If you support Public Education - please vote no on Betsy Devos

[Black Aliss]

SOTDRT, for the win. Edits courtesy of Defend NJ Education FB

Edited January 22, 2017 by Black Aliss
added credit where due

[Destiny]

........What the shit Lana? How the fuck can she be education secretary if she can't fucking write a coherent sentence?

Edited January 22, 2017 by Destiny
cos punctuation is important, especially if I'm gonna talk shit about someone else's grammar

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make that up.

[VelociRapture]

On 1/17/2017 at 7:44 PM, quiversR4hunting said:

I am going to dip my toe in the political forum. I beg all of you (in the US) if you value public education, please, please tell your senator to vote NO on Betsy DeVos.

She and her extended family are all about Christian (the right kind, not Catholic) education, all about conversion therapy (LGBT) , for profit charter schools. Plus her family owns or invested in K-12 on-line education- and the family is profiting from the program. 

She is on c-span (www.c-span.org) right now. Like with all Trump's nominees they are rushing the hearing. UUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

IF you haven't been watching, she was answering Sen Whitehouse about charter schools and the fact many in Michigan are failing – she just said she will support the parents and students. She didn’t say one thing about supporting EDUCATION and helping EDUCATORS and EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS in her possible job as education secretary.

The Connecticut senator asked about the role in guns in school and she could not say that she thinks that guns should be banned. She referenced Wyoming needing a gun because of bears. OMG. That is a VERY special reason, not one that Detroit, Chicago, Forest Hills School district (where her family lives in the Grand Rapids, MI. UGHHHH

Sen Warren is taking names and kicking ass! 

That would be Senator Chris Murphy. He's pretty fantastic and I'm proud that he's one of my Senators. The expressions on his face during her hearing were priceless. He's already over the bullshit and its only day three.

Senator Blumenthal, also of Connecticut, is fantastic too. I'd write to them, but they've both been extremely quick to speak out publicly against Trump and a lot of this shit. So I'll probably just stick with thanking them for being so awesome instead. 

ETA: And can we just talk for a moment about the gall of this woman to say that shit to a Senator who represents Newtown, CT? Seriously? 

Edited January 22, 2017 by VelociRapture

[GreyhoundFan]

"After ethics review, Senate postpones committee vote for Betsy DeVos"

Quote

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has postponed the vote on Trump’s education pick Betsy DeVos, hours after receiving the completed ethics review for the Michigan billionaire.

The committee vote, originally scheduled to take place Tuesday has been rescheduled for Jan. 31 at 10 a.m., according to a statement from the HELP committee chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). The announcement arrived after the Office of Government Ethics, an agency that examines nominees’ financial disclosures and resolves potential conflicts of interest, released its long-awaited report Friday. Alexander said he wants to give each Senator on the committee time to review the documents.

Ethics Director Walter M. Shaub Jr. had said a full vetting of extremely wealthy individuals, such as DeVos, could take weeks, if not months, much to the chagrin of Senate Democrats who wanted to review it before DeVos’s confirmation hearing, which took place Tuesday evening. (See the full ethics report below).

Though Democrats bristled at having just five minutes each to question DeVos — during which they used some of their time complaining about it and asking for another round of questioning — Alexander limited them to the single round. Her opponents say Alexander is rushing what should be a careful examination of someone they say is unqualified to lead the nation’s education department.

Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee, said the senator is concerned that members will not have a chance to have their ethics concerns and questions answered before the vote.

“Ms. DeVos and her family have incredibly complicated and opaque financial entanglements and staff is now reviewing all of her and her family’s holdings that have conflicts with her role as Secretary of Education,” he said. “Senator Murray has also not yet received answers to her questions about missing information in Ms. DeVos’ Committee financial disclosure. And Committee Democrats have sent Ms. DeVos a number of reasonable questions for the record that she committed to answer and that they expect clear and complete responses to.”

Alexander has emphasized that DeVos has taken steps to prove herself, including answering questions for nearly four hours and meeting individually with committee members. Still, he agreed to postpone the vote.

“We know that Betsy DeVos is a passionate defender of improving opportunities for low-income children who has committed to implement the law fixing No Child Left Behind as Congress wrote it, support public schools, and work to protect all children and students from discrimination and ensure they are educated in a safe environment,” said Margaret Atkinson, a spokeswoman for Alexander.

DeVos has no professional experience in public schools, but she has lobbied for decades to expand charter schools and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools. Her inexperience proved to be a liability at Tuesday’s hearing, as Senate Democrats grilled her on education policy questions that she had trouble answering.

At the hearing, DeVos pledged to resolve any conflicts of interest the office identified, a commitment she reiterated in a letter she sent Thursday to the ethics office of the Education Department. DeVos said she has resigned from a dozen foundations with education goals, including All Children Matter and Great Lakes Education Foundation.

She is, however, retaining her position as co-trustee of three family trusts, at least one of which has an indirect financial stake in Sextant Education, which operates a chain of for-profit colleges, through its parent company AEA Investors. Though DeVos lists AEA as one of the assets she intends to divest, it’s unclear whether she would retain a partial stake through the trust. And the other two trusts have no assets listed, so there is no sense of whether they have investments in other education companies. The nominee’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“It is not clear whether the family trust would divest from these assets, but if it does not, she will be in conflict,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “She turned her forms in at 10 o’clock last night. There are significant issues that still need to be worked out and should have been dealt with before hearings started.”

DeVos listed 102 companies she plans to divest from within 90 days, if she is confirmed as secretary. Among them is LMF WF Portfolio, a limited liability corporation listed in regulatory filings as one of several firms involved in a $147 million loan to Performant Financial Corp., a debt collection agency in business with the Education Department. Performant lost out on a recent contract bid with the department and is now protesting the decision with the Government Accountability Office, which can dismiss the dispute if the department reverses course. The influence of the secretary in that decision left Democrats uneasy about DeVos’s indirect investment.

In the letter to the department, DeVos wrote that she “will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that to my knowledge has a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of” any of the 102 companies “until I have divested.” She also said she would ensure that “all proceeds are invested in nonconflicting assets.”

Libowitz said DeVos would not have to recuse herself from any Education Department business involving companies such as Performant once she and her husband are fully divested. But he said there are still questions about her involvement with other assets, such as when she was the sole investor, that could result in her needing more than a one year recusal.

Here's the ethics report referenced in the article.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Democrats request another hearing for DeVos, Trump’s education pick, before confirmation vote"

Spoiler

Senate Democrats are formally asking Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to have a second confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s education nominee, arguing that they need an opportunity to further scrutinize her potential conflicts of interests and preparedness to lead the Education Department.

“Education is too important an issue, and the Secretary of Education is too important a position for the country and for this Committee, to jam a nominee through without sufficient questioning and scrutiny,” they wrote to Alexander in a letter Monday. “This is not about politics, it should not be about partisanship — it should be about doing the work we were elected by our states to do to ask questions of nominees on behalf of the people we represent.”

Those signing the letter included 10 Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats. They are all members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which is overseeing DeVos’s confirmation.

Democrats complained when Alexander, chairman of the HELP committee, limited each member of the committee to one five-minute round of questioning during DeVos’s first hearing, on Jan. 17. Alexander was resolute at the time, and one of his aides said Monday that he will not hold another hearing for DeVos.

“Betsy DeVos has already met with each committee member in their offices, spent nearly an hour and a half longer in her Senate hearing than either of President Obama’s education secretaries, and is now answering 837 written questions — 1,397 including all the questions within a question — that Democrats have submitted for her to answer,” Alexander’s aide said. “That’s compared with the 81 questions — 109 including all questions within a question — Republicans submitted in writing to Obama’s two Secretaries of Education combined.”

Alexander argued at the Jan. 17 hearing that he was hewing to a committee precedent, treating DeVos as Arne Duncan and John King, Obama’s two education secretaries, had been treated during their confirmation hearings. But Democrats said that no committee chairman had ever before shut down a hearing before members had a chance to ask all their questions.

Duncan and King were known quantities with long track records in public education, Democrats said; there simply wasn’t as much to ask them. They have framed DeVos as a different nominee altogether: A Michigan billionaire who has no professional experience in public schools.

DeVos fed that narrative when she stumbled over questions about basic education policy during the Jan. 17 hearing, at one point suggesting that states should be able to decide whether to enforce a federal civil rights law meant to protect children with disabilities.

Her statement that guns should not be banned from schools because of “potential grizzlies” at a rural Wyoming school became instant fodder for late-night comics. Her hearing and the optics of her nomination — a wealthy political donor with no experience as an educator, who wouldn’t promise Senators that she would swear off trying to privatize public schools — have made her an object of criticism from many outside the usual Beltway education policy circles.

Democrats also want to press DeVos on potential conflicts of interest arising from her vast wealth and financial holdings. DeVos disclosed in ethics paperwork filed with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) last week that she plans to divest from 102 companies that could present potential conflicts, but she also said she would retain interests in Neurocore, a company that purports to help students with ADHD perform better in school.

She is maintaining her stake in a family trust that has a financial interest in a company connected to for-profit higher education institutions, as well as two other family trusts about which she disclosed nothing, according to the OGE forms.

DeVos’s supporters — including advocates for vouchers and charter schools, along with many Senate Republicans — have accused Democrats of mounting a politically motivated attack.

“The committee has received Betsy DeVos’s paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics. She has completed the committee’s paperwork, answered questions for 3 ½ hours at her confirmation hearing, met privately with the members of the committee, and she will now spend the coming days answering senators’ written questions for the record,” a spokesperson for Alexander said last week. “We know that Betsy DeVos is a passionate defender of improving opportunities for low-income children who has committed to implement the law fixing No Child Left Behind as Congress wrote it, support public schools, and work to protect all children and students from discrimination and ensure they are educated in a safe environment.”

Alexander had initially scheduled a committee vote on DeVos’s confirmation for Jan. 24, but decided to delay the vote a week, until Jan. 31, to give Senators an opportunity to examine the ethics paperwork. But Democrats don’t just want more time — they want another chance to publicly question DeVos.

“We would like to ask Ms. DeVos additional questions we were prevented from asking this week given we did not know all of the financial and ethical information that has now been shared with us, as well as address additional questions that have arisen from the OGE paperwork,” Democrats wrote in their letter to Alexander. “In particular, we believe it is important to ask her questions around companies she will continue to own that are directly impacted by the Department of Education and this administration’s education agenda. We believe the opportunity to ask such questions is consistent with the responsibilities and practices of this committee.”

One of my Senators is a signatory to the request. I just sent his office an email, thanking him. I figured I'll save the calls for complaints.

[Destiny]

16 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

One of my Senators is a signatory to the request. I just sent his office an email, thanking him. I figured I'll save the calls for complaints.

Where are you seeing the signatories? I'd like to send an email to mine if they did the same. 

EDIT: Never mind. The letter didn't load the first time so I couldn't see it. I have it now. 

Edited January 24, 2017 by Destiny
more words

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, Destiny said:

Where are you seeing the signatories? I'd like to send an email to mine if they did the same. 

At the bottom of the article, there is a scribd link to the document. The signatories are: Patty Murray, Bernie Sanders, Robert Casey, Al Franken, Michael Bennett, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tammy Baldwin, Christopher Murray, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, and Maggie Hassan.

[ShepherdontheRock]

On 1/22/2017 at 6:09 PM, VelociRapture said:

ETA: And can we just talk for a moment about the gall of this woman to say that shit to a Senator who represents Newtown, CT?Seriously? 

You know, on a slight tangent, I saw at the Women's March a woman who had a sign about marching for the children murdered at Sandy Hook, and it had all their names on it. And it got me to thinking, all those babies were murdered and we still ain't done shit. 

And this woman has the fucking nerve. 

THE FUCKING NERVE! 

[GreyhoundFan]

"National Education Association: More than 1 million emails sent to senators urging a vote against DeVos"

Quote

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union, says that more than 1 million people have used an online form during the past three weeks to email their senators to urge opposition to Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s nominee for education secretary. More than 40,000 people have called senators using a hotline the union set up to access the switchboard at the U.S. Capitol, NEA officials said.

NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia said the union did not pay for advertisements, instead using its ordinary advocacy channels — such as emails to members and social media posts — to encourage people to contact their senators. She said the response surprised and gratified her.

“It’s just amazing,” Eskelsen Garcia said. “We couldn’t generate this if it weren’t authentic, if it weren’t something legitimately and authentically viral.”

The pace of calls and emails about DeVos surpasses any previous NEA campaign, union officials said: In all of 2015, efforts to get teachers to contact Congress about the Every Student Succeeds Act — a sweeping new federal education law that affects every public school in the nation — generated a total of 284,000 emails, they said.

The NEA’s figures come from internal data generated through a CQ-Roll Call advocacy outreach tool, called Engage. CQ-Roll Call confirmed that NEA campaigns to contact lawmakers during the past 30 days have generated nearly 1.1 million emails and almost 3,000 tweets.

And there are signs that DeVos’s nomination has helped generate a higher-than-usual volume of calls and emails to the offices of senators who will decide whether she is confirmed as education secretary.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said his office has received more than 25,000 calls or emails related to DeVos, and the vast majority have been opposed to her joining Trump’s Cabinet.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said her office has received more calls than usual in the past week, and that the majority of callers have been asking Murkowski to vote against confirming DeVos. Most of the callers are not Murkowski’s constituents, the spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) said his office is receiving more calls than usual. “We are grateful that our constituents are speaking out and getting involved,” she said. “We have a team of constituent advocates who are listening and gathering feedback.”

Bennet, Kaine and Murkowski are members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which must approve DeVos’s nomination before the full Senate can vote. A committee vote is scheduled for Tuesday.

Spokespeople for more than a dozen other senators did not respond to requests for comment. No Republicans have said they will defect, suggesting DeVos is still very likely to win confirmation.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate minority leader, joined a growing chorus of Democratic pledging to vote against DeVos, putting out a statement Thursday morning saying he will “vote no, and I will do it proudly”:

“The President’s decision to ask Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education should offend every single American man, woman, and child who has benefitted from the public education system in this country. Public education has lifted millions out of poverty, has put millions in good paying jobs, and has been the launching pad for people who went on to cure disease and to create inventions that have changed our society for the better.

“Betsy DeVos would single-handedly decimate our public education system if she were confirmed. Her plan to privatize education would deprive students from a good public education, while helping students from wealthy families get another leg up. It would deprive teachers of a decent salary, and it would make it harder for parents to get a good education for their kids.

“Betsy DeVos would be just another member of the swamp cabinet that is full of billionaires and bankers. The fact that she refuses to divest from companies that would line her family’s pocket as education secretary, while crushing students with additional debt is all the proof one needs to know that she is in this for herself, and not for students.”

DeVos is a Michigan billionaire who has spent most of the past three decades using her clout and her wealth to advocate for the expansion of taxpayer-funded voucher programs and charter schools. The nation’s two major teachers unions have vigorously opposed her nomination from the start, calling her an enemy of public education with no qualifications for the job of education secretary.

DeVos’s supporters say that she is a bold reformer who is dedicated to taking on unions and the entire education establishment, if that’s what it takes to ensure that more children — especially those from low-income families — have access to good schools.

But opposition to DeVos appeared to spike after her Jan. 17 confirmation hearing, during which she stumbled over basic education policy, declined to promise that she wouldn’t try to privatize public schools and passed up a chance to reassure senators that she would not seek to rein in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. She also said she opposes a blanket ban on guns in schools — citing one example of a rural school that might want to protect against “potential grizzlies” — a statement that brought near-immediate ridicule from late-night comics.

DeVos acknowledged that she and her family members have probably donated at least $200 million to Republicans over the years, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who sought the Democratic nomination for president, asked her at the hearing if she thought she’d be a nominee if not for those donations; she said she would be either way. The teachers’ unions are regular contributors to Hill Democrats, and the NEA was an early endorser of Democrat Hillary Clinton in her presidential bid.

Some protesters at Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington carried anti-DeVos signs, and liberal filmmaker Michael Moore exhorted the hundreds of thousands in attendance to call their senators every day to voice opposition to the Education nominee. More than 250,000 people have signed a Change.org petition opposing her nomination.

Eskelsen Garcia, the NEA president, said that the pushback matters — even if DeVos does end up winning confirmation from the Senate.

“We now have more activists that we can activate on a moment’s notice when we need them,” she said. “They’ve told us, ‘This is vital to us, this is important to us, we are passionate for this.’ And they will want to hold people accountable, from Donald Trump to Betsy DeVos to the senators who made it possible for her to have that kind of power.”

I was one of those people calling Tim Kaine's office. They have heard from me frequently.

[Ali]

I called both my Senators about it last week. One of them, Gary Peters, spoke out about her on twitter. He tweeted a youtube video of his speech in front of the Senate about how unqualified he thinks she is for the position.

[candygirl200413]

Praying that it will actually mean something and they will get a majority. I've been calling my republican senator since he is a little wimp and won't speak against anyone essentially.

[Toothfairy]

Well I live in NYC. Our schools aren't bad depending on your area. Just competitive. Thank goodness I don't live in TX. Sorry Texans. But damn this is terrible. We have idiots running our country. 

[SpurgeonSquarepants]

Debbie replied!

[onekidanddone]

On 1/24/2017 at 10:38 AM, ShepherdontheRock said:

You know, on a slight tangent, I saw at the Women's March a woman who had a sign about marching for the children murdered at Sandy Hook, and it had all their names on it. And it got me to thinking, all those babies were murdered and we still ain't done shit. 

And this woman has the fucking nerve. 

THE FUCKING NERVE! 

but but she said we need guns in school cuz you know bears.  Ugh I can't even joke about it makes so so sick. 

[Toothfairy]

3 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

but but she said we need guns in school cuz you know bears.  Ugh I can't even joke about it makes so so sick. 

Why would bears enter schools?

[candygirl200413]

When she made that comment I gasped. Especially because the Chris Murphy was asking this question who is from Connecticut and for her to say that I just couldn't and still can't form the words. Also it kills me how nothing is going to happen as a result for such a long time.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Sen. Franken: No Democrat will vote for Betsy DeVos as education secretary — and we’re seeking Republicans to oppose her"

Spoiler

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) told Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show Thursday night that no Democrat will vote to confirm Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire tapped by President Trump to be his education secretary. He also said Democrats were actively looking for Republicans to vote against her.

Her supporters praise her for being a longtime advocate of school choice, but her critics say her education advocacy is aimed at privatizing the country’s public education system.

DeVos appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions last week and fumbled badly, displaying a lack of understanding of key education issues under tough questioning from Democrats.

Since then, opposition to her nomination has been growing. Tens of thousands of people have called or written to senators urging them to vote against her, more than 1 million people have signed petitions, and hundreds of alumni and students from her alma mater, Calvin College, wrote a letter to the legislators saying she was unqualified to be education secretary.

DeVos has received expressions of support, too, notably from former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Her supporters are also pointing to public backing from Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS) Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal. WOOD-TV reported on emails and correspondence it had obtained on the endorsement. It said in part:

The correspondence shows plans for a trip to DeVos’ confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., paid for by DeVos’ nonprofit, American Federation for Children. It also included “talking points” provided by the organization.”

The leader of the GRPS teachers union said the emails and correspondence raise questions about whether the superintendent is too closely tied to DeVos.

The committee is scheduled to vote on her nomination on Tuesday, Jan. 31, a week later than originally scheduled. Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) moved the date after Democrats demanded more time to ask her questions after her confirmation hearing performance. He declined a Democratic request for a second hearing.

Franken told Maddow that Senate Democrats held a recent retreat to talk about strategy for dealing with Trump’s Cabinet nominees, though he declined to say what it was. He did say that DeVos was one of the nominations that would receive strong Democratic opposition. He did not specifically say whether he meant on the education committee or the Senate floor, but it seemed as if he was talking about a confirmation vote in the entire Senate.

“You talk about DeVos,” he said. “She is someone that there’s not going to be one Democratic vote for her, and we’re trying to find Republicans who will vote against her because she’s an ideologue who knows next to nothing about education policy as we demonstrated, or she demonstrated really, in her confirmation hearing.”

He also said: “There’s going to be a lot of these nominees who we’re going to do everything we can to defeat. As you know, these nominees need 51 votes and we have 48, so we need some Republicans…. You will see a number of these nominees who virtually all of us [Democrats] will oppose…. I’m sure that’s true of DeVos.”

Will any Republicans oppose her? That remains to be seen. No Republican senator has come out publicly against her, and some have promised to vote for her.

During the confirmation hearing, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told DeVos that she had some issues with her strong vision of expanding school choice because it is difficult in rural areas to provide choices other than traditional public schools. Murkowski is one of five Republican senators on the committee to whom DeVos and family members have given donations; the other four are Sens. Richard Burr, Tim Scott, Bill Cassidy and Todd Young.

It is not clear where Maine’s senior senator, Republican Susan Collins, who is a member of the committee, stands on the DeVos nomination. The Portland Press Herald reported that her office has said she would vote in support of Elaine Chao for transportation secretary, as well as Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama for attorney general and former senator Dan Coats of Indiana as director of national intelligence. But it did not say how she would vote on DeVos.

Maine’s other senator, Angus King (I), has said he will vote against DeVos.

So did Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). The Senate minority leader released a blistering statement saying he would “proudly” vote against DeVos:

“The President’s decision to ask Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education should offend every single American man, woman, and child who has benefitted from the public education system in this country. Public education has lifted millions out of poverty, has put millions in good paying jobs, and has been the launching pad for people who went on to cure disease and to create inventions that have changed our society for the better.

“Betsy DeVos would single-handedly decimate our public education system if she were confirmed. Her plan to privatize education would deprive students from a good public education, while helping students from wealthy families get another leg up. It would deprive teachers of a decent salary, and it would make it harder for parents to get a good education for their kids.

“Betsy DeVos would be just another member of the swamp cabinet that is full of billionaires and bankers. The fact that she refuses to divest from companies that would line her family’s pocket as education secretary, while crushing students with additional debt is all the proof one needs to know that she is in this for herself, and not for students.”

Schumer’s comment that she would “single-handedly decimate” was hyperbolic, as no education secretary can do that all by themselves. That would require help from Congress, the president and state legislatures.

Here are the members of the committee who will vote on her nomination.
Chairman
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
Ranking Member
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

Majority:
Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.)
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.)
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.)

Minority
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.)
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)
Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)
Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.)

I hope they can find a couple of Repubs with a soul to vote against her.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The telling letter Betsy DeVos wrote to clarify her position on U.S. disabilities law". The full text of the letter is enclosed in the article, so I encourage everyone to read it. Here are a couple of highlights/lowlights from the article:

Quote

...DeVos wrote the letter to Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, after a Jan. 17 confirmation hearing in which DeVos revealed a lack of understanding of basic education issues, including IDEA.

...

Days later, DeVos wrote a letter to Isakson trying to explain her position on IDEA. The letter raises new questions about her priorities.

DeVos wrote in the letter (see text below) that she understands IDEA is a federal law and that she is “eager to bring a sense of urgency” to enforcing it. She said that she wants schools to strengthen student IEPs, which are Individual Education Programs that spell out special-education learning goals and needed services/accommodations.

She then said she wants to provide students with disabilities more educational opportunities — and praised a voucher program that helps students with disabilities attend private school funded with taxpayer dollars.

...

She doesn’t talk specifically about helping traditional public schools — which educate the vast majority of America’s schoolchildren — improve their special education programs or how they implement IDEA.

Rather, she praised the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship program in Ohio, which gives public funds to eligible K-12 students who have IEPs to attend the private school of their choice. That program, as well as many other voucher programs, require participating families to agree to give up special education due-process rights they are given under the IDEA law.

In her exchange with Kaine during the hearing, she referred to a Florida voucherlike program, saying that parents like it, but she didn’t mention that parents who agree to participate also have to give up legal rights to accept money for tuition.

...

The American Association of People with Disabilities issued a statement saying in part:

The mission of the Department of Education must be to advance a national system of quality public education and protect the rights of all children, including children with disabilities, within that system. Ms. DeVos’ testimony during her confirmation hearing, together with her lengthy record of supporting the diversion of public tax dollars to private schools that limit the rights of students with disabilities, indicate that as Secretary she would undermine that critical mission….

Denise Marshall, executive director of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) issued a statement that said in part:

“It’s clear that Betsy DeVos is not, nor has ever been an advocate for children with disabilities. The fact that she didn’t understand the basics about education concepts or the three essential federal education laws is embarrassing and her lack of knowledge on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is appalling. We are alarmingly concerned. Furthermore, she advocates for vouchers writ large — as if they can solve every family’s dilemma.”

She is such a piece of work.

[VelociRapture]

Just in case no one has posted something similar:

Three more "no" votes are needed. Share this with your friends and family who live in the states listed above.

[VixenToast]

I wonder what the chance of Don Bacon (R-NE) voting no is.  There are no charter schools in Nebraska, by law I believe.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Teachers, parents, kids protest DeVos education nomination ahead of Senate vote"

Spoiler

A crowd of teachers, parents and children gathered near the U.S. Capitol on Sunday to protest Betsy DeVos’s nomination to be education secretary, calling the Michigan billionaire a threat to public education and urging the Senate to reject her.

Using drums and noisemakers, the group of protesters chanted “Toss DeVos” “Betsy is a threat-sy” and “A, B, C, D, E, F, G, Betsy DeVos is not for me.”

Similar protests took place over the weekend in Portland, Ore.; Nashville; and Holland, Mich., DeVos’s home town.

The protests came ahead of the Senate education committee’s vote on DeVos’s confirmation, which is scheduled for Tuesday morning. DeVos has spent most of the past three decades using her wealth to advocate for the expansion of taxpayer-funded voucher programs and charter schools, she has characterized public schools as a “dead end,” and she has drawn passionate opposition from teachers’ unions and public school advocates.

DeVos has become one of President Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks, in large part because of her stumbles on basic education policy during her Jan. 17 confirmation hearing.

Under questioning from Democratic senators, DeVos declined to say that she wouldn’t privatize public schools, declined to commit to aggressively pursuing sexual assault cases at colleges, appeared confused about a federal law protecting students with disabilities and said she opposes a ban on guns in schools, citing an example of a rural school that might need a gun to protect against “potential grizzlies” — a comment that has elicited scorn and late-night television show ridicule.

Some of the dozens of protesters in Washington on Sunday — including Caitlin Davies, a 30-year-old special-education teacher in Arlington, Va. — attended to stand up for the rights of public school students who need special services. She said such students need strong advocacy.

“I don’t think we are going to be getting that from Betsy,” Davies said, noting that it was “terrifying” to hear DeVos fumble through questions about federal special-education resources. “She had no understanding and has no business making decisions about education.”

DeVos’s supporters — including Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the education committee and a former education secretary — say that she is a bold reformer who is willing to take on unions and the education establishment to give more children, especially those from low-income households, access to good schools. They say her views on vouchers and charters align with the mainstream and that her desire for local control over education matches what Congress did with the recent federal education law.

Two kindergarten teachers from Alexandria, Althea Goldberg and Katie Keier, organized the protest in Washington on Sunday. They said they met on Tuesday to review their students’ academic progress, but spent much of their time lamenting that DeVos could soon be the nation’s top education official.

“I remember disliking certain nominations, but never have I felt the fear that feel about DeVos,” Keier said. “I know it’s probable that she will be confirmed, but let’s have our voices heard.”

Keier, who has taught for 25 years, said she especially wants the voices of her kindergartners to be represented. During school last week, she asked them what message they want to send the person who might be the next education secretary.

The kindergartners wrote their words on posters that she brought with her to the protest. One, in red marker read: “Care about teachers and kids!” Another wrote “Let us play” and drew what appeared to be a person playing with a toy car.

Goldberg, who is in her fifth year of teaching, said she has many concerns about DeVos’s fitness for the job.

“She has no experience in public education. Her children never went to public school. She has no experience with student loans,” Goldberg said. “Everything about her concerns me.”

Jocelyn Nieva’s son Ben — who is 24 and in college — spent his entire time in public school needing special-education services, but Nieva said she had to fight to get him the right resources. When Nieva heard DeVos say that federal protections for special-education students should be left up to the states, she was outraged.

“She is either ignorant or dismissing federal mandates,” Nieva, a District resident, said during the protest. “I have no senator and this is an issue I am passionate about. I have to speak with my body and my sign.”

Although Jennifer Zwelling of Bladensburg, Md., is an art teacher at a private school — the National Cathedral School — she is opposed to DeVos’s support for vouchers that would let students take public money to pay tuition at private or parochial schools.

“Vouchers are wrong because they take money from the public education system and put it in private schools. The systems need to be separate,” said Zwelling, 48. “Our public schools desperately need the funding.”

Zwelling and others said they believe it’s likely DeVos will be confirmed, but they wanted to speak out publicly ahead of the vote.

“I still felt the need to be here, and I will continue to support public education,” Zwelling said.

 

This is an interesting development. Protests every weekend. Hopefully they will make a difference in the long run.

[RoseWilder]

I just saw this on twitter: 

 

[clueliss]

This was on my Facebook Feed this morning.  Fire up the phones etc folks.

 

The vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Sec of Education was delayed due to outpouring of resistance. The hearing will now be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 31 so that Republicans have more time to garner votes. So if you have a strong opinion on this, you can take action by doing the following:
Please call one of the following Republican Senators (key in the confirmation vote) to express your opinion on the appointment. At least 3 of these senators need to be convinced in order to block DeVos' nomination.
Don't email. Don't tweet. Please call them!
Then, PLEASE SHARE WIDELY:
If you live in one of the states represented below, PLEASE call YOUR Senator. If you don't, pick one and call them
Susan Collins (ME) 207.622.8414..&..202.224.2523
Lamar Alexander (TN) 615.736.5129..&..202.224.4944
Lisa Murkowski (AK) 907.586.7277..&..202.224.6665
Johnny Isakson (GA) 770.661.0999..&..202.224.3643
Orrin Hatch (UT) 801.524.4380..&..202.224.5251
Richard Burr (NC) 336.631.5125..&..202.224.3154..&.. 910.251.1058..&..828.350.2437
Michael Enzi (WY) 202.224.3424
Dr. Bill Cassidy (LA) 202.224.5824
Pat Roberts (KS) 202.224.4774
Tim Scott (SC) 202.224.6121
Rand Paul (KY) 202.224.4343

I'm taking aim as a former Kansan who is the guardian/conservator of a Kansan at Roberts.  

 

http://networkforpubliceducation.org/2016/11/tell-your-senator-to-vote-no-for-betsy-devos/

Form emails at the above link.  

[quiversR4hunting]

On Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 4:35 PM, VelociRapture said:

Just in case no one has posted something similar:

Three more "no" votes are needed. Share this with your friends and family who live in the states listed above.

I was just going to share this same thing. Quoting you to bump the thread so if any FJers are from the above states, please ask your rep to vote no. Please.