Republican Assault on Public Education (1 Viewer)

[MT15]

This probably needs its own thread. It ties in with a lot of different R culture wars: Attacks on universities, attacks on CRT and “woke”. Classifying teachers and librarians as “groomers”. Pushing vouchers to send tax money to private, often religious, schools. Betsy DeVos was an advocate for all these policies that will weaken public education, and there are several billionaires who also want to dismantle public education. Public education may have its faults, but it is responsible for an amazing amount of upward mobility. Kids from poor areas can still get a college prep education in a public school.

Vouchers (sometimes disguised as “school choice”) are a particular peeve of mine. Public money is diverted from poor schools to wealthy private schools, which aren’t required to offer accommodations for special needs or challenged students. Families with special needs kids are left out. Rural areas often suffer disproportionately because there are no private schools to attend, but their public schools still see the reduction in funding. Often the families who take advantage of the voucher money are upper class and the private schools simply raise tuition knowing the families are getting taxpayer money now.

Greg Abbot is being particularly vile in this area. No surprise. Voters will have to make a statement about public education. If we want to halt the growing divide in this country between the “haves” and “have-nots”, we need to pay attention to public education.

 

[J-DONK]

they have no cliue how it works just like their dear leader. trump is doing this so he can rule colleges and control them and fork everyone else.

We had thread here with a couple of conserative poster's ragging on the American education system. They knew absolutely nothing about it, and what they did know was wrong.

 

[Sendai]

Without the Department of Education, how will the government run Title 1 to manage funding for low income schools, or the college loan programs, or civil rights disputes? I also keep hearing that DE was running school curriculums and are responsible for poor education, but that isn’t true. School curriculums and management are run locally. The DE only has responsibility to help disabled kids and otherwise provide funding.

“At the signing, Trump said federal Pell grants (a common type of federal undergraduate financial aid), Title I funding and resources and funding for children with disabilities would be “preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments.””

What to know about how Trump's executive order will affect American education

While big questions about the agency’s future remain unanswered, here is everything to know about its history and some of the plans conservatives have pushed for dismantling it.

www.nbcnews.com

“ It also oversees federal student loans held by nearly 43 million people, or 1 in 6 American adults, according to the Congressional Research Service.”

“Trump told reporters in the White House on March 6 that student loans would be brought under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, Commerce Department or the Small Business Administration (SBA). ”

 

[coldseat]

“At the signing, Trump said federal Pell grants (a common type of federal undergraduate financial aid), Title I funding and resources and funding for children with disabilities would be “preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments.””

What to know about how Trump's executive order will affect American education

While big questions about the agency’s future remain unanswered, here is everything to know about its history and some of the plans conservatives have pushed for dismantling it.

www.nbcnews.com

“ It also oversees federal student loans held by nearly 43 million people, or 1 in 6 American adults, according to the Congressional Research Service.”

“Trump told reporters in the White House on March 6 that student loans would be brought under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, Commerce Department or the Small Business Administration (SBA). ”

So they're going to split the work of one department into 3 departments all because the Dept of Education looked out of minorities ..... efficient.

Without a doubt the most racist (and every other "ist") administration since the civil right movement.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

So they're going to split the work of one department into 3 departments all because the Dept of Education looked out of minorities ..... efficient.

Without a doubt the most racist (and every other "ist") administration since the civil right movement.

Not only that, he's adding the work to other agencies while also slashing the workforce of those agencies.

 

[bird]

Close it down. Take all the monies and throw it on the debt.

Let the states fend for themselves.

These people want destruction?

Let us give them destruction.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Columbia agrees to Trump demands to win back $400 million federal funding

School reportedly agreed to stepped-up police power over students, banning masks, and reorganizing a major department

www.independent.co.uk

 

[fooferdoggie]

Columbia agrees to Trump demands to win back $400 million federal funding

School reportedly agreed to stepped-up police power over students, banning masks, and reorganizing a major department

www.independent.co.uk

this is what trump is after extortion to get his crazy shirt in all schools.

 

[MT15]

“At the signing, Trump said federal Pell grants (a common type of federal undergraduate financial aid), Title I funding and resources and funding for children with disabilities would be “preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments.””

What to know about how Trump's executive order will affect American education

While big questions about the agency’s future remain unanswered, here is everything to know about its history and some of the plans conservatives have pushed for dismantling it.

www.nbcnews.com

“ It also oversees federal student loans held by nearly 43 million people, or 1 in 6 American adults, according to the Congressional Research Service.”

“Trump told reporters in the White House on March 6 that student loans would be brought under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, Commerce Department or the Small Business Administration (SBA). ”

Do you think it’s wise to believe what Trumps says?

Doesn’t his statement about where the student loans will be overseen seem pretty vague? Shouldn’t there be a concrete plan in place before we got to this point?

Isn’t Trump the most incompetent leader you have ever seen?

 

[Sendai]

Do you think it’s wise to believe what Trumps says?

Doesn’t his statement about where the student loans will be overseen seem pretty vague? Shouldn’t there be a concrete plan in place before we got to this point?

Isn’t Trump the most incompetent leader you have ever seen?

He isn’t crafting any of this. I noticed a couple of weeks back the EO’s were were being packed with legalese that identified compliance with legislative and statutory authority.

It was announced that Pell and Student loans will be handled by SBA and Title 1 goes to HHS.

 

[MT15]

He isn’t crafting any of this. I noticed a couple of weeks back the EO’s were were being packed with legalese that identified compliance with legislative and statutory authority.

It was announced that Pell and Student loans will be handled by SBA and Title 1 goes to HHS.

So you’re just fine with this? Not on shaky ground at all to dismantle an agency created and funded by the legislature?

This is all crazy and you know if Biden had done anything like any of this you would have been screaming about Executive overreach.

The constitution doesn’t mean much to you at all, even though you like to pretend it does.

 

[Sendai]

So you’re just fine with this? Not on shaky ground at all to dismantle an agency created and funded by the legislature?

This is all crazy and you know if Biden had done anything like any of this you would have been screaming about Executive overreach.

The constitution doesn’t mean much to you at all, even though you like to pretend it does.

“The order instructs McMahon to act "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law," an acknowledgement that the department and its signature responsibilities were created by Congress and cannot legally be ended without congressional approval. That would almost certainly require 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to overcome a Democratic filibuster.”


I’m ok with streamlining the operations and narrowing the focus to those activities specifically identified by congressional statute.

 

[MT15]

I’m ok with streamlining the operations and narrowing the focus to those activities specifically identified by congressional statute.

That’s not what they’re doing and you know it. They cannot disband a department that was created and funded by Congress and split it up into pieces and assign those pieces to other departments.

This is executive overreach. Why do you support it?

 

[Optimus Prime]

Hundreds of firings inside the federal government’s student aid department have sparked concern among workers and student loanadvocates, who warn that the student loan system is at risk.

Linda McMahon, the wrestling industry billionaire now serving as education secretary, has presented the sweeping cuts as an efficiency drive.

But employees within the US Department of Education warn they set the stage for widespread fraud and abuse.

“They got rid of all of the quality checkers. It’s only a matter of time [before] they cause the whole system to fail,” said one senior official who was spared by the cuts. They requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.


“If this was a bank, and they fired all the quality assurance team, their regulator would have shut them down,” the official said. “It’s the opposite of safety.”

Federal Student Aid, a unit within the education department, oversees $1.6tn in student loans. At least 300 of its employees were dismissed last week.

Following the firings, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday instructing McMahon to start dismantling the Department of Education, in an apparent attempt to circumvent the need to obtain congressional approval to formally close a federal department.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (Fafsa) website also experienced an hours-long outage. Officials denied it was related to the cuts.

The senior official argued the blitz will likely result in more issues, such as longer wait times to get in contact with loan service providers, and more errors.

“As an organization, we were already doing a lot more work than our staffing provides. We would need 10 times more people for a bank of our size,” they said.

The Trump administration is also “lying” about how the cuts were targeted, according to the official. “They said they got rid of low performers, but they didn’t do any of that assessment.”……

US education department insiders warn student loan system at risk: ‘The gatekeepers are gone’

Mass firings spark concern as department employees say cuts set stage for widespread fraud and abuse

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

University presidents need to be working together to speak up against Donald Trump. Across the country, higher education is facing a crisis that threatens the entire vision of independence: a direct federal government effort to destroy academic freedom by controlling ideas and acceptable areas of inquiry.

University leaders should be standing in solidarity with those who have been attacked to defend academic freedom and free speech. So far, all but five have been silent.

The US president has made no secret of his intent to control what is studied, thought, and debated.

His administration sent a letter to Columbia University demanding sweeping changes, including placing the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies department under “academic receivership” for five years, abolishing the university judicial board, and centralizing all disciplinary processes under the office of the president.

Such unprecedented intervention is blatantly illegal and a wholesale attack on academic freedom and free speech. On Friday, Columbia capitulated.

It is an embarrassment to Columbia, of course, but the embarrassment is not Columbia’s alone. The use of federal funding threats to control universities should be a five-alarm fire for the thousands of other universities, and yet the response from the majority of academic leadership has been silence.

By my count, five university presidents have publicly condemned Trump. The President of Wesleyan, Michael Roth, has been the first and loudest, clearly expressing the unacceptable nature of Trump’s attack.

The presidents of Mount Holyoke, Delta College in Michigan, Trinity Community College in Washington DC, and Princeton have also made clear that what Trump is doing is unacceptable.

The thousands of others who are keeping totally quiet know what is happening, and how serious it is; in a recent survey, 94% said Trump directly threatened academic freedom.

The silence from university presidents is particularly jarring when compared with the swift and seemingly coordinated statements universities have issued on dozens of other issues – from US supreme court decisions to international conflicts to campus protests.

Now that it comes to defending their core institutional values against a direct authoritarian attack, their collective voice is crickets.

The reasons are understandable. If any one university speaks out, they are scared Trump would pull funding. The president of that university will have to see the place they love and the people they are responsible for gutted by a $50 or $100 or $400 million cut, either to federal grants or scholarships.

What if speaking out will change nothing? Why risk the all-critical research of their science faculty, important scholarships for their students, for a statement that might lead to naught?

This is the grotesque genius of his attack on Columbia, which operated like putting a dead body on a car for all to see – so long as each university president sees their job in isolation, and their possible defiance in isolation, all arrows point towards silence. He wins without even having to fight………

Why are other universities silent in condemning Trump’s attacks on Columbia? | Zephyr Teachout

If university leaders allow themselves to be bullied, how do we expect any other institutions to stand up?

www.theguardian.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

University presidents need to be working together to speak up against Donald Trump. Across the country, higher education is facing a crisis that threatens the entire vision of independence: a direct federal government effort to destroy academic freedom by controlling ideas and acceptable areas of inquiry.

because they will be next. trump has them cowed just like he wants.

 

[Sendai]

That’s not what they’re doing and you know it. They cannot disband a department that was created and funded by Congress and split it up into pieces and assign those pieces to other departments.

This is executive overreach. Why do you support it?

“The order instructs McMahon to act "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law," an acknowledgement that the department and its signature responsibilities were created by Congress and cannot legally be ended without congressional approval.”

They aren’t disbanding the department.

As long as the the Title 1, Pell Grants, and College Loan statutory requirements are being met I don’t care who does it

 

[MT15]

“The order instructs McMahon to act "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law," an acknowledgement that the department and its signature responsibilities were created by Congress and cannot legally be ended without congressional approval.”

They aren’t disbanding the department.

As long as the the Title 1, Pell Grants, and College Loan statutory requirements are being met I don’t care who does it

What in the world makes you think they will still be met? Honest question, what about the manner this admin is doing things makes you think they care one bit about statutory requirements?

It hasn’t mattered to them with any of their other actions. Why would you believe this lip service now?

They are withholding approved federal funding on a whim in multiple places. They have truly weaponized the Justice Dept, unlike anything ever done before.

Why do you believe anything they say they will do?

 

[zztop]

That’s not what they’re doing and you know it. They cannot disband a department that was created and funded by Congress and split it up into pieces and assign those pieces to other departments.

This is executive overreach. Why do you support it?

we know the answer: "it's okay when our side does it"