BETSY DEVOS ON THE WORLD
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
SEPTEMBER 8, 2017


THE LAST BASTIAN OF THE WAR ON WOMEN IN THE WESTERN WORLD IS RELIGION OF ANY OF THE FUNDAMENTALIST TYPES, TO WHICH BETSY DEVOS BELONGS. SEE THESE INTERESTING ARTICLES ABOUT HER AND THE DEVOS FAMILY AND THEIR RIGHTIST VIEWS. THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME IN ON TRUMP’S COATTAILS ARE VERY, VERY SCARY TO ME, AND SHE IS ONE OF THE WORST. THIS ARTICLE IS ON DEVOS’ OBJECTION TO COLLEGES’ TIGHTENING THEIR RULES UNDER NEW LAW ON YOUNG MEN WHO ARE ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. OFTEN A COLLEGE WILL QUIETLY GET RID OF THE “GIRL,” AND DO NOTHING TO THE “BOY.” (PAT HIM ON THE BACK, MAYBE?) THE WOMAN MAY BE ENCOURAGED OR PUSHED TO DROP THE CHARGES. THAT IS TO KEEP THE COLLEGE OUT OF THE NEWS, OF COURSE, WITH THE COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION “HANDLING” THE MATTER.

THAT’S NOT ONLY CRUEL, IT’S UNJUST. SEXUAL ASSAULT TO ANY DEGREE IS CRIMINAL. THEIR FEAR IS THAT THE GIRL WAS ACTUALLY A WILLING PARTICIPANT WHO SIMPLY HAS CHOSEN TO CRY RAPE. THAT IS DEVOS’ POSITION IN THIS ARTICLE. I PERSONALLY THINK THEY’RE BOTH OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING, AND IF THERE IS A PREGNANCY THE GIRL SHOULD NOT BE DRUMMED OUT OF THE SCHOOL IN DISGRACE; LIKEWISE, THE BOY SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT PAYING HALF FOR THE SOLUTION TO THEIR MUTUAL PROBLEM. FATHERHOOD SHOULD BE LEGALLY BINDING, ALSO.

OF COURSE, SEXUAL ASSAULT RULES ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES SHOULD NOT BE UNFAIR TO EITHER PARTY, SHOULD INCLUDE DUE PROCESS, AND SINCE THE CHARGE IN THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS A CRIMINAL CHARGE, ESSENTIALLY, IT SHOULD HAVE THE SAME STANDARDS AS A TRIAL IN COURT, IN MY VIEW THAT IS. THIS IDEA THAT COLLEGES SHOULD “PROTECT” OR ON THE OTHER HAND, PUNISH, FOR SEXUAL ISSUES IS NOT RATIONAL IN THE MODERN WORLD. WHEN I WAS IN MY SECOND YEAR OF COLLEGE WOMEN WERE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE IN THE DORM AT UNC-CH UNTIL THEIR SOPHOMORE YEAR, UNDER A POLICY CALLED “EN LOCO PARENTIS.” IN OTHER WORDS, THE COLLEGE BELIEVED THE YOUNG WOMEN JUST OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL WERE IN DANGER OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, AND LIKE A GOOD PARENT, IT WAS THE DUTY OF THE SCHOOL TO PROTECT THEM. I MANAGED TO DO IT BECAUSE I WAS MARRIED AFTER MY FIRST YEAR AND WE BOTH TRANSFERRED TO UNC-CH. BEST DECISION I EVER MADE.

UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S TRUE THAT THE BIG WORLD IS DANGEROUS, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT BOTH YOUNG WOMEN AND MEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO STRIDE FORWARD INTO THE WORLD ANYWAY. IT ALSO SHOULDN’T MEAN THAT THOSE TENDER “YOUNG MEN” SHOULD BE PROTECTED FROM THE RESULTS OF THEIR MASCULINE PLEASURES, EITHER. IN FACT, WHY ARE THE UNIVERSITIES SEEING THESE SEXUAL ASSAULT CASES ANYWAY? IT IS A CRIMINAL MATTER. OH, YES. THE BETTER TO SWEEP IT ALL UNDER THE RUG!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/devos-announces-rollback-of-obama-era-campus-sexual-assault-policy/
CBS NEWS September 7, 2017, 7:38 PM
DeVos says she will roll back Obama-era campus sex assault guidelines

Photograph -- a32-crawford-devos-transfer-frame-1652.jpg
Sec. Betsy DeVos, right, and CBS News' Jan Crawford. CBS NEWS

WASHINGTON -- Education Sec. Betsy DeVos said Thursday her department would soon begin the process of undoing the Obama-era guidelines addressing how colleges should handle allegations of sexual assault on campus.

"The truth is that the system established by the prior administration has failed too many students," she said. "There must be a better way forward. Every survivor of sexual misconduct must be taken seriously. Every student accused of sexual misconduct must know that guilt is not predetermined."

Protesters chanting outside a speech that DeVos gave Thursday said the 2011 guidelines protected victims of college sexual assault.

The guidelines lowered the standard of proof for sexual assault cases, and often denied the accused a right to cross-examine witnesses or hear evidence against them.

Opponents say they have created another class of victims: innocent students wrongly punished.

DeVos spoke exclusively to CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford after her speech.

"So, you will be rescinding those guidelines today, the near future?" Crawford asked.

DeVos to rescind Obama's Title IX sexual assault guidelines
Play VIDEO
DeVos to rescind Obama's Title IX sexual assault guidelines

"That is the intention. Sometime in the near future. And in the interim period during the rule-making process we will come alongside institutions to make sure they are meeting their obligations under Title IX," DeVos said.

"But you're not going to level any kind of enforcement actions against universities that don't follow the Obama guidelines, as of today?" Crawford asked.

"The intention is to withdraw that letter," DeVos said. "The facts remain that schools need to take their Title IX obligation seriously."

DeVos will now solicit public comment in developing new rules. She mentioned a series of proposals by Harvard Law School faculty members, who have been highly critical of the Obama guidelines, as one possible way to restore fairness and due process.



MOTHER JONES ADDRESSES BETSY DEVOS:

“IN NOVEMBER, ACTON CAME UNDER FIRE FOR AN ESSAY ON ITS WEBSITE WHOSE ORIGINAL TITLE WAS “BRING BACK CHILD LABOR.” (THE TITLE WAS QUICKLY CHANGED.)” THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT HAS SOME DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS PEOPLE IN IT. READ THIS ARTICLE ALL THE WAY THROUGH AND EVEN, PERHAPS, FORWARD IT ON FACEBOOK. ACTON, WHICH IS ONE OF THOSE “CONSERVATIVE THINK TANKS,” AND THE SOURCE OF A GENUINELY SHOCKING ARTICLE. I WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT THE WRITER MEANT THAT CHILDREN SHOULD HAVE SOME DAILY CHORES AROUND THE HOUSE THAT ARE APPROPRIATE TO THEIR STRENGTH AND ABILITIES TO BE DONE IN ADDITION TO THEIR SCHOOL WORK AND A LITTLE OUTDOOR ACTIVITY, BY WHICH I DO MEAN “PLAY!” I’LL SEE IF I CAN FIND ANYTHING MORE ABOUT THAT ARTICLE ON ACTON. THAT SHOULD BE INTERESTING.


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary/
Betsy DeVos Wants to Use America’s Schools to Build “God’s Kingdom”
Trump’s education secretary pick has spent a lifetime working to end public education as we know it.
KRISTINA RIZGAMAR / APR 2017 ISSUE

It’s Christmastime in Holland, Michigan, and the northerly winds off Lake Macatawa bring a merciless chill to the small city covered in deep snow. The sparkling lights hanging on trees in downtown storefronts illuminate seasonal delicacies from the Netherlands, as well as photos and paintings of windmills and tulips, wooden shoes, and signs that read “Welkom Vrienden” (Welcome, Friends).

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More than 150 years ago, Dutch immigrants from a conservative Protestant sect chose western Michigan as the setting for this idealized replica of Holland, in part because of its isolation. They wanted to keep American influences away from their orthodox community. Until recently, Holland restaurants couldn’t sell alcohol on Sundays. Residents are still not allowed to yell or whistle between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. If city officials decide that a fence or a shed signals decay, they can tear it down and mail the owner a bill. Grass clippings longer than eight inches have to be removed and composted, and snow must be shoveled soon after it lands on the streets. Most locals say rules like these help keep Holland prosperous, with low unemployment, little crime, good city services, and Republicans at almost every government post. It’s also where President Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos, grew up.

Sitting in his spacious downtown office suite, Arlyn Lanting is eager to talk about his longtime friend, who entered her Senate committee vote Tuesday on track to become the nation’s top-ranking education official—despite a contentious hearing marked by her stiff, underwhelming responses to pointed questions from Senate Democrats. DeVos, who is married to Amway scion Dick DeVos (Forbes says his father, Richard, is worth more than $5 billion), was seen as a controversial choice because of the family’s history of heavy spending on right-wing causes—at least $200 million since the 1970s to think tanks, media outlets, political committees, and advocacy groups. And then there’s the DeVoses’ long support of vouchers for private, religious schools; conservative Christian groups like the Foundation for Traditional Values, which has pushed to soften the separation of church and state; and organizations like Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which has championed the privatization of the education system.

Tim O’Brien

But Lanting, a tall, 75-year-old businessman, investor, and local philanthropist, is quick to wave off the notion that DeVos has it in for traditional public schools. “Betsy is not against public schools,” he says. “She does believe that teachers in charter and private schools are much more likely to lead the way toward better education—the kind that will actually prepare students for our current times and move us away from standardization and testing. But Dick and Betsy have given money to public schools, too.”

Lanting is a warm and generous host who’s eager to point out his favorite Bible verse, painted right there on his wall: “‘I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the Truth’ (3 John 4).” He and Betsy DeVos were both raised in the tradition of the Christian Reformed Church—a little-known, conservative Dutch Calvinist denomination whose roots reach back to the city’s founders. They went to the same grade school in the city’s private school system, the Holland Christian Schools, which was established by members of the church. Like many people I met in Holland, Lanting wasn’t a Trump supporter initially—he voted for Ben Carson in the primaries—but he couldn’t bring himself to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton, whom he calls “a professional spin doctor.” “Trump is much more likely,” Lanting says, “to bring Christ into the world.”

“Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom.”

For deeply devout people like Lanting and DeVos, education plays a key role in that mission. Since her nomination, DeVos hasn’t had much to say about her faith—or whether she plans to defend the separation of church and state in public schools. (DeVos declined Mother Jones‘ request for an interview, but a Trump transition team spokeswoman replied in an email, “Mrs. DeVos believes in the legal doctrine of the separation of church and state.”) However, in a 2001 interview for The Gathering, a group focused on advancing Christian faith through philanthropy, she and her husband offered a rare public glimpse of their views. Asked whether Christian schools should continue to rely on giving—rather than pushing for taxpayer money through vouchers—Betsy DeVos replied, “There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education…Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom.”

Added Dick DeVos: “As we look at many communities in our country, the church has been displaced by the public school as the center for activity…[I]t is certainly our hope that more and more churches will get more and more active and engaged in education.”

Indeed, critics argue the DeVoses are attempting to expand the definition of “school choice”—typically understood as giving parents the ability to pick any traditional public school or charter school in a district—to allow taxpayer money to follow students to any private school via vouchers. Some critics of school choice argue that charters, which are publicly funded but governed by appointed boards and often run by private companies with varying degrees of state oversight, can skim high-performing students from traditional public schools, leaving them with more high-needs kids and less money. But the push for so-called “universal school choice” could take that a step further by eventually leading to a radical redirection of funds from traditional public schools to private schools, many of which are Christian: Trump’s signature education proposal calls for dedicating $20 billion in federal money to help families move away from what he has called our “failing government schools” and instead choose charter, private, or religious schools.

Although the DeVoses have rarely commented on how their religious views affect their philanthropy and political activism, their spending speaks volumes. Mother Jones has analyzed the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation’s tax filings from 2000 to 2014, as well as the 2001 to 2014 filings from her parents’ charitable organization, the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. (Betsy DeVos was listed as a vice president of the Prince Foundation during those years, though she claimed at her confirmation hearing that this was “a clerical error.”) During that period, the DeVoses spent nearly $100 million in philanthropic giving, and the Princes spent $70 million. While Dick and Betsy DeVos have donated large amounts to hospitals, health research, and arts organizations, these records show an overwhelming emphasis on funding Christian schools, evangelical missions, and conservative, free-market think tanks like the Acton Institute and the Mackinac Center that want to shrink the public sector in every sphere, including education.

The couple’s philanthropic record makes clear that they view choice and competition as the best mechanisms to improve America’s education system. Overall, their foundation gave $5.2 million from 1999 to 2014 to charter schools. Some $4.8 million went to a small charter high school they founded, the West Michigan Aviation Academy. (Flying is one of Dick’s passions.) Their next biggest beneficiary, New Urban Learning—an operator that dropped its charter school after teachers began to unionize—received $350,000.

But the DeVoses’ foundation giving shows the couple’s clearest preference is for Christian private schools. In a 2013 interview with Philanthropy magazine, Betsy DeVos said that while charters are “a very valid choice,” they “take a while to start up and get operating. Meanwhile, there are very good non-public schools, hanging on by a shoestring, that can begin taking students today.” From 1999 to 2014, the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation gave out $2.39 million to the Grand Rapids Christian High School Association, $652,000 to the Ada Christian School, and $458,000 to Holland Christian Schools. All told, their foundation contributed $8.6 million to private religious schools—a reflection of the DeVoses’ lifelong dedication to building “God’s kingdom” through education.

Most people I meet in Holland tell me that it’s hard to understand the DeVos and Prince families without learning about the history of Dutch Americans in western Michigan. In the mid-1800s, a group of mostly poor farmers known as the “Seceders” rebelled against the Dutch government when it tried to modernize the state Calvinist church, including by changing the songbooks used during worship and ending discriminatory laws against Catholics and Jews. In 1846, an intensely devout Calvinist clergyman named A.C. van Raalte led several hundred settlers from the Netherlands to the United States.

Teachers Are “Shocked and Worried” About the Future for Kids and Schools

While the Seceders accounted for just 2 percent of the Dutch population at the time, they made up nearly half the country’s immigrants to the United States before 1850. Those who ended up in western Michigan overcame hunger and disease to clear thickly wooded, swampy land and endured much colder winters and deeper snow than in their native Netherlands. In the city of Holland, they re-created their Dutch villages. And just like back home, their church was essentially their government, influencing almost every part of farmers’ lives.

Eleven years after the first Seceders came to Holland, one-third of the Dutch community broke off from the Reformed Church in America and created the Christian Reformed Church. What really solidified this split were disagreements over education, according to James D. Bratt, a professor emeritus at Calvin College and the author of Dutch Calvinism in Modern America. Members who stayed in the Reformed Church in America supported public schools; Christian Reformed Church members believed education was solely the responsibility of families—and explicitly not the government—­and sent their kids to religious schools. Many church members became staunch opponents of unions by the time New Deal-era legislation protected the right to strike and allowed for collective bargaining, which they viewed as socialist intrusions that diminished the authority of the church and contributed to bigger government.

Betsy and Dick DeVos have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations seeking to privatize education and blur the separation of church and state.

Along with opening Holland Christian Schools, the church and its faithful established Calvin College in nearby Grand Rapids. Betsy DeVos, 59, is an alum of both and was raised during the 1960s and 1970s in the Christian Reformed tradition. (Her brother, Erik Prince, is the founder of Blackwater, the private security contractor accused of overbilling and human rights abuses during the Iraq War, and he now advises Trump on intelligence and defense, according to the Intercept.) During those years, that often meant growing up in a home that forbade dancing, movies, drinking, working on Sundays, or even participating in the city’s May tulip festival. Holland Christian Schools’ ban on teaching evolution wasn’t lifted until 1991, according to Larry ten Harmsel, the author of Dutch in Michigan.

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When the 1960s cultural revolution rocked the nation, many members of the Christian Reformed Church—including Betsy DeVos’ parents, who would become one of the richest couples in Michigan thanks to Edgar Prince’s automotive parts company—allied themselves with the evangelical movement. The Princes would go on to contribute to some of the country’s most powerful far-right religious groups, like the Family Research Council. Betsy and Dick DeVos, who are now members of the Mars Hill Bible Church, a well-known mega-church outside Grand Rapids, eventually focused on funding education reform groups and think tanks that push for vouchers, contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations seeking to privatize education and blur the separation of church and state. These include:

• Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty: Betsy DeVos once served on the board of this Grand Rapids-based think tank, which endorses a blend of religious conservatism and unrestrained capitalism. It is headed by a Catholic priest, Robert Sirico, who has argued that welfare programs should be replaced by religious charities. In a paper titled “America’s Public Schools: Crisis and Cure,” a former Acton advisory board member named Ronald Nash wrote, “No real progress towards improving American education can occur as long as 90 percent of American children are being taught in government schools that ignore moral and religious beliefs.” In November, Acton came under fire for an essay on its website whose original title was “Bring Back Child Labor.” (The title was quickly changed.) The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation contributed $1.28 million from 2000 to 2014, and the Prince Foundation donated at least $550,000.

• The Foundation for Traditional Values: Led by James Muffett, the organization is the education arm of Citizens for Traditional Values, a political action group whose mission is to preserve “the influence of faith and family as the great foundation of American freedom embodied in our Judeo-Christian heritage.” On the website dedicated to Muffett’s seminars, a page devoted to a lecture titled “The Greatest Story Never Told” states, “There was a time when schoolchildren were taught the truth about the Christian influence in our foundations—but no longer.” The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation contributed $232,390 from 1999 to 2010.

• Focus on the Family: Both the DeVoses and the Princes have been key supporters of Focus on the Family, which was founded by the influential evangelical leader James Dobson. In a 2002 radio broadcast, Dobson suggested that parents in some states pull their kids out of public schools, calling the curriculum “godless and immoral” and arguing that Christian teachers should also leave public schools: “I couldn’t be in an organization that’s supporting that kind of anti-Christian nonsense.” Dobson has also distributed a set of history lessons claiming that “separating Christianity from government is virtually impossible and would result in unthinkable damage to the nation and its people.” The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation gave $275,000 to Focus on the Family from 1999 to 2001 but hasn’t donated since; it gave an additional $30,760 to related groups in Michigan from 1999 to 2010. The Prince Foundation donated $5.2 million to Focus on the Family and $275,000 to its Michigan affiliate from 2001 to 2013. (It also gave $6.2 million to the Dobson-founded Family Research Council, a former division of Focus on the Family that became an independent nonprofit in 1992. The FRC has fought against same-sex marriage and anti-bullying programs—and is listed as an “anti-LGBT hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

Additionally, the DeVoses have given millions of dollars to the Willow Creek Association, a group for church leaders “who hold to a historic, orthodox understanding of biblical Christianity” in more than 90 countries. WCA made headlines in 2011 when Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz canceled an appearance at an event sponsored by the association after a Change.org petition called it anti-gay (a claim WCA vehemently denied). And both the DeVoses and the Princes have been major benefactors of the Haggai Institute, an Atlanta-area organization that trains professionals abroad to become Christian missionaries in their home countries because, as the director of its Brazilian bureau explained to Christianity Today in 2013, foreign governments don’t mind “allowing their people to be part of leadership training, whereas they would never allow their people to be in an evangelistic seminar.”

Meanwhile, the DeVos clan is perhaps best known for hard-nosed political activism against organized labor. In 2007, coming off Dick DeVos’ unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in their home state of Michigan, the DeVoses focused their advocacy and philanthropy on controversial right-to-work legislation that would outlaw contracts requiring all employees in unionized workplaces to pay dues for union representation. Back in 2007, such a proposal in a union-heavy state like Michigan was considered a “right-wing fantasy,” but thanks to the DeVoses’ funding and insider knowledge—Betsy was once the state GOP chair—the bill became law by 2012.

Right-to-work laws, now on the books in 27 states, have been a major blow to the labor movement—including teachers’ unions, the most powerful lobby for traditional public schools and against charter schools (whose instructors often aren’t unionized). But that hasn’t kept Betsy DeVos from trying to further weaken unions. In January 2016, when Detroit educators demanded a forensic audit of their district’s murky finances and protested classrooms plagued by mold, roaches, and rodents, they used sick days to make their point—Michigan’s public-sector workers have long been barred from striking. A month later, DeVos wrote a Detroit News op-ed arguing that teachers shouldn’t be allowed to stage sick-outs, either.

President-elect Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos at a January rally in Grand Rapids. Michigan Paul Sancya/AP

Which brings us back to the blurring lines among “school choice,” charter schools, and vouchers. Betsy DeVos has spent at least two decades pushing taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools to the center of the Republican Party’s education agenda, thanks in large part to Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Mackinac Center for Public Policy

In the mid-’90s, Mackinac leadership suggested a long-term strategy on how to make unpopular voucher policies more palatable for mainstream America. Its then-senior vice president, Joseph Overton, developed what became known as the Overton Window, a theory of how a policy that’s initially considered extreme might over time be normalized through gradual shifts in public opinion. Education policies were placed on a liberal-conservative continuum, with the far left representing “Compulsory indoctrination in government schools” and the far right representing “No government schools.”

Charter schools, then, became a Trojan horse for voucher advocates: Once public school supporters got used to the idea of charters, activists would attempt to nudge public opinion closer to supporting tax credits to pay for private schools. In Michigan, Detroit has been at the heart of the charter push, which began when Gov. John Engler signed charter schools into law in 1993. Three years later, then-Detroit Metro Times reporter Curt Guyette showed how the Prince Foundation, as well as the foundation run by Dick DeVos’ parents, funded a carefully orchestrated campaign to label Detroit’s public schools as failing—and pushed for charters and “universal educational choice” as a better alternative. Betsy DeVos has since written about the need to “retire” and “replace” Detroit’s public school system and pressed for expanding charter schools and vouchers.

Trump’s education proposal calls for $20 billion to help families leave “failing government schools” for charter, private, or religious schools.

In 2000, she and her husband helped underwrite a ballot initiative to introduce vouchers in Michigan. Though the couple poured millions of dollars into the effort, 69 percent of voters rejected it. The following year, Betsy DeVos focused on a new strategy: Instead of appealing directly to voters, she created a political action committee, the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), to channel funding toward nonprofits and legislators pushing school reform policies. By 2002, GLEP had more money than Michigan’s biggest teachers’ union, the United Auto Workers, or any Democratic-affiliated PAC in the state, according to Politico.

Michigan now serves as one of the most prominent examples of what aggressive, DeVos-style school choice policies look like on the ground, especially when it comes to expanding charters. About 80 percent of the state’s charter schools are run by for-profit companies—a much higher share than anywhere else in the country—with little oversight from the state. In 2011, DeVos fought against legislation to stop low-performing charter schools from expanding, and later she and her husband funded legislators who opposed a proposal to add new oversight for Detroit’s charters.

Detroit, in particular, provides a cautionary tale of what happens when the ideology of market-driven “school choice” trumps the focus on student outcomes. The city’s schools—where 83 percent of students are black and 74 percent are poor—have been in steady decline since charter schools started proliferating: Public school test scores in math and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have remained the worst among large cities since 2009. In June, the New York Times published a scathing investigation of the city’s school district, which has the second-biggest share of students in charters in America. (New Orleans is No. 1.) Reporter Kate Zernike concluded that lax oversight by the state and insufficiently regulated growth—including too many agencies that are allowed to open new charter schools—contributed to a chaotic system marked by “lots of choice, with no good choice.”

A 2015 study from Michigan State University’s Education Policy Center found that a high percentage of charter schools also had a devastating impact on the finances of poor Michigan school districts like Detroit. Researchers reported that, under the state’s school choice and finance laws, it was hard for districts to keep traditional public schools afloat when charters reached 20 percent or more of enrollment. While per-student public funding follows kids to charters or other districts, traditional public schools still have fixed costs to cover, like building expenses and faculty salaries. Charter growth also increased the share of special-needs students left behind in traditional public schools, and the extra costs for educating such students weren’t adequately reimbursed by the state.

Charter schools and school choice are now accepted by nearly two-thirds of Americans, but almost 70 percent still oppose using public funding for private schools. With most states under wholly Republican leadership, though, and big-name charter advocates like former DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee now in support of sending public dollars to religious schools, the stage is set for a new effort to both lift state caps on charter schools (22 states have some kind of cap limiting the number of charters) and expand vouchers (14 states and the District of Columbia have active programs).

It’s hard to tell how many more charter advocates will support (or simply overlook) the inclusion of vouchers for private schools in choice policies, but one thing is clear: The prospects for an aggressive policy push for “universal choice”—including funding more religious schools with taxpayer money—have never been better.

On my last day in Holland, a retired public school teacher named Cathy Boote gives me a tour of the city she has called home for 37 years. Dressed in a black cashmere sweater and a white winter jacket, Boote is a self-described moderate Republican who was raised a Calvinist and went to public schools before later teaching art in a nearby district. In her close to four decades of working in public schools, she saw how the decline of the automotive industry and the hollowing out of the middle class affected poor and working-class kids she taught. “When parents have to work longer hours and more jobs and get paid less, there is more stress at home,” Boote reflected. “That means less time to read and do homework, and more time spent watching TV and online rather than learning.”

“Betsy’s father, Edgar Prince, is considered the patron saint of Holland,” Boote says as our truck rolls over heated asphalt—a unique underground grid of tubes that circulates hot water beneath a small section of the city’s downtown and melts snowflakes just as they touch down. It was Prince who helped bring this innovative system here, suggesting the heated streets in 1988 and forking over $250,000 to cover nearly a quarter of the cost. Like Boote, most Hollanders I talked to credit Prince’s vision for the city’s transformation into a tourist destination.

“Most people here feel that you build your own family. You don’t need a union to build a competing family.”

Prince’s mix of business acumen and his desire to protect “our people” put him on the trajectory that made him one of the wealthiest men in Michigan. In 1965, he left his job as chief engineer at Buss Machine Works after workers decided to unionize. He opened his own company that eventually specialized in auto-parts manufacturing and became one of the biggest employers in Holland. When Prince Corp. was sold for $1.35 billion in 1997, two years after his death, some 4,500 former employees received a combined $80 million in bonuses. “Most people here feel that you build your own family. You don’t need a union to build a competing family,” Boote explains, adjusting her glasses. “You treat your employees well and they don’t need to complain. Complaining, protesting, is bad. You work hard and you don’t complain.”

Boote’s truck takes a sharp turn into the predominantly Latino section of town, with large Victorian cottages, fenceless yards, and mature trees. Most kids in this neighborhood go to public schools. In the two decades since school choice was implemented in Michigan, white student enrollment in Holland’s public schools has plummeted 60 percent, with a nearby charter school becoming their top destination, according to an investigation by the Ann Arbor-based Bridge Magazine. Latino students are now the face of the system, and 70 percent of all its students are poor, more than double the district’s poverty rate when school choice began. Bridge Magazine found a similar pattern across Michigan: White parents tended to use the choice system to move their kids into even whiter districts, while black parents gravitated to charter schools made up mostly of students of color. Meanwhile, the Holland Christian Schools are predominantly white.

We leave downtown and drive along Lake Macatawa for about three miles before parking in front of a huge, castlelike mansion. This is Betsy and Dick DeVos’ summer home—a three-story, 22,000-square-foot estate that has eight dishwashers, 10 bathrooms, and 13 porches.

As we look out at the stone-and-shingle house, Boote reflects on how most people around here—her family, Betsy DeVos’ family—grew up hearing about their proud Dutch immigrant ancestors who overcame deep poverty. DeVos went on to attend a small, elite, mostly white private religious school and a college with similar demographics. She married into a rich dynasty.

“‘Look at us. God has given to us. I can fix this. All you have to do is be like me.’ You can understand how you might think that way, if you grew up here,” Boote says later, as we take one final glance at the mansion over its tall, iron gate. “If you come from the small, sheltered, privileged environment of Holland, you are most likely going to have a very limited worldview—including how to fix education.”

Holland, Michigan, in summer Craig Sterken/iStock
This article has been updated and expanded since it was first published. Research contributed by Jennifer Vélez and Matt Tinoco.



THIS RECOMMENDATION OF CHILD LABOR BY DEVOS’ ORGANIZATION REMINDS ME OF THE ONE SOME TWO YEARS AGO ABOUT THE IDEA OF PEOPLE WHO CAN’T PAY THEIR BILLS BEING (FORCED? ALLOWED?) TO “WORK IT OFF.” A TEA PARTIER MADE THAT SUGGESTION, OF COURSE. IF IT’S VOLUNTARY, THAT’S ONE THING, AS LONG AS THEY GET A LEGAL PAPER SAYING THEY HAVE DONE SO. STILL, THE WORKER HAS TO HAVE SOME KIND OF CASH INCOME WHILE DOING THAT, AND WHO’S TO KEEP THE CREDITOR FROM CHEATING SUCH A WORKER?

THE WEALTHY GET TO DECLARE BANKRUPTCY, SO WHY NOT THE POOR? SOUNDS TOO MUCH LIKE OLIVER TWIST TO ME. 1700 TO THE NEW DEAL ERA WERE HEAVEN FOR THE RICH AND THE MORALLY/ETHICALLY “CONSERVATIVE,” AND HELL FOR THE POOR WHO HAD TO GO HUNGRY OR COLD. THE STATE SOLUTION AT THAT TIME WAS THE “WORKHOUSE,” OR THE “POORHOUSE.” WORKHOUSES AND POORHOUSES ARE AN INTERESTING TOPIC TO LOOK UP IN WIKIPEDIA, AND CHECK OUT INDENTURED SERVITUDE AS WELL. I PERSONALLY BELIEVE THAT OUR CHANGES AS A CULTURE SINCE THAT TIME ARE TRULY PROGRESS, AND NOT A MOVEMENT TOWARD A MORE SINFUL SOCIETY. A MORE PAINFUL LIFE RARELY PRODUCES A BETTER LIFE, IN FACT IT’S THE BREEDING GROUND FOR INSANITY, EMBITTERMENT AND HATRED. FOR MORE ON THIS SUBJECT, GO TO THE LAST ARTICLE IN THE BLOG TAKEN FROM THE WEBSITE CALLED “NAKED CAPITALISM.”

https://thinkprogress.org/betsy-devos-child-labor-186e5794aa2e/
Trump’s pick for Education Secretary worked with an organization advocating child labor
“A long day’s work and a load of sweat have plenty to teach as well.”
ANNETTE KONOSKE-GRAF
JAN 12, 2017, 8:01 PM

Photograph -- president-elect donald trump’s pick for education secretary betsy devos speaks during a rally at deltaplex arena, dec. 9, 2016, in grand rapids, mich. credit: ap photo/andrew harnik`

Donald Trump’s selection for Secretary of Education, billionaire voucher advocate Betsy DeVos, has made her imprint on policy through large donations to extremist conservative groups, including the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.

In addition to being a donor, DeVos has served on Acton’s Board of Directors for 10 years. The Institute is a non-profit research organization “dedicated to the study of free-market economics informed by religious faith and moral absolutes.”


In a recent blog post, an Acton Institute writer and project coordinator showed his dedication to something else: child labor.

The post’s author, Joseph Sunde, argues that work is a “gift” that we are denying American children. After all, Sunde concludes, the child laborers of America’s past were “actively building enterprises and cities” and “using their gifts to serve their communities.”

Some especially disturbing highlights from Sunde’s piece:

In our policy and governing institutions, what if we put power back in the hands of parents and kids, dismantling the range of excessive legal restrictions, minimum wage fixings, and regulations that lead our children to work less and work later?

Let us not just teach our children to play hard and study well, shuffling them through a long line of hobbies and electives and educational activities. A long day’s work and a load of sweat have plenty to teach as well.

The piece was originally titled “Bring Back Child Labor: Work is a Gift Our Kids Can Handle,” but Sunde removed “Bring Back Child Labor” after receiving public criticism. When the Huffington Post wrote about Sunde’s piece in November, the Trump transition team did not answer their request for a comment.

Long hours of regular work can harm children’s social and emotional development. According to the Child Labor Public Education Project, adolescents who work more than 20 hours per week have reported more problem behaviors, such as aggression, misconduct, and substance use. These students also report more sleep deprivation, and are more likely to drop out of school and complete fewer months of higher education.

It should come as no surprise that the Acton Institute appears on the DeVos philanthropic roster. Over the years, Dick and Betsy DeVos have funded a host of conservative, religious causes, including opposition same-sex marriage laws in several states and groups that push “conversion therapy.” What’s more, the entire DeVos family, including Amway co-founder Richard DeVos Sr., has given more than $17 million to conservative political candidates and political committees since 1989. More than half of that giving — nearly $10 million — occurred within the last two years. The DeVos name regularly appears on lists of attendees at donor summits hosted by Charles and David Koch.

There’s no doubt that Betsy DeVos has personally funded several groups that push an aggressive anti-public education agenda, as well. DeVos is a staunch believer in vouchers, which allow families to send their child to private (often religious) schools using government funding. When referring to the role that she and her husband play in education, DeVos has proclaimed, “our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s Kingdom.”

She has yet to say publicly whether children work in the Kingdom.

Annette Konoske-Graf is a Policy Analyst with the K-12 Education team at the Center for American Progress. ThinkProgress is an editorially independent news site housed at the Center for American Progress.



THIS WHOLE ARTICLE IS FANTASTICALLY GOOD, SO I WON’T PICK ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR TO QUOTE EXCEPT THIS, FROM BOTH BERNIE SANDERS AND BARAK OBAMA, “DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT.” WRITE THAT ACROSS YOUR HAND SO YOU CAN TAKE A PEAK AT IT IF YOU FIND YOURSELF FEELING THAT YOUR VOICE IS TOO INEXPERT OR TOO WEAK TO BE A VALID PART OF THE DISCUSSION IN AMERICA – OR YOU’RE JUST TOO TIRED TO WORK FOR A DECENT AMERICA, RATHER THAN A TOTALITARIAN ONE. THE EVENTS OF THE LAST FEW YEARS TELL ME FOR A SURETY THAT WITHOUT THE TRULY PATRIOTIC TO STAND UP FOR WHAT WE HAVE IN THIS COUNTRY, WE MAY VERY QUICKLY LOSE IT.

HTTPS://WWW.NAKEDCAPITALISM.COM/2017/07/21ST-CENTURY-FORM-INDENTURED-SERVITUDE-ALREADY-PENETRATED-DEEP-AMERICAN-HEARTLAND.HTML
A 21st-Century Form of Indentured Servitude Has Already Penetrated Deep into the American Heartland
Posted on July 19, 2017 by Lambert Strether
By Thom Hartmann. a talk-show host and author of over 25 books in print.. Originally published at AlterNet.

Indentured servitude is back in a big way in the United States, and conservative corporatists want to make sure that labor never, ever again has the power to tell big business how to treat them.

Idaho, for example, recently passed a law that recognizes and rigorously enforces non-compete agreements in employment contracts, which means that if you want to move to a different, more highly paid, or better job, you can instead get wiped out financially by lawsuits and legal costs.

In a way, conservative/corporatists are just completing the circle back to the founding of this country.

Indentured servitude began in a big way in the early 1600s, when the British East India Company was establishing a beachhead in the (newly stolen from the Indians) state of Virginia (named after the “virgin queen” Elizabeth I, who signed the charter of the BEIC creating the first modern corporation in 1601). Jamestown (named after King James, who followed Elizabeth I to the crown) wanted free labor, and the African slave trade wouldn’t start to crank up for another decade.

So the company made a deal with impoverished Europeans: Come to work for typically 4-7 years (some were lifetime indentures, although those were less common), legally as the property of the person or company holding your indenture, and we’ll pay for your transport across the Atlantic.

It was, at least philosophically, the logical extension of the feudal economic and political system that had ruled Europe for over 1,000 years. The rich have all the rights and own all the property; the serfs are purely exploitable free labor who could be disposed of (indentured servants, like slaves, were commonly whipped, hanged, imprisoned, or killed when they rebelled or were not sufficiently obedient).

This type of labor system has been the dream of conservative/corporatists, particularly since the “Reagan Revolution” kicked off a major federal war on the right of workers to organize for their own protection from corporate abuse.

Unions represented almost a third of American workers when Reagan came into office (and, since union jobs set local labor standards, for every union job there was typically an identically-compensated non-union job, meaning about two-thirds of America had the benefits and pay associated with union jobs pre-Reagan).

Thanks to Reagan’s war on labor, today unions represent about 6 percent of the non-government workforce.

But that wasn’t enough for the acolytes of Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman. They didn’t just want workers to lose their right to collectively bargain; they wanted employers to functionally own their employees.

Prior to the current Reaganomics era, non-compete agreements were pretty much limited to senior executives and scientists/engineers.

If you were a CEO or an engineer for a giant company, knowing all their processes, secrets and future plans, that knowledge had significant and consequential value—company value worth protecting with a contract that said you couldn’t just take that stuff to a competitor without either a massive payment to the left-behind company or a flat-out lawsuit.

But should a guy who digs holes with a shovel or works on a drilling rig be forced to sign a non-compete? What about a person who flips burgers or waits tables in a restaurant? Or the few factory workers we have left, since neoliberal trade policies have moved the jobs of tens of thousands of companies overseas?

Turns out corporations are using non-competes to prevent even these types of employees from moving to newer or better jobs.

America today has the lowest minimum wage in nearly 50 years, adjusted for inflation. As a result, people are often looking for better jobs. But according to the New York Times, about 1 in 5 American workers is now locked in with a non-compete clause in an employment contract.

Before Reaganomics, employers didn’t keep their employees by threatening them with lawsuits; instead, they offered them benefits like insurance, paid vacations and decent wages. Large swaths of American workers could raise a family and have a decent retirement with a basic job ranging from manufacturing to construction to service industry work.

My dad was one of them; he worked 40 years in a tool-and-die shop, and the machinist’s union made sure he could raise and put through school four boys, could take 2-3 weeks of paid vacation every year, and had full health insurance and a solid retirement until the day he died, which continued with my mom until she died years later. Most boomers (particularly white boomers) can tell you the same story.

That America has been largely destroyed by Reaganomics, and Americans know it. It’s why when Donald Trump told voters that the big corporations and banksters were screwing them, they voted for him and his party (not realizing that neither Trump nor the GOP had any intention of doing anything to help working people).

And now the conservatives/corporatists are going in for the kill, for their top goal: the final destruction of any remnant of labor rights in America.

Why would they do this? Two reasons: An impoverished citizenry is a politically impotent citizenry, and in the process of destroying the former middle class, the 1 percent make themselves trillions of dollars richer.

The New York Times has done some great reporting on this problem, with an article last May and a more recent piece about how the state of Idaho has made it nearly impossible for many workers to escape their servitude.

Historically, indentured servants had their food, health care, housing, and clothing provided to them by their “employers.” Today’s new serfs can hardly afford these basics of life, and when you add in modern necessities like transportation, education and child-care, the American labor landscape is looking more and more like old-fashioned servitude.

Nonetheless, conservatives/corporatists in Congress and state-houses across the nation are working hard to hold down minimum wages. Missouri’s Republican legislature just made it illegal for St. Louis to raise their minimum wage to $10/hour, throwing workers back down to $7.70. More preemption laws like this are on the books or on their way.

At the same time, these conservatives/corporatists are working to roll back health care protections for Americans, roll back environmental protections that keep us and our children from being poisoned, and even roll back simple workplace, food and toy safety standards.

The only way these predators will be stopped is by massive political action leading to the rollback of Reaganism/neoliberalism.

And the conservatives/corporatists who largely own the Republican Party know it, which is why they’re purging voting lists, fighting to keep in place easily hacked voting machines, and throwing billions of dollars into think tanks, right-wing radio, TV, and online media.

If they succeed, America will revert to a very old form of economy and politics: the one described so well in Charles Dickens’ books when Britain had “maximum wage laws” and “Poor Laws” to prevent a strong and politically active middle class from emerging.

Conservatives/corporatists know well that this type of neo-feudalism is actually a very stable political and economic system, and one that’s hard to challenge. China has put it into place in large part, and other countries from Turkey to the Philippines to Brazil and Venezuela are falling under the thrall of the merger of corporate and state power.

So many of our individual rights have been stripped from us, so much of America’s middle-class progress in the last century has been torn from us, while conservatives wage a brutal and oppressive war on dissenters and people of color under the rubrics of “security,” “tough on crime,” and the “war on drugs.”

As a result, America has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, more than any other nation on earth, all while opiate epidemics are ravaging our nation. And what to do about it?

Scientists have proven that the likelihood the desires of the bottom 90 percent of Americans get enacted into law are now equal to statistical “random noise.” Functionally, most of us no longer have any real representation in state or federal legislative bodies: they now exist almost exclusively to serve the very wealthy.

The neo-feudal corporate/conservative elite are both politically and financially committed to replacing the last traces of worker power in America with a modern system of indentured servitude.

Only serious and committed political action can reverse this; we’re long past the point where complaining or sitting on the sidelines is an option.

As both Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama regularly said (and I’ve closed my radio show for 14 years with), “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”