SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Betsy DeVos once called public schools a "dead end," but now that she's U.S. Secretary of Education, she's suddenly all for them.
At least that's what she claims now.
Betsy DeVos once called public schools a "dead end," but now that she's U.S. Secretary of Education, she's suddenly all for them.
At least that's what she claims now.
During her nomination process, numerous reporters noted DeVos's obvious bias against public schools. As education journalist Valerie Strauss reported on her blog at the Washington Post, DeVos "made some controversial statements" about public schools, "calling the traditional public education system a 'dead end.'" Strauss noted DeVos had once said, "government truly sucks."
But now she claims to be all for public schools, at least according to reports on her recent speech to a conference of big city school leaders. "I've said this before, and it bears repeating," Education Week reports, "I support great public schools."
Has DeVos had a sudden change of heart? That's doubtful.
First, recall her first visit to a public school shortly after taking office. After her brief tour of Jefferson Middle School Academy in Washington, DC, DeVos castigated teachers for being in "receive mode ... waiting to be told what they have to do."
So what does her claim of a new-found fondness for "great public schools" really mean?
What Does Devos Mean By 'Great Public School?'
First set aside the squishy modifier "great."
There is widespread disagreement on what a "great" school is and how you can tell a school deserves that modifier.
Many states that were coerced into imposing school rating systems to supposedly determine, in an objective way, the quality of schools are in the process of dumping those rating systems. Recently, Michigan, DeVos's home state, got rid of its rating system.
So what does DeVos mean by "public school?"
It turns out that's becoming a squishy term too, at least if school choice advocates have their way.
Are Private Schools Public?
As NC Policy Watch, a left-leaning group in North Carolina, reports, the Tar Heel state has been targeted by school choice pressure groups to re-define what it means to be a public school.
The effort, according to education reporter Billy Ball, is "geared toward rebranding for-profit virtual charters and private school recipients of taxpayer-backed vouchers as public schools."
Ball points to out-of-state school choice proponent Public School Options as an instigator in a campaign to advocate the state's controversial online charter school, operated by private for-profit company K12 Inc., that's been "troubled by high dropout rates and flagging academic numbers in its first two years of operation."
Ball writes, "Public school supporters say the new push ... is a misleading new tactic that seems intended to reclassify for-profit virtual charters and private schools as public institutions."
Similarly, the Florida school choice advocacy group RefinED contends that school vouchers, which allow parents to transfer students to private schools at taxpayer expense, make private schools part of the public school system. The group's advocacy draws from recent think tank pieces and other sources to argue for "a new definition of public education, which is publicly funded and publicly accountable -- and encompasses private schools."
The intent here is to make you believe that private online schools and voucher funded schools are public schools just because they get public money.
Charter School Slippery Slope
Anyone who has been paying attention to the growth of the charter school industry could see this coming from a long way off.
For years, charter school advocates have insisted on calling their schools public schools.
But charter schools fail the test for what constitutes a truly public institution in many ways.
In a policy brief from the National Education Policy Center, "The Business of Charter Schooling: Understanding the Policies that Charter Operators Use for Financial Benefit," Bruce Baker and Gary Miron detail how the very structure of the charter schools makes them very different from public schools.
Charters generally aren't subject to the same disclosure laws as public officials. They can outsource school operations to private entities that can evade transparency laws for open meetings, public access to records, and financial disclosures. And charter organizations often claim exemptions to constitutional (and some statutory) protections that are customarily guaranteed to public school employees and students.
In my own report about charter operations in North Carolina, I find these schools regularly mask how their charitable dollars are spent and how much they profit from related real estate deals and education management firms. A law professor I interview argues that these schools are likely not in compliance with nonprofit law.
These important differences between charter schools and traditional public schools are not generally understood or appreciated by even the most knowledgeable people, which is why charter advocates put so much energy and resources in marketing their operations as "public" schools.
Now their argument is revealed as a slippery slope to claim any private operator can be a public school simply by getting public funds.
Parallel School Systems
None of the options school choice advocates promote - charter schools, voucher supported private schools, online schools operated by private companies - are part of a truly public school system.
They are instead, parallel school systems - each necessitating separate layers of bureaucracy and oversight and each siphoning money out of the taxpayer supported school system.
"When it comes to the education of a child," DeVos said in her address to urban school leaders, "I am agnostic as to the delivery system, or the building in which it takes place. If a child is able to grow and flourish, it shouldn't matter where they learn."
That might sound like a really nice idea.
School choice proponents like DeVos often argue that all that matters is whether students who attend charters, online schools, and private academies do well on standardized tests and that parents are generally satisfied with these choices.
But this argument ignores the tax-paying public that deserves to know whether those outcomes are being achieved without wasting our public dollars, which more often than not, they probably are.
Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy, justice, and a free press are escalating — putting everything we stand for at risk. We believe a better world is possible, but we can’t get there without your support. Common Dreams stands apart. We answer only to you — our readers, activists, and changemakers — not to billionaires or corporations. Our independence allows us to cover the vital stories that others won’t, spotlighting movements for peace, equality, and human rights. Right now, our work faces unprecedented challenges. Misinformation is spreading, journalists are under attack, and financial pressures are mounting. As a reader-supported, nonprofit newsroom, your support is crucial to keep this journalism alive. Whatever you can give — $10, $25, or $100 — helps us stay strong and responsive when the world needs us most. Together, we’ll continue to build the independent, courageous journalism our movement relies on. Thank you for being part of this community. |
Betsy DeVos once called public schools a "dead end," but now that she's U.S. Secretary of Education, she's suddenly all for them.
At least that's what she claims now.
During her nomination process, numerous reporters noted DeVos's obvious bias against public schools. As education journalist Valerie Strauss reported on her blog at the Washington Post, DeVos "made some controversial statements" about public schools, "calling the traditional public education system a 'dead end.'" Strauss noted DeVos had once said, "government truly sucks."
But now she claims to be all for public schools, at least according to reports on her recent speech to a conference of big city school leaders. "I've said this before, and it bears repeating," Education Week reports, "I support great public schools."
Has DeVos had a sudden change of heart? That's doubtful.
First, recall her first visit to a public school shortly after taking office. After her brief tour of Jefferson Middle School Academy in Washington, DC, DeVos castigated teachers for being in "receive mode ... waiting to be told what they have to do."
So what does her claim of a new-found fondness for "great public schools" really mean?
What Does Devos Mean By 'Great Public School?'
First set aside the squishy modifier "great."
There is widespread disagreement on what a "great" school is and how you can tell a school deserves that modifier.
Many states that were coerced into imposing school rating systems to supposedly determine, in an objective way, the quality of schools are in the process of dumping those rating systems. Recently, Michigan, DeVos's home state, got rid of its rating system.
So what does DeVos mean by "public school?"
It turns out that's becoming a squishy term too, at least if school choice advocates have their way.
Are Private Schools Public?
As NC Policy Watch, a left-leaning group in North Carolina, reports, the Tar Heel state has been targeted by school choice pressure groups to re-define what it means to be a public school.
The effort, according to education reporter Billy Ball, is "geared toward rebranding for-profit virtual charters and private school recipients of taxpayer-backed vouchers as public schools."
Ball points to out-of-state school choice proponent Public School Options as an instigator in a campaign to advocate the state's controversial online charter school, operated by private for-profit company K12 Inc., that's been "troubled by high dropout rates and flagging academic numbers in its first two years of operation."
Ball writes, "Public school supporters say the new push ... is a misleading new tactic that seems intended to reclassify for-profit virtual charters and private schools as public institutions."
Similarly, the Florida school choice advocacy group RefinED contends that school vouchers, which allow parents to transfer students to private schools at taxpayer expense, make private schools part of the public school system. The group's advocacy draws from recent think tank pieces and other sources to argue for "a new definition of public education, which is publicly funded and publicly accountable -- and encompasses private schools."
The intent here is to make you believe that private online schools and voucher funded schools are public schools just because they get public money.
Charter School Slippery Slope
Anyone who has been paying attention to the growth of the charter school industry could see this coming from a long way off.
For years, charter school advocates have insisted on calling their schools public schools.
But charter schools fail the test for what constitutes a truly public institution in many ways.
In a policy brief from the National Education Policy Center, "The Business of Charter Schooling: Understanding the Policies that Charter Operators Use for Financial Benefit," Bruce Baker and Gary Miron detail how the very structure of the charter schools makes them very different from public schools.
Charters generally aren't subject to the same disclosure laws as public officials. They can outsource school operations to private entities that can evade transparency laws for open meetings, public access to records, and financial disclosures. And charter organizations often claim exemptions to constitutional (and some statutory) protections that are customarily guaranteed to public school employees and students.
In my own report about charter operations in North Carolina, I find these schools regularly mask how their charitable dollars are spent and how much they profit from related real estate deals and education management firms. A law professor I interview argues that these schools are likely not in compliance with nonprofit law.
These important differences between charter schools and traditional public schools are not generally understood or appreciated by even the most knowledgeable people, which is why charter advocates put so much energy and resources in marketing their operations as "public" schools.
Now their argument is revealed as a slippery slope to claim any private operator can be a public school simply by getting public funds.
Parallel School Systems
None of the options school choice advocates promote - charter schools, voucher supported private schools, online schools operated by private companies - are part of a truly public school system.
They are instead, parallel school systems - each necessitating separate layers of bureaucracy and oversight and each siphoning money out of the taxpayer supported school system.
"When it comes to the education of a child," DeVos said in her address to urban school leaders, "I am agnostic as to the delivery system, or the building in which it takes place. If a child is able to grow and flourish, it shouldn't matter where they learn."
That might sound like a really nice idea.
School choice proponents like DeVos often argue that all that matters is whether students who attend charters, online schools, and private academies do well on standardized tests and that parents are generally satisfied with these choices.
But this argument ignores the tax-paying public that deserves to know whether those outcomes are being achieved without wasting our public dollars, which more often than not, they probably are.
Betsy DeVos once called public schools a "dead end," but now that she's U.S. Secretary of Education, she's suddenly all for them.
At least that's what she claims now.
During her nomination process, numerous reporters noted DeVos's obvious bias against public schools. As education journalist Valerie Strauss reported on her blog at the Washington Post, DeVos "made some controversial statements" about public schools, "calling the traditional public education system a 'dead end.'" Strauss noted DeVos had once said, "government truly sucks."
But now she claims to be all for public schools, at least according to reports on her recent speech to a conference of big city school leaders. "I've said this before, and it bears repeating," Education Week reports, "I support great public schools."
Has DeVos had a sudden change of heart? That's doubtful.
First, recall her first visit to a public school shortly after taking office. After her brief tour of Jefferson Middle School Academy in Washington, DC, DeVos castigated teachers for being in "receive mode ... waiting to be told what they have to do."
So what does her claim of a new-found fondness for "great public schools" really mean?
What Does Devos Mean By 'Great Public School?'
First set aside the squishy modifier "great."
There is widespread disagreement on what a "great" school is and how you can tell a school deserves that modifier.
Many states that were coerced into imposing school rating systems to supposedly determine, in an objective way, the quality of schools are in the process of dumping those rating systems. Recently, Michigan, DeVos's home state, got rid of its rating system.
So what does DeVos mean by "public school?"
It turns out that's becoming a squishy term too, at least if school choice advocates have their way.
Are Private Schools Public?
As NC Policy Watch, a left-leaning group in North Carolina, reports, the Tar Heel state has been targeted by school choice pressure groups to re-define what it means to be a public school.
The effort, according to education reporter Billy Ball, is "geared toward rebranding for-profit virtual charters and private school recipients of taxpayer-backed vouchers as public schools."
Ball points to out-of-state school choice proponent Public School Options as an instigator in a campaign to advocate the state's controversial online charter school, operated by private for-profit company K12 Inc., that's been "troubled by high dropout rates and flagging academic numbers in its first two years of operation."
Ball writes, "Public school supporters say the new push ... is a misleading new tactic that seems intended to reclassify for-profit virtual charters and private schools as public institutions."
Similarly, the Florida school choice advocacy group RefinED contends that school vouchers, which allow parents to transfer students to private schools at taxpayer expense, make private schools part of the public school system. The group's advocacy draws from recent think tank pieces and other sources to argue for "a new definition of public education, which is publicly funded and publicly accountable -- and encompasses private schools."
The intent here is to make you believe that private online schools and voucher funded schools are public schools just because they get public money.
Charter School Slippery Slope
Anyone who has been paying attention to the growth of the charter school industry could see this coming from a long way off.
For years, charter school advocates have insisted on calling their schools public schools.
But charter schools fail the test for what constitutes a truly public institution in many ways.
In a policy brief from the National Education Policy Center, "The Business of Charter Schooling: Understanding the Policies that Charter Operators Use for Financial Benefit," Bruce Baker and Gary Miron detail how the very structure of the charter schools makes them very different from public schools.
Charters generally aren't subject to the same disclosure laws as public officials. They can outsource school operations to private entities that can evade transparency laws for open meetings, public access to records, and financial disclosures. And charter organizations often claim exemptions to constitutional (and some statutory) protections that are customarily guaranteed to public school employees and students.
In my own report about charter operations in North Carolina, I find these schools regularly mask how their charitable dollars are spent and how much they profit from related real estate deals and education management firms. A law professor I interview argues that these schools are likely not in compliance with nonprofit law.
These important differences between charter schools and traditional public schools are not generally understood or appreciated by even the most knowledgeable people, which is why charter advocates put so much energy and resources in marketing their operations as "public" schools.
Now their argument is revealed as a slippery slope to claim any private operator can be a public school simply by getting public funds.
Parallel School Systems
None of the options school choice advocates promote - charter schools, voucher supported private schools, online schools operated by private companies - are part of a truly public school system.
They are instead, parallel school systems - each necessitating separate layers of bureaucracy and oversight and each siphoning money out of the taxpayer supported school system.
"When it comes to the education of a child," DeVos said in her address to urban school leaders, "I am agnostic as to the delivery system, or the building in which it takes place. If a child is able to grow and flourish, it shouldn't matter where they learn."
That might sound like a really nice idea.
School choice proponents like DeVos often argue that all that matters is whether students who attend charters, online schools, and private academies do well on standardized tests and that parents are generally satisfied with these choices.
But this argument ignores the tax-paying public that deserves to know whether those outcomes are being achieved without wasting our public dollars, which more often than not, they probably are.
"We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it," said the CEO of an Alabama construction firm.
After months of national protests over U.S. President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, even some of his supporters—including an Alabama man who runs day-to-day operations at construction sites—have come to the conclusion that workplace raids aimed at rounding up undocumented immigrants are the wrong way to go.
In an interview with Reuters published Monday, construction site superintendent Robby Robertson expressed frustration at the way the Trump administration's hard-line immigration policies have impacted his business.
He said that trouble at his site began in late May shortly after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a construction site in Tallahassee, Florida, which he said scared off nearly his entire workforce for several days afterward. Even though nearly two months have passed since then, he said a little more than half of his workforce has come back.
This is negatively impacting his current project, which he said was projected to be finished already but which has been slow to complete now that his initial 22-person roofing team has dwindled down to just a dozen workers. As if that weren't enough, Reuters wrote that Robertson's company "is facing potentially $84,000 in extra costs for the delays under a 'liquidated damages' clause of $4,000 for every day the project runs beyond" its deadline.
"I'm a Trump supporter," Robertson told Reuters. "But I just don't think the raids are the answer."
Robertson added that the raids aren't just intimidating undocumented immigrant workers but also Latino workers who are in the country legally but who don't want to get swept up in raids "because of their skin color."
"They are scared they look the part," Robertson explained.
Tim Harrison, the CEO of the construction firm that is building the project being overseen by Robertson, told Reuters that finding native-born American workers to do the kind of work he needs is extremely difficult, especially since Alabama already has a low unemployment rate that makes trying to attract workers to a physically demanding industry difficult.
"The contractor world is full of Republicans," explained Harrison in an interview with Reuters. "I'm not anti-ICE. We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it."
A report issued earlier this month by the progressive Economic Policy Institute (EPI) projected that the construction industry could take a severe hit from Trump's mass deportation plan given how many undocumented immigrants work in that industry.
"Employment in the construction sector will drop sharply: U.S.-born construction employment will fall by 861,000, and immigrant employment will fall by 1.4 million," wrote EPI senior economist Ben Zipperer, who added that the Trump administration's plans risked "squandering the full employment... inherited from the Biden administration and also causing immense pain to the millions of U.S.-born and immigrant workers who may lose their jobs."
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips health care away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
The progressive advocacy group Unrig Our Economy launched a new $2 million advertising campaign Monday against four Texas Republicans who voted for the massive Medicaid cuts in this month's GOP megabill.
At the behest of President Donald Trump, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is mounting an unusual mid-decade effort to redraw Texas' congressional map to keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives come 2026.
The plan is expected to net the GOP five seats. But the flipside is that some seats that were once GOP locks may become more vulnerable to Democratic challengers.
Those include the ones held by Republican Reps. Lance Gooden (5), Monica De La Cruz (15), Beth Van Duyne (24), and Dan Crenshaw (2)—all of whom voted for the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act."
Put together, these four congresspeople alone represent around 450,000 Medicaid recipients, according to data from KFF.
The law remains dismally unpopular, with the majority of Americans believing that it benefits the rich, while providing little to ordinary Americans. According to a Navigator survey conducted last week, 7 in 10 Americans said they were concerned about its cuts to Medicaid.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that 10 million Americans will lose health insurance as a result of the law's Medicaid cuts.
Around 200,000 of them are in Texas according to KFF. In total, up to 1.7 million people in the state may lose their insurance as a result of other subsidies that were also cut.
Those are the people Unrig Our Economy hopes to reach with its new ad blitz.
One ad hits Crenshaw—whose district has nearly 92,000 Medicaid recipients—for making false promises to protect the program.
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
It shows a video of the congressman from May 14 assuring Texans: "You have nothing to worry about. Your Medicaid is not going anywhere," less than two months before voting for "the largest Medicaid and healthcare cuts in history."
Another singles out De La Cruz—who represents over 181,000 Medicaid recipients—for her vote for the bill after warning that the cuts "would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open."
Among hundreds at risk across the country, 15 rural hospitals in Texas are in danger of closing because of the cuts, according to a study by the health services research arm of the University of North Carolina.
The ads targeting Gooden and Van Duyne, meanwhile, draw more attention to the effects of their cuts on Texan families: "Medicaid covers a third of all children, half of all pregnant women, the elderly in long-term care, and the disabled."
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
Gooden's district contains more than 120,000 Medicaid recipients—over half of whom are children. In Van Duyne's district, children make up close to two-thirds of the more than 57,000 enrollees.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bill cuts more than $930 billion in total from Medicaid over the next ten years. Over that same ten-year period, the wealthiest 1% of Americans will receive over $1 trillion worth of tax breaks.
All the ads hammer home the fact that these devastating cuts were passed "to fund tax breaks for billionaires."
Unrig Our Economy's ad blitz is the first salvo of a $20-million effort by the House Majority PAC—the largest national PAC supporting Democrats—to beat back the effects of the Republican gerrymandering effort.
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips healthcare away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
Unrig Our Economy has launched similar ads against vulnerable Republicans across the country, such as first-term Rep. Rob Bresnahan, whose northeast Pennsylvania constituency is made up of more than one-fourth Medicaid recipients.
"These ads," Tal said, "are just the latest in our nationwide campaign to show the horrible impacts of this law, which benefits the superwealthy at working families' expense."
"I cannot defend the indefensible," said Sen. Angus King.
A longtime supporter of military aid to Israel in the U.S. Senate is drawing a red line amid the ongoing starvation crisis in Gaza.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) on Monday released a statement saying he would not vote to support any more aid to Israel unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government drastically reversed course to allow more food and other life-saving supplies to enter Gaza.
In a statement flagged on X by Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, King delivered a harsh rebuke to the Israeli government for its role in the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding under its watch.
"I cannot defend the indefensible," King's statement began. "Israel's actions in the conduct of the war in Gaza, especially its failure to address the unimaginable humanitarian crisis now unfolding, is an affront to human decency. What appears to be a deliberately-induced famine among a civilian population—including tens of thousands of starving children—can never be an acceptable military strategy."
King emphasized that he supported Israel's right to retaliate after the October 7, 2023 attacks on the country by Hamas, but then said "that tragic event cannot in turn justify the enormous toll on Palestinian civilians caused by Israel's relentless bombing campaign and its indifference to the current plight of those trapped in what's left of Gaza."
The Maine senator then vowed to back up his words with actions.
"I am through supporting the actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate—and vote—for an end to any United States support whatsoever until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of Israeli policy," he said. "My litmus test will be simple: No aid of any kind as long as there are starving children in Gaza due to the action or inaction of the Israeli government."
Israel has come under increased international pressure as images and video footage of starving children has been pouring out of Gaza in recent weeks. The Israeli government over the weekend announced a tactical "pause" in its Gaza military campaign to allow more humanitarian assistance into the area, although critics such as Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam policy lead for the occupied Palestinian territory, described the Israeli measures as woefully inadequate in the face of mass starvation.
"Deadly airdrops and a trickle of trucks won't undo months of engineered starvation in Gaza," said Khalidi on Sunday. "What's needed is the immediate opening of all crossings for full, unhindered, and safe aid delivery across all of Gaza and a permanent cease-fire. Anything less risks being little more than a tactical gesture."