Does It Matter Who DeVos Hires? Tucker V Finn, Allen On Choice Privilege, New Paharans, Campus Politics, Pizza Essay, Bear Punching, More!

Here is an education PSA campaign like no other. Seriously. It’s barely SFW.

Department of Agriculture analysis on rural education attainment. Here’s The 74 with more on that and the context.

Jeanne Allen argues that the real schism in education is between the haves and have nots on choices and options.

Marc Tucker responds to Checker Finn on the value international comparisons.

Department of short memories: The Times breathlessly reports today that some of the Trump Administration’s education hires are not from the hardcore Trump fold. Great.

But just a few months ago (yes it does feel like longer) Education Secretary Betsy DeVos went up against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over what the administration’s position on the Obama Administration transgender policy should be. She lost. In no uncertain terms. That will happen again every time the Department of Education goes up against the Department of Justice, or Treasury (happening now on choice), or State or DOD if that ever happened, OMB, and certainly against the key players in the West Wing. Also the Hill. It matters more what David Cleary – Senator Alexander’s COS – thinks than what any DeVos staffers do at this point.

That’s all well-established by now via issues around the budget, personnel, the transgender guidance, and more. In fact, there is no counter-example on anything of any consequence. So around the edges this is probably good news, and it’s certainly interesting. But, in terms of the big picture and any key policy issues and anything that actually matters it’s academic at this point who Betsy DeVos appoints given how this administration is operating and the situation DeVos herself is in politically. They could bring John Dewey back from the dead, slap a MAGA hat on him, give him one of the myriad open roles, and he’d still get rolled.

Of course, we are talking about Trump here, so all this comes with a huge caveat given that things are always in motion with him. Betsy DeVos could be White House Chief of Staff at this time next week…

Anyway, elsewhere:

Authentic project-based learning increasingly popular.

Evergreen State situation heating up. School closed today, too. Meanwhile, back at Middlebury. Today in college essays.

New class of Pahara Next Gen fellows.

Bear punching.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.