Donald Trump's Cabinet picks

[pr0ner]

Jill Stein, confirming for anyone who wasn't already aware, that she is a complete and total fucking loon:

FYI, Palin wannabe, all the Democrats voted against her.

LOLWUT? She really said that?

[Combustible Lemur]

Well regulated charters are a boon to poor kids. Vouchers...mixed evidence. Poorly regulated charters...bad news.

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Some* poor kids.

Obviously they only help the kids they enroll. If I said "education helps poor kids" would you asterisk that, too, because it doesn't help all poor kids?

No, because education helps all people, to varying degrees. Public education *helps* all poor kids it can reach, to varying degrees. Charter schools by their nature segregate children, whether by lottery, birth right, race or money.

(By birthright I mean why should kids with more proactive parent receive preferential treatment by the state? All that does is reinforce class culture barriers)

[LordMortis]

Well regulated charters are a boon to poor kids. Vouchers...mixed evidence. Poorly regulated charters...bad news.

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The Michigan model is great for (students in) Charters (and therefore their parents pocketbooks) that are paid for by public dollars and further subsidized by private dollars. Very few children get that private subsidy unless it is coming directly from wealth parents. This happens concurrently with taking those dollars away public schools which need the larger pool of money to meet the needs of all kids under a larger infrastructure. Like having a larger pool of people keep insurance rates down both for the healthy and unhealthy. The other side effect is that charters, no matter the financial level, have get to teach about dinosaurs roaming the earth 5000 years ago without having to worry about things like geology to get in their way.

However, there are great Michigan charter success stories. I'd be truly impressed if any of them aren't seeing a large influx of private money or other subsidies unavailable to public schooling in general.

[El Guapo]

Well regulated charters are a boon to poor kids. Vouchers...mixed evidence. Poorly regulated charters...bad news.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Some* poor kids.

Obviously they only help the kids they enroll. If I said "education helps poor kids" would you asterisk that, too, because it doesn't help all poor kids?

No, because education helps all people, to varying degrees. Public education *helps* all poor kids it can reach, to varying degrees. Charter schools by their nature segregate children, whether by lottery, birth right, race or money.

(By birthright I mean why should kids with more proactive parent receive preferential treatment by the state? All that does is reinforce class culture barriers)

But you could just as easily ask why kids with parents wealthy enough to live in wealthier towns get preferential treatment by the state? That's what the traditional neighborhood system does.

Again not to endorse the DeVos unregulated charter system. But to say that any charter system reinforces class barriers relative to neighborhood schools isn't really correct.

[LordMortis]

But you could just as easily ask why kids with parents wealthy enough to live in wealthier towns get preferential treatment by the state?

I can't speak for other states but in Michigan, where DeVos has done a lot to shape things, we used to have a more or less fixed per student state budget, where the state usually actually gave small amounts more per student to less wealthy districts. It was then up to local communities, usually through millages to boost their individual systems. It was not a perfect system. Corruption, specifically, was doing its number on the inner cities who had larger budgets but lesser services and wages. When they should have been leveraging their size, they instead expanded their bureaucracy to meet the needs of the bureaucracy. This failing is the justification of the charter system. But to bastardize a quote some unknown critic of DeVos from years ago. "Instead of one failing educational model, we have two worse failing educational models."

[Combustible Lemur]

Well regulated charters are a boon to poor kids. Vouchers...mixed evidence. Poorly regulated charters...bad news.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Some* poor kids.

Obviously they only help the kids they enroll. If I said "education helps poor kids" would you asterisk that, too, because it doesn't help all poor kids?

No, because education helps all people, to varying degrees. Public education *helps* all poor kids it can reach, to varying degrees. Charter schools by their nature segregate children, whether by lottery, birth right, race or money.

(By birthright I mean why should kids with more proactive parent receive preferential treatment by the state? All that does is reinforce class culture barriers)

But you could just as easily ask why kids with parents wealthy enough to live in wealthier towns get preferential treatment by the state? That's what the traditional neighborhood system does.

Again not to endorse the DeVos unregulated charter system. But to say that any charter system reinforces class barriers relative to neighborhood schools isn't really correct.

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

As to public school funding yes of course we haven't made it perfect or even great if we had the charter would have both a harder time Taki g public funds and an easier time because they pose less of a threat.

It's also why states use Robin hood systems. Houston isd is dealing with that right to the tune of Billions of dollars. But public distribution is also why the school I worked at for ten yes had a budget that was pretty solid. But we lost alot of our better students to even just the public magnet program which had a tangible effect on our proficiency reports which had a real effect on budgetary concerns. Any system that allows the more fortunate to opt out of the public pool has a negative effect on the bottom tier. If that's acceptable fine, that can be debated. But I get tired of the myth creating an elite class of schools some how magically creates universal educational opportunities.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is a capitalist country that sometimes beleive in meritocracy. I'm okay with the idea of charter schools, and magnets etc. I wish we would move more towards customized educational system. I've worked in a school that had student brain drain and have been close to those were even worse off. The charter movement is designed to undermine public education, enrich investors, and turn education into marketplace.

[El Guapo]

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

This isn't true. Charter schools in Massachusetts, for example, do enrollment via lottery, like the regular public schools. Their enrollment is "selective" only insofar as they can't admit everyone, but they have no capacity to admit or deny people based on anything other than their lottery number.

[Chaz]

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

This isn't true. Charter schools in Massachusetts, for example, do enrollment via lottery, like the regular public schools. Their enrollment is "selective" only insofar as they can't admit everyone, but they have no capacity to admit or deny people based on anything other than their lottery number.

But is that method of determining admission the exception, or the rule for charters nationwide? It seems like it comes down to charters can be good, well-run, and overall beneficial, but there's also the capacity for them to be SUPER BAD. Them being good relies on the people running them having a strong desire to do something that's really hard. Them being bad just relies on someone willing to make a buck by screwing over kids, and the government not caring enough to prevent that.

[Combustible Lemur]

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

This isn't true. Charter schools in Massachusetts, for example, do enrollment via lottery, like the regular public schools. Their enrollment is "selective" only insofar as they can't admit everyone, but they have no capacity to admit or deny people based on anything other than their lottery number.

Meh, I am not involved in the varying forces of politics associated, but my understanding is that the lottery version charters are the reform not original intent. It's alot of Individuals with a lot of personal stakes. I expect most even have noble intentions.
Like I said before, charters as a supplement to public education when we'll regulated are a good thing. Charter as somehow a private solution to segregation and resource disparity is nonsense.

[Blackhawk]

One of the reasons the court slapped Trump down the first time was that Trump's people decided that instead of making an argument, they'd just tell the court it wasn't any of their damned business. You know how much judges love when people do that.

Now Trump wants to respond to the lost hearing by doing an end-run around the courts?

Whether the conspiracy is there or not, Trump seems like he's doing his best to make sure that his administration has an extremely adversarial relationship with the judicial.

[noxiousdog]

Whether the conspiracy is there or not, Trump seems like he's doing his best to make sure that his administration has an extremely adversarial relationship with the judicial everyone.

Mortoned.

[El Guapo]

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

This isn't true. Charter schools in Massachusetts, for example, do enrollment via lottery, like the regular public schools. Their enrollment is "selective" only insofar as they can't admit everyone, but they have no capacity to admit or deny people based on anything other than their lottery number.

But is that method of determining admission the exception, or the rule for charters nationwide? It seems like it comes down to charters can be good, well-run, and overall beneficial, but there's also the capacity for them to be SUPER BAD. Them being good relies on the people running them having a strong desire to do something that's really hard. Them being bad just relies on someone willing to make a buck by screwing over kids, and the government not caring enough to prevent that.

My understanding is that there's a pretty huge variety in what "charter schools" mean in practice across the country, with the main difference being whether there's a strong regulatory system in place in a given state. Basically, is the state remaining in control of education or are they just handing out tickets to run schools to anyone that puts together a decent looking powerpoint.

Unfortunately, my understanding is that Michigan is one of the "bad" non-regulatory charter states, and that DeVos is going to try to (to the extent that she can) replicate that on a more national basis.

[PLW]

My understanding, from my reading of the economics of education literature, aligns with El Guapo's.

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[Chaz]

The voucher/school choice thing gets more complicated when you factor in rural schools where there either is no choice, or the only other option is a deeply religious school. DeVos says that one option in that situation would be online education, which is harder when those areas may not have access to solid broadband. And, of course, the enrollment and budgets for a lot of these schools are low enough that losing a handful of students because of a voucher program could mean the loss of a teaching position.

Washington Post article about it.

[Zarathud]

Anyone who says 5-18 year olds can be educated and socialized to become productive taxpaying citizens in a global world only through the Internet is either a fool or pursuing another agenda.

[Blackhawk]

Anyone who says 5-18 year olds can be educated and socialized to become productive taxpaying citizens in a global world only through the Internet is either a fool or pursuing another agenda.

Thank you. You saved me words.

[Remus West]

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

This isn't true. Charter schools in Massachusetts, for example, do enrollment via lottery, like the regular public schools. Their enrollment is "selective" only insofar as they can't admit everyone, but they have no capacity to admit or deny people based on anything other than their lottery number.

But is that method of determining admission the exception, or the rule for charters nationwide? It seems like it comes down to charters can be good, well-run, and overall beneficial, but there's also the capacity for them to be SUPER BAD. Them being good relies on the people running them having a strong desire to do something that's really hard. Them being bad just relies on someone willing to make a buck by screwing over kids, and the government not caring enough to prevent that.

Even that method can be biased though as how do people enter the lottery? If I can not afford to take a day off work to go stand in line and register for a lottery then I'm excluded. If the process is not well advertised and truly open to all then it is simply a more well disguised division of the haves and have nots.

[Holman]

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

This isn't true. Charter schools in Massachusetts, for example, do enrollment via lottery, like the regular public schools. Their enrollment is "selective" only insofar as they can't admit everyone, but they have no capacity to admit or deny people based on anything other than their lottery number.

But is that method of determining admission the exception, or the rule for charters nationwide? It seems like it comes down to charters can be good, well-run, and overall beneficial, but there's also the capacity for them to be SUPER BAD. Them being good relies on the people running them having a strong desire to do something that's really hard. Them being bad just relies on someone willing to make a buck by screwing over kids, and the government not caring enough to prevent that.

Even that method can be biased though as how do people enter the lottery? If I can not afford to take a day off work to go stand in line and register for a lottery then I'm excluded. If the process is not well advertised and truly open to all then it is simply a more well disguised division of the haves and have nots.

About five years back I posted this in a similar thread:

You also see the formation of de-facto private schools with public money. A charter near me decided on a "lottery application" process that required parents to attend the "lottery meeting" to be considered. The meeting was held at a private country club outside of the city during daytime hours. You can already see how the venue and timing selects for a certain kind of family, and even then there was no guarantee that the lottery was in fact random. Applicants were still required to submit supporting documents to the "selection committee."

Oversight on all of this? None.

This wasn't even a "chain" charter, just a school started to appeal to the white families in a neighborhood where some people were unhappy about the number of minorities in the local public elementary. (This, even though that school--which both of my kids attended for five years--is one of the most successful public elementaries in the city and has none of the problems people believe they're afraid of.)

This charter has grown to become a thriving business for the crew running it. There have been major issues with allocations of funds (although, again, there is no real oversight to pursue the matter), and they have managed to use public money to acquire a big new building on expensive real estate that now belongs to the charter organization and not to the city school district.

[PLW]

The voucher/school choice thing gets more complicated when you factor in rural schools where there either is no choice, or the only other option is a deeply religious school. DeVos says that one option in that situation would be online education, which is harder when those areas may not have access to solid broadband. And, of course, the enrollment and budgets for a lot of these schools are low enough that losing a handful of students because of a voucher program could mean the loss of a teaching position.

Washington Post article about it.

I agree with all this, too. The evidence on rural, and even suburban, charters is much weaker than it is for urban charters. In fact, the best evidence is that suburban charters have no discernible impact on test scores. So, they way I think about them is that they are better than bad traditional school and no better than good traditional schools.

[YellowKing]

My wife works for a public school, so she regularly sees kids transferring from charter schools. In many cases, they're academically behind the kids transferring from other public schools. At least in my area, they're pretty much a joke. One of them doesn't even have enough classroom space, so most of the classrroms are in trailers that the kids have to walk to and from out in the pouring rain and cold. This is what parents are apparently beating down the doors and entering lotteries to get into.

All the teachers at her school that she's talked to despise Devos and are very upset with the pick - even the Trump supporters.

[El Guapo]

It's the basic premise of charter schools. Make a school that can have selective enrollment, remove it's find from the public school. There will always be a loser in that system.

This isn't true. Charter schools in Massachusetts, for example, do enrollment via lottery, like the regular public schools. Their enrollment is "selective" only insofar as they can't admit everyone, but they have no capacity to admit or deny people based on anything other than their lottery number.

But is that method of determining admission the exception, or the rule for charters nationwide? It seems like it comes down to charters can be good, well-run, and overall beneficial, but there's also the capacity for them to be SUPER BAD. Them being good relies on the people running them having a strong desire to do something that's really hard. Them being bad just relies on someone willing to make a buck by screwing over kids, and the government not caring enough to prevent that.

Even that method can be biased though as how do people enter the lottery? If I can not afford to take a day off work to go stand in line and register for a lottery then I'm excluded. If the process is not well advertised and truly open to all then it is simply a more well disguised division of the haves and have nots.

Again I only have experience with Massachusetts, but when I did it a few years back it was super easy. Basically the process was you go to the school and fill out a one page piece of paper.

I don't really know whether Massachusetts is the norm or the exception among states in having (from what I gather) pretty well regulated (and accordingly pretty well run) charter schools. I'm just saying that charter schools aren't *necessarily* bad by definition, but rather it's a function of how they are structured and regulated.

[Combustible Lemur]

Individual charter you are correct, but the charter movement as a political drive for education privatization is fundamentally bad.

[El Guapo]

Individual charter you are correct, but the charter movement as a political drive for education privatization is fundamentally bad.

The answer might be to push the charter movement in the correct direction, though, rather than just to kill the charter movement altogether. Like, I do have a lot of sympathy for the idea of school choice, as the traditional system (funded heavily by local property taxes) has tended to create a school system segregated by wealth and race.

[LordMortis]

The answer might be to push the charter movement in the correct direction,

Love the idea. I'm a big fan Montessori education and would love to see a widespread option.

Now tell the right direction to push because I've been seeing over 20 years of different wrong directions.

[El Guapo]

The answer might be to push the charter movement in the correct direction,

Love the idea. I'm a big fan Montessori education and would love to see a widespread option.

Now tell the right direction to push because I've been seeing over 20 years of different wrong directions.

Basically, the direction would be to support non-profits (and legislators / politicians) who support good charter models, and oppose ones who support bad ones.

[Combustible Lemur]

The answer might be to push the charter movement in the correct direction,

Love the idea. I'm a big fan Montessori education and would love to see a widespread option.

Now tell the right direction to push because I've been seeing over 20 years of different wrong directions.

Basically, the direction would be to support non-profits (and legislators / politicians) who support good charter models, and oppose ones who support bad ones.

Theoretically, the biggest advocate for charter was just handed the reins, but I agree with your sentiment.

[Remus West]

I don't agree at all. Charters are simply a way to run around the end of the problem rather than to fix it. Rather than turning to Charter schools as the answer why do we not stick with things that have been proven to improve outcomes. Things like Headstart that for years showed kids from impoverished areas that attended headstart programs did better than their peers that did not. Yet funding for programs of that nature are forever in danger. Charters attempt to address a problem well after it has set in rather than avoid the problem at all. Kids in "bad schools" tend to have entered the school system well behind their peers in more affluent areas and simply never catch up. Instead of trying to make them catch up why don't we spend effort to keep them from falling behind in the first place. Then, we can also address the short comings of existing schools by properly funding them AND properly over seeing them.

People attempting to make a profit from public education will never be the answer.

[LordMortis]

I don't agree at all. Charters are simply a way to run around the end of the problem rather than to fix it.

I won't go that far. 99 Black crows is a good indicator that the 100 crow will be black but I won't reject the possibility of the 100th crow being white until you can show black is in the essence of crowness.

At the same I've yet to see a proposal that looks like it will bring about a white crow and I put the onus is on the white crow sympathizers to show me how they will bring one about.

[LordMortis]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dev ... a129ec35b8

Z can take comfort that there are no more conflicts with the DoE and students with disabilities now that we have a new sheriff.

A Department of Education website explaining the rights of students under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has vanished. That’s the same law that confounded new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during her confirmation hearings.

DeVos dodged questioning about the law last month, insisting it was up to individual states on whether to grant disabled students their educational rights, even though it’s a federal law that applies across the nation.

New U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also blasted the act for its “special treatment of certain children,” blaming it for the “acceleration in the decline of civility and discipline in classrooms across America.”

[Defiant]

Senate Republicans tell White House to withdraw Puzder nomination

[Isgrimnur]

Such a winner:

The ex-wife of President Donald Trump’s labor secretary nominee told “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that he “vowed revenge” when she made public spousal abuse allegations, according to a 1990 tape reviewed by POLITICO on Tuesday night.

Andrew Puzder’s hearing for labor secretary is Thursday, but the allegations of domestic abuse, which he's repeatedly denied, and his admission that he employed an illegal immigrant have put his confirmation in jeopardy. The details of the Oprah tape, which haven’t been made public until now, could further erode his support in the Senate, where four Republicans have expressed reservations about his nomination. No Democrats are expected to support him.

During the episode, titled “High Class Battered Women,” Lisa Fierstein, Puzder’s ex-wife, said he told her, “I will see you in the gutter. This will never be over. You will pay for this.” Fierstein also said she called the police on him.

Fierstein divorced Puzder in 1987. Eight months after appearing on “Oprah,” she retracted her allegations of domestic abuse as part of a child custody agreement. She said repeatedly thereafter that the allegations were a tactic to gain leverage in her divorce.

But Fierstein appeared on “Oprah” in disguise, wearing large sunglasses and a wig and using an assumed name, "Ann." She sat on a panel with two other women who also alleged abuse by their husbands. Fierstein spoke for about 5 minutes, 50 seconds of the hourlong episode.
...
Senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will hold Puzder's confirmation hearing, have been reviewing the tape in private. Winfrey's company, the Oprah Winfrey Network, turned the tape over at the committee's request but has refused to provide a copy to the news media.

[El Guapo]

Senate Republicans tell White House to withdraw Puzder nomination

Puzder has officially withdrawn. Good, because he was awful policy-wise (in addition to apparently being a domestic abuser). Of course, I assume the replacement nominee will also be awful.

Timing is also interesting - kind of feels like blood in the water time. I'm sure that Trump will use this week to take a step back and moderate his approach.

[TheMix]

I'm sure that Trump will use this week to take a step back and moderate his approach.

Heh.

I assume you are here all week?

[Max Peck]

I'm sure that Trump will use this week to take a step back and moderate his approach.

Heh.

I assume you are here all week?

But does he recommend the veal?

[TheMix]

I'm sure that Trump will use this week to take a step back and moderate his approach.

Heh.

I assume you are here all week?

But does he recommend the veal?

I would assume so. I mean, who wouldn't? Other than a vegetarian.

[El Guapo]

I'm sure that Trump will use this week to take a step back and moderate his approach.

Heh.

I assume you are here all week?

Wakka wakka wakka!

[El Guapo]

McCain announced that he'll vote no on Trump's nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Rick Mulvaney. So...possible he's doomed as well.

[Carpet_pissr]

I'm sure that Trump will use this week to take a step back and moderate his approach.

Heh.

I assume you are here all week?

But does he recommend the veal?

I would assume so. I mean, who wouldn't? Other than a vegetarian.

Me. I love meat, but I will not eat veal. Hypocrite much? Yes, much.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[TheMix]

I'm sure that Trump will use this week to take a step back and moderate his approach.

Heh.

I assume you are here all week?

But does he recommend the veal?

I would assume so. I mean, who wouldn't? Other than a vegetarian.

Me. I love meat, but I will not eat veal. Hypocrite much? Yes, much.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

But would you recommend it? You don't have to actually eat it yourself. Hmm?

[Holman]

I read that Oprah was active in getting the 1990 tape of the nominee's wife out into circulation this week.

Trump tweet comparing Oprah to Nazi Germany and IC leakers in 3,2,1...