The campaign announced that it would focus on education for a week. A probable pivot to charters and choice made sense as a way to help reach groups where Trump has been underwater, particularly black and Hispanic voters and reluctant members of his own party.

(��Ӱ��: Trump Goes All In on School Choice in First Major Education Policy Speech)

“Our government spends more than enough money to easily pay for this initiative, with billions and billions of dollars to be left over,” Trump said.

“As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” he said.

He also argued for merit pay and continued his sharp criticism of the Common Core.

California Voters to Decide Future of Bilingual Education for Country’s Largest ELL Population

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Proposition 58 certainly isn’t the highest-profile among the 17 ballot questions facing California voters this fall — those would probably be the proposals to repeal the death penalty or legalize marijuana.

It isn’t even the newsiest among the education propositions. That’s probably Prop. 55, which would extend a special tax on individual incomes over $250,000, most of it going to the state’s K-12 schools.

Yet the ballot question could have a huge impact on the state’s more than 1.5 million English-language learners at a time when immigration and the country’s relationship with Mexico have become hot-button topics. The outcome of the potentially pivotal vote is far from clear, despite very lopsided advocate support for the referendum.

(��Ӱ��’s Conor Williams: Linguistic Politics, and What’s at Stake in November With California’s ‘Multilingual Education Act’)

The question facing California voters is whether to overturn a 1998 referendum, Prop. 227, that limited how schools could teach English-language learners. English-language learners were to be placed in classes taught only in English, as opposed to bilingual classes. Parents of both native English speakers and English-language learners can petition for bilingual education for their children where it’s available, but only under limited circumstances.

Advocates say changing the law would return local control to districts and schools, let children learn English the way that best meets their needs, and open new opportunities for native English speakers to learn a second language.

Since the original proposition passed, there has been a chill put on the virtue of becoming bilingual, said Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, president of Californians Together, a coalition of 25 parent, professional and civil rights groups focused on English-language learners.

About 30 percent of English-language learners were taught in bilingual settings before the 1998 change, a number that has dropped to about 4 percent, she said.

“It’s been 18 years since Proposition 227 passed. We know a lot more about educating students to become bilingual and biliterate, and we think it’s time that the barriers that proposition created be modified so all students, in all districts” have access to multilingual programs, Spiegel-Coleman said.

for overturning the old rules span the ideological spectrum.

Teachers unions, civil rights groups, the state PTA, the California Chamber of Commerce and the state Democratic Party are all backing the measure. Even groups often not involved in education issues, like the Sierra Club of California and California Professional Firefighters, support the initiative. As of early October, more than $1 million had been raised to push Prop. 58, half a million dollars of that from the California Teachers Association, with the rest primarily from other unions and the state school administrators association.

The opposition, meanwhile, is limited largely to the state Republican and Libertarian parties and Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley software developer who bankrolled the original 1998 initiative. They haven’t spent any money, according to state campaign finance records.

Unz, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1994, launched an admittedly long-shot bid this spring to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer in order to bring attention to the issue.

A series of articles in the Los Angeles Times about “immigrant Latino parents” who started a public protest against an elementary school that refused to teach children English inspired Unz to nearly 20 years ago, he said.

“The problem was that hundreds of thousands of immigrant children in California were not being taught English when they went to school,” he said.

The change to focus on English-only instruction “worked out perfectly well,” he said – children are learning English and test scores are up.

A by the American Institutes for Research on behalf of the state education department found a slight decrease in the performance gap between English-language learners and native speakers. But the gap in test scores remained “virtually constant” across grades and subjects, and, the researchers noted, the Prop. 227 reforms were implemented at the same time as several others, including a reduction in class sizes.

“Across all analyses, little to no evidence of differences in [English-language learner] performance by model of instruction was found,” they wrote.

Unz blames the push to overturn Prop. 227 on a “small group of very zealous advocates of bilingual education” who “hoodwinked” politicians. Because California has term limits for its state lawmakers, the legislators who passed the 2014 bill pushing Prop. 58 to the ballot weren’t in office when the state considered the issue in 1998, he said.

“This whole vote, I think, is much more sort of a matter of symbolism, and a matter of basically ignorance, since the whole issue’s been totally forgotten, than anything that will have a major practical impact on California education,” he said.

He predicted that if schools change to emphasize bilingual education, parents will protest and districts will have to revert to the current system, with its emphasis on English instruction.

“I am very skeptical there will be any major changes in educational policy in the state, regardless of how the vote goes in November,” he said.

A big change in L.A.

One of the districts where a change could have the largest impact is the Los Angeles Unified School District.

About 27 percent of the 558,000 students in K-12 district schools at any given point are classified as English-language learners. An additional 25 to 27 percent were formerly English-language learners, so more than half of the district’s students either currently are, or at one point were, classified as ELLs, said Hilda Maldonado, executive director of multilingual and multicultural education.

The district provides a range of options for ELLs, from the required English-language immersion classes that educate about 85 percent of them to a variety of bilingual offerings.

All students, regardless of which program they attend, are required to prove their English literacy skills — at grade level — within five years of beginning the program, Maldonado said. The district five years ago entered into an agreement with the federal Education Department’s to improve outcomes for English-language learners who weren’t meeting that benchmark.

“We have found that it potentially is taking these kids a lot longer to learn English in these all-English programs, and we’ve had to put in place additional services, additional courses, so we can catch them up” and comply with the agreement with the federal government, Maldonado said.

Maldonado is already looking to see how the district could expand bilingual education if Prop. 58 passes, starting by trying to recruit bilingual certified teachers. She’s working with the district’s HR department to take stock of existing teachers and implement incentives for bilingual para-educators to get fully certified. The district will also look for existing teachers who speak a second language but are credentialed in another subject to also get the bilingual certification.

(��Ӱ��: Desperate for Bilingual Teachers? New Paper Says You Should Start With Your Classroom Aides)

Offering more bilingual education will help teachers understand why English-language learners aren’t grasping content, whether it’s trouble understanding English or the underlying subject matter.

“Maybe they can take algebra in Spanish and pass it, because algebra is algebra,” she added.

Maldonado is herself an English-language learner, having come to the U.S. at age 11.

“I think the world is so much smaller now than it used to be. Being bilingual or multilingual really just puts us into the current 21st century in a way that values everyone rather than divides them,” she said.

Result unclear

The result of the vote will likely depend heavily on how informed voters are about what the proposition would do – primarily, that it would overturn Prop. 227.

A found high support for Prop. 58, with 69 percent of those surveyed backing the measure, but only as long as they were presented with the official ballot language. (A separate poll in April found the exact same result, 69 percent, with similar ballot language.)

The change comes, though, when respondents are informed that Prop. 58 would repeal the part of Prop. 227 that requires classes to be taught almost exclusively in English. When given that information, 51 percent of respondents opposed Prop. 58. Republicans, independents and white respondents were particularly likely to change their minds when presented with that additional information.

Unz thinks that given the official ballot language — which doesn’t mention overturning part of Prop. 227 — and the deluge of other races and ballot questions vying for voters’ attention, many Californians will vote in favor of Prop. 58 by mistake.

“The impression I have is, very few Californians even know there are two people running for the U.S. Senate right now,” Unz said of the race between Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, both Democrats. “If that’s gotten no attention, then one of 17 initiatives isn’t really getting any attention either.”

Proponents, too, face the same problem of overwhelmed voters.

Spiegel-Coleman said advocates will work through the scores of groups that have endorsed the initiative, as well as an increasing number of endorsements from major newspapers across the state, to raise awareness. They’ll also probably run some ads on radio, she said.

“The issue is really letting people know that it exists and see their way down the ballot and vote yes on it,” she said.

EDlection 2016: Montana’s Schools Chief Vying to Be First Native American Woman in Congress

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Denise Juneau, with one historic “first” already attached to her name, is aiming to add another.

The when she won the race to become Montana’s superintendent of public instruction in 2008, Juneau would be the first Native American woman to serve in Congress if she wins her current contest.

“Tribes and the federal government have such a tight relationship. There are so many federal policies that affect Indian country, almost every aspect of life,” she said in an interview with ��Ӱ��. (There are currently two Native Americans serving in the House: Reps. Tom Cole and Markwayne Mullin, both Republicans from Oklahoma.)

Montana, with a population of slightly more than 1 million, is represented by a single seat in the House. The state has seven reservations, with 11 federally recognized tribes and one tribe recognized by the state. Juneau, an enrolled member of the Mandan Hidatsa tribes and a descendant of the Blackfeet tribe, would bring a unique perspective from her experiences as a state schools chief, attorney and teacher.

“The idea that we get one voice for our entire state, I think it really should be somebody who has a record of facing challenges in our state and getting things done,” she said, citing the progress she made raising graduation rates and working with communities across the state, particularly in putting a Montana spin on school improvement for schools on the state’s Native American reservations.

(More EDlection coverage: Georgia Ballot to Include Proposed Takeover District)

Even though her election would be groundbreaking (she also would be the first openly gay person to represent Montana), she’s running on pretty standard issues. Juneau said she’s focused on Montana’s “people, land and economy.”

She’d like seats on the Natural Resources, Veterans Affairs, and Education and Workforce committees — all good fits, given her background and home state. (Natural Resources has purview over energy, a critical part of the state’s economy, as well as Native American affairs. And about 1 in 10 Montanans is a veteran, )

On education, she’d like to focus on teacher recruitment and retention. Attracting and keeping qualified professional staff of all types, including educators, is tough in the remote, rural areas of Montana, Juneau said.

And she’d push for increased federal funding for special education. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act requires states and districts to provide a free, appropriate public education to students with physical and mental disabilities. The federal government is of those additional services, but it has never provided even half that. Without the federal aid, “the local taxpayers in our states are picking up more and more” of the cost, Juneau said.

(��Ӱ��: Montana’s Schools of Promise: Inside the Fight to Turn Around America’s Remote Native American Classrooms)

Juneau also said she would turn her attention to Head Start and college costs. Head Start is particularly important to Montana, which doesn’t have a state-funded preschool program, she said. And she’s a graduate of the program, “so I know it works,” she added.

The race pits her against incumbent Republican Ryan Zinke, and she’s definitely the underdog.

Although Montanans have long elected Democrats to the and frequently to the office of and other statewide offices, a Republican has held the state’s lone U.S. House seat for the past 20 years. Zinke, a former Navy SEAL and member of the Montana state senate, won his first election in 2014 by 15 percentage points and has a .

Zinke at an said he’d work on rolling back taxes, improving national defense and border security, preserving public lands and protecting the Second Amendment.

“When America has missions that cannot fail, we send in the Navy SEALs. Well, America is failing this time. We need to send in a Montana SEAL,” an announcer says in a .

Adding 600 troops to Islamic State fight is "absolute minimum"

— Ryan Zinke (@RepRyanZinke)

But this is a unique year, and Juneau has powerful backers. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee designated the race part of its “” program, meaning that she’ll get extra support as part of the party’s effort to retake the U.S. House. (The earlier this year identified the Montana seat as one of five that, if flipped, would likely indicate Democrats will win control of the House.)

So proud that is supporting . The Historic Congressional Race That Nobody’s Watching

— Vanessa Cardenas (@vcardenasDC)

“It’s a different type of race this time,” Juneau said, noting that past Democratic contenders haven’t had the experience of running — and winning — statewide that she has.

And like in nearly every other race across the country, GOP nominee Donald Trump has become a factor. Zinke gave a speech at the Republican convention and said he talked with the nominee about .

Even as other Republicans, including , have disavowed Trump, Zinke is “sort of one of the last men standing,” Juneau said.

“I think Montanans are becoming wary of that, starting to ask why that is happening, and why aren’t you looking out for the best interests of Montana, and why are you so tied to this presidential candidate,” she added.

Moral Duty or Impending Threat? Georgia Ballot to Include Proposed State Takeover District

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Update Sept. 27: Opponents of the proposed Georgia Opportunity School District, which will appear on the state's ballot in November, filed a lawsuit today arguing that the ballot language is "misleading, subjectively worded, and propagandizes the very issue being decided on the ballot," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . A teacher, parent, and minister, on behalf of all Georgia voters, are suing the governor, lieutenant governor, and secretary of state. Supporters from Opportunity for All Georgia said in a statement that the "frivolous" lawsuit was a "last-minute media stunt" that will hold students hostage in failing schools "simply to generate news headlines."

Last March the Atlanta school board adopted an unusually ambitious — school closures, management by charters, teacher rehirings, new streams of money for tutoring and other services, and the possibility of an extended school day and year.

The scope of the plan was a response to the need to create better options for Atlanta’s children while also aiming to fend off state takeover of nearly two dozen of the city’s schools, which would enter a newly formed district for struggling schools across Georgia.

“The academic and social emotional needs of our children demanded that we take immediate action to turn around Atlanta’s schools,” Superintendent Meria Carstarphen wrote in a at the start of the school year. “A proposed state takeover Opportunity School District put the whole effort on a short runway. While I wish we had more time to be deliberate and thoughtful, we must do the work now.”

Georgia voters will consider a number of marquee races this November – U.S. senator, members of the House and, for the first time in many years, a competitive presidential contest. Flying under voters’ radar — but perhaps even more important to the Peach State’s 1.9 million students — is the question of whether Georgia should join Louisiana, Tennessee and other states that can assume control of failing schools.

The ballot language is simple: “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?”

Proponents, including Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, frame the change as an ethical imperative.

“We have a moral duty to help these children who can’t help themselves. The sea is great and the boat is small, but the boat must not have first- and second-class seating,” Deal said when first proposing the measure in his . “Our places of learning should be where a child learns triumph, not defeat.”

If Georgia voters approve the change, schools designated as “persistently failing” (scoring below 60 out of a possible 100 on state school ratings for three consecutive years) would be eligible for takeover.

The nature of the provision — judging schools on an absolute scale rather than a curve (e.g., the bottom 5 percent) — sets Georgia’s plan apart from those of other states, advocates say.

“It tries to provide the impetus for a district to turn things around themselves,” said Michael O’Sullivan, state director of StudentsFirst Georgia, which supports the measure.

And that’s already happening in some places around the state, as Atlanta’s aggressive agenda suggests.

The ability of Georgia districts to make fairly radical changes stems from a 2008 law that allows them to change their governance structure; in exchange for greater autonomy, they have to meet standards agreed to by state officials.

“We would love nothing more than for every school district to step up and take action and ensure that Georgia doesn’t have any failing schools,” O’Sullivan said. In fact, if the Opportunity School District works perfectly, it could improve schools so much that it’s eventually no longer needed, he pointed out.

If the ballot measure passes, the first cohort of schools will be selected by April 1 of next year, with state supervision beginning in the 2017–2018 school year.

There were 127 schools potentially eligible for inclusion based on CCRPI scores (a measure of college and career readiness) as of May, according to . A significant number of them are in the Atlanta area: 22 are in the Atlanta system, and 28 are in DeKalb County, which borders the city.

The superintendent of the OSD would decide which of several possible interventions a school would use, including continued local management but with state oversight, direct state management, conversion into a charter school or closure. The district would take no more than 20 schools per year, for five years each; at full capacity the OSD would control 100 schools.

Opponents are trying to focus voters on the potential loss of local control.

There’s no guarantee that parents and families would have a voice in what happens to their school, said Lisa-Marie Haygood, president of the Georgia PTA.

“I have yet to see anything that the state has taken over that’s been a successful model,” she said, citing failures in housing and the medical system. “Nothing goes well when the state’s in charge of it. It’s too big and too bureaucratic.”

A September ad, paid for by Keep Georgia Schools Local (funded, as of an , the most recent available, almost entirely by $125,000 from the Georgia Educators Association) warned that costs to local taxpayers will be huge. Instead of using the money for smaller class sizes, increased teacher salaries or school resources, the ballot would “make us pay for a whole new set of bureaucrats and an unaccountable political appointee,” a female narrator says.

are also expected to continue campaigning vigorously against the measure. The National Education Association said it will spend a sizable amount of money campaigning; Deal put the amount at $1.5 million, the . The and some clergy groups have also come out against the measure.

Opponents say their biggest problem is that voters aren’t aware that the seemingly innocuous question could reverberate harmfully across state districts for years or decades.

“This is a major piece of legislation that’s impacting our state, and people should know and understand [it],” said Justin Pauly, director of communications for the Georgia School Boards Association, which isn’t associated with other campaigns. At least a half-dozen local school boards opposing the ballot question.

The PTA is encouraging members to access its online resources to understand how best to lobby voters. And the organization is targeting everyone, Haygood said, from superintendents and school boards to homeowners associations and scout meetings. “We want to leave no stone unturned in making sure people are educated in what the actual language is,” she said.

(The group also launched a , warning of dangers should the measure pass, that looks more like a horror movie than a political ad. Haygood said it’s aimed at millennial voters who may be voting for the first time or are not as informed on the issue.)

Among supporters, Deal, who said he was inspired by the success of Louisiana’s recovery district in New Orleans and the hope of reducing the number of juvenile inmates in Georgia prisons, constantly touts the proposal, aides say.

“He travels all over the state, whether it’s in remarks or meetings or a media scrum afterward, he finds a way to press the issue and trying to explain the need for it,” said Jen Ryan, deputy chief of staff for communications. “The governor is adamant that a child should not be forced to remain trapped in a failing school and limit his or her opportunities because a parent can’t afford to move.”

Proponents, under the banner of Opportunity for All Georgia Students, also ran an ad assuring high-performing districts they won’t be affected. State Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, a co-sponsor of the legislation, says the takeover is “an opportunity to help those students that have been failing for decades.” The ad’s inclusion of Powell Sims, who is black, is an appeal to the state’s black voters, who supported a 2012 charter school ballot question despite opposition from Democratic groups, the .

How a Manhattan High School’s Turnaround Story Could Shape Trump’s (and Clinton’s) Education Plan

Naomi Nix — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

In 1995, the corner of East 67th Street and Second Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side marked the intersection of privilege and pandemonium. Located just a few blocks from Central Park, the area had a long history as the home of wealthy elites, including the accomplished Rockefellers, the politically powerful Roosevelts and even Ivana Trump, the ex-wife of current GOP nominee Donald Trump.

But the high school at 67th and Second, Julia Richman, did not share in the neighborhood’s prosperity and opportunity. Rather, it was considered one of the worst schools in the city—so dysfunctional and violent that veteran educators nicknamed it “Julia Rikers.”

That changed in 1995, when the city embarked on what was, at the time, a bold, unproven experiment. Julia Richman was split into six learning communities, an innovation that transformed the school and helped lead a broader movement for small schools that attracted the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which as the future of high school in America.

Today, New York City students have their pick of small high schools, in part because of the millions donated by the Gates Foundation to try to replicate the reforms at Julia Richman and other campuses.

“Even if you want to go to your neighborhood school, you have to choose it. New York City is revolutionary. Julia Richman was on the forefront” of that change, said Thomas Toch, an education policy expert at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

While the Trumps followed the lead of many other wealthy families and chose private schools for their children, Donald Trump has begun to shape an education platform that could affect millions of students who don’t have such options.

“As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” Trump said at an Ohio charter school earlier this month, adding a few specifics to an education stump speech that had started to take shape in August.

(Read: Trump Goes All In on School Choice in First Major Education Policy Speech)

“When we reform our tax, trade, energy and regulatory policies, we will open a new chapter in American prosperity,” he said in Michigan on Aug. 8. “As part of this new future, we will also be rolling out proposals to increase [school] choice and reduce cost in child care… I will unveil my plan on this in the coming weeks, that I have been working on with my daughter Ivanka and an incredible team of experts.”

Whether they know it or not, the existence of today’s current educational choices has been greatly influenced by the successful turnaround story of Julia Richman, located just blocks from where Ivanka grew up.

A Manhattan experiment

Ann Cook, a founder of one of the small schools housed in what is now called the Julia Richman Education Complex, captures the high school’s transformation in Creating New Schools, a book about public education in New York City and Boston.

Julia Richman opened in 1913 as an all-girls school that at first focused on commercial skills such as typing and stenography but later expanded to include Latin, Greek and the classics.

It was soon considered one of the best magnet schools for young women, drawing students from across Manhattan and beyond.

After a lawsuit challenged single-sex education in New York, Julia Richman started accepting male students in 1968. The school began to decline, and by the early 1990s, only 37 percent of its students graduated in four years and fewer than three-quarters attended school every day. By 1993, the school had appeared on the state’s list of failing schools for 14 years and was regularly included on the school board’s short list for closure, Cook recounted.

Discipline and violence were significant problems. The school used a mesh cage near the vice principal’s office to hold troublemaking students until the police arrived, or to separate students who were fighting, Cook reported. Residents and local store owners complained about the disorder the students caused in the neighborhood.

Newsday reported that in 1990, the police instituted a policy of stationing extra officers in the area on Halloween, after a group of students “terrorized the Upper East Side” the year before.

“When we see packs of teenagers out on the street during the day, we know they’re up to no good, and we’re going to sweep those kids up and steer them to Julia Richman,” Michael Collins, a police department leader, told the newspaper.

Even the decades-old building was a disaster. One custodian told Cook that graffiti was splattered across the walls, bathroom partitions had been torn down and the leaky roof had damaged almost every floor, rendering some rooms unusable.

“There was a need to rethink the comprehensive high school,” said Toch. “These tend to be large, impersonal places. They are typically unattractive and almost prison-like in their culture.”

In 1993, the Board of Education stopped sending ninth-graders to Julia Richman, and by 1995 the school was completely restructured, with six autonomous schools that controlled their own hiring, curriculum, schedule and overall organization.

Why smaller was better for students

The new Upper East Side complex would include young and older students, but the total enrollment at each school would not exceed 300.

The complex also formed a building council to make decisions that affected all the schools, such as combining their sports teams and coordinating a schedule for common areas. Early on, the council decided to remove metal detectors that screened students as they entered the building, in an effort to create a warmer environment.

Early statistics showed a dramatic transformation.

By the 1995–96 school year, the new school complex had higher attendance rates than the old Julia Richman High School, even though its students were more likely to qualify for free lunch, according to a 2002 study in the American Educational Research Journal. The percentage of juniors passing the reading portion of the state Regents English exam increased by one percentage point, while the passing rate in math rose by nearly 20 points. Writing scores declined by about four percentage points that year, according to the study.

The next school year, the passing rates on the reading, math and writing tests were 93.6 percent, 79.4 percent and 85 percent, respectively — much higher than the old Julia Richman High School scores, the study said.

Those results created a ripple effect across the education world. Julia Richman became the subject of newspaper stories, research and policy papers, and books.

In the following years, New York City rapidly expanded its efforts to form new, smaller high schools, particularly under the Michael Bloomberg administration. When the Gates Foundation in 2003 that it was devoting $51.2 million to starting 67 small high schools in New York City, it cited the Julia Richman Education Complex as “one of the most successful high school turnaround stories in the country.”

Several research subsequently that smaller schools were more likely to , though their effect on classroom achievement is less clear. Critics have argued that the implementation of small schools has led to unnecessary closures in the traditional public school system and that the success of small schools is .

In recent years, the Gates Foundation has from supporting small schools in favor of improving teacher instruction, academic standards and classroom technology.

But the growth of the small-schools movement buttressed by the results of Julia Richman has led to lasting, if not permanent, changes in school districts across the country — changes that can be traced back to the Trumps’ old neighborhood, changes that may have made an impact on the girl who went on to advise her father on national policy.

(Read: Why Is Donald Trump Visiting a Failing Charter School?)

EDlection 2016 – ����Ӱ��

Opinion: Campbell Brown: On Betsy DeVos

Opinion: Bradford — Why Do I Hope DeVos Boosts School Vouchers and Scholarships? Because They Changed My Life

Analysis: How Betsy DeVos Could Scramble the Ideology and Politics of Education Reform

Analysis: Did Senate ‘Nuclear Option’ Help DeVos Rise Over Rhee for Education Secretary Nod?

Common Core, Trumped: Ed Secretary Hopeful DeVos Aligns With Pence in Pushing Local Standards

Trump Picks His Education Secretary: The First 6 Things to Know About Betsy DeVos

Analysis: Trumpism Goes to School — What Our New President Means for Local Choice and Control

Snyder: Make School Safe Again — Why We Must Speak Out Against Surge in Election-Related Bullying

Make Our Schools Safe Again: 500 Scary Incidents (and Counting) of Election-Inspired Bullying at School

Opinion: Rees: Elections Come and Go, but Movements — Like School Choice — Endure

Opinion: Whitmire—Why Question 2 Lost in Massachusetts: The Better the Charter, the Bigger the Threat

What Will Trump Do on Education? Seeking Clues on Common Core, School Choice, ESSA

Gary Herbert, Who Changed Positions on the Common Core, Wins Utah Governor’s Race

Oklahoma Voters Reject Initiative to Raise Teacher Pay

Massachusetts Voters Say No to Charter School Expansion

Georgia Rejects State Intervention in Chronically Failing Schools

California Brings Back Bilingual Education

Sen. Pat Toomey Re-elected in Pennsylvania

Education at the Polls, Coast to Coast: 22 Big Races and Ballot Questions to Watch Tuesday Night

Oregon Ballot Measure Looks to Turn Around One of the Worst Graduation Rates in the U.S.

Clinton vs. Trump: The Final Education Election Guide

California Voters to Decide Future of Bilingual Education for Country’s Largest ELL Population

EDlection 2016: Montana’s Schools Chief Vying to Be First Native American Woman in Congress

Moral Duty or Impending Threat? Georgia Ballot to Include Proposed State Takeover District

How a Manhattan High School’s Turnaround Story Could Shape Trump’s (and Clinton’s) Education Plan

EDlection 2016 – ��Ӱ��