Free Republic

Maybe now that the impeachment circus is behind us, we can start having a serious conversation about what’s truly at stake in the 2020 election.  Granted, my perspective is biased because my daughter Meadow was murdered in the Parkland school shooting, but to me the most important issue is school safety. And school safety is the clearest reason to re-elect Donald Trump.  This opinion might come as a shock to some parents. After all, the mainstream media did everything it could to spin a narrative that blamed Republicans and/or President Trump for the shooting. But I wasn’t interested in narratives....

A draft of the new Title IX rules from the Department of Education was circulated a couple of months ago and they predictably had progressive groups setting their hair on fire. The final version has now been rolled out and, while there were some minor (but troubling) changes made, those same groups aren’t going to be any happier. The days of kangaroo courts hearing questions of criminal law at schools where cases of sexual assault or harassment are concerned won’t be ending entirely, but they will be decidedly more fair to all parties concerned. (Reason) This guidance will replace an...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will encourage the nation’s school superintendents and college presidents to adopt race-blind admissions standards, abandoning an Obama administration policy that called on universities to consider race as a factor in diversifying their campuses, Trump administration officials said. The reversal would restore the policy set during President George W. Bush’s administration, when officials told schools that it “strongly encourages the use of race-neutral methods” for admitting students to college or assigning them to elementary and secondary schools. Last November, Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked the Justice Department to re-evaluate past policies that he believed pushed the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration plans to revoke guidelines that encourage considering race in the college admissions process as a way of promoting diversity, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The guidelines, put in place in the Obama administration in 2011 and 2016, put forth legal recommendations that Trump officials contend “mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows,” the Journal reported, citing two people familiar with the plans. Trump administration officials plan to argue the guidelines go beyond what the Supreme Court has decided on the issue....

People hate Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. When she spoke at the Kennedy School of Government, students held up signs calling her a "white supremacist." When she tried to visit a school, activists physically blocked her way. The haters claim DeVos knows little about education, only got her job because she gave money to Republican politicians, and hates free public education. Of course, education isn't really "free." Taxpayers spend $634 billion a year on it. It's laughable that activists claim conservatives "cut" education spending. Funds per student tripled over the past several decades, while test scores stayed flat. Some of...

A chorus of Democratic lawmakers have joined the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, in calling for Congress to act after a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla. In a letter on Friday, all 17 Democrats on the House Education Committee urged Representative Virginia Foxx, the committee’s chairwoman, to convene hearings on school shootings, describing them as a “public health epidemic.” “Wednesday’s preventable tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, resulted in the deaths of at least 17 students and faculty,” the letter said. “Sadly, since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School...

Amidst the ongoing political noise and distractions in Washington, D.C., President Trump continues to focus on and address the nation's most deep-seated problems. In the wake of signing a temporary funding bill to get the government back open, the president directed attention to one of our biggest problems: Education. Trump proclaimed the week of Jan. 22 as National School Choice Week. National School Choice Week began in 2011. Trump's proclamation notes a commitment to "a future of unprecedented educational achievement and freedom of choice." We have a president keenly aware of the need to fundamentally change the status quo in...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos gave a far-ranging speech today in Washington at an American Enterprise Institute conference, “Bush-Obama School Reform: Lessons Learned.” She announced the death of Common Core, at least in her federal agency. DeVos also decried the federal government’s initiatives to improve education. “We saw two presidents from different political parties and philosophies take two different approaches. Federally mandated assessments. Federal money. Federal standards. All originated in Washington, and none solved the problem. Too many of America’s students are still unprepared,” she said. And she touched on a favorite topic, school choice. “Choice in...

Brenda Tracy (left), talks with Sen. Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden and PSU President... Oregon’s colleges and universities must resist any Trump administration plans to walk back federal rules directing how schools respond to sexual assaults on campus. That was the takeaway from a Monday morning roundtable discussion at Portland State University. Oregon Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and sexual assault survivor Brenda Tracy held an informal discussion with PSU Title IX leaders and sexual assault prevention staffers. The meeting came less than a month after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded Obama-era guidelines on how schools should handle...

To those of us who have followed the Obama Administration's machinations on Title IX, and much else, it does not come as much of a surprise that the last two Secretaries of Education skirted traditional practice, if not legal guidelines, in consulting no one when they undertook their transformation of Title IX. "The Department imposed these regulatory burdens without affording notice and the opportunity for public comment," the new letter reads. "Under these circumstances, the Department has decided to withdraw the above-referenced guidance documents in order to develop an approach to student sexual misconduct that responds to the concerns of...

University of Baltimore president Kurt Schmoke defended his decision to invite U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to speak at the school’s fall commencement, even as dozens of students protested against the invitation Monday and hundreds more signed a petition demanding he change his mind. Schmoke, a former mayor of Baltimore, said students should reserve judgment on the controversial member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Hosting DeVos, he said, is “in the best tradition of the university.” Dozens of students participated in a “class walk out” demonstration Monday afternoon, the first of two protests planned for today. UB junior Tracy...

"One university leader was rightly appalled when he was asked by an Office for Civil Rights official: 'Why do you care about the rights of the accused?'" – Betsy DeVosOne of the many disasters the Obama Administration put in place was a reinterpretation of Title IX that led to colleges setting up kangaroo courts that were heavily stacked against men in rape cases. Men were not given due process; the standard of guilt was changed from beyond a shadow of a doubt to “a preponderance of the evidence;” men were denied meaningful counsel; men were not allowed access to information...

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos vowed Thursday to replace what she branded the “failed system” of campus sexual assault enforcement, to ensure fairness for victims and the accused. “Instead of working with schools . . . ,” DeVos said, “the prior administration weaponized the Office for Civil Rights.” “We must do better because the current approach isn’t working,” she said. DeVos spoke to about 100 invited guests at George Mason University, where protesters had gathered outside, worried that she would announce changes to the way sexual violence cases are handled on campuses across the country. “One rape is one too many,”...

In a video message posted to his Twitter account, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore says it is time to end the federal government’s involvement in education and allow parents to take the lead in how best to educate their children. “Education has always been in the purview of the parent,” explains Moore, who is running against establishment GOP candidate Luther Strange in Alabama’s U.S. Senate primary runoff for the seat vacated by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “They know best how to educate their children,” he continues. “The states have various forms of education, but the federal government has...

Oregon's plan to evaluate schools' performance, help schools judged to be weak performers and otherwise carry out federal education mandates fully meets federal government standards, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told Gov. Kate Brown Wednesday. "I am pleased to approve Oregon's... plan," DeVos wrote to Brown and state schools chief Salam Noor. "I congratulate you on this significant accomplishment." All states are required to file plans showing how they will comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Unlike the widely despised No Child Left Behind law, the new federal K-12 law leaves a lot of discretion to states....

The fact that we celebrate the Every Student Succeeds Act for shifting education policy back to the states is an alarming indicator of federal dysfunction. Instead of rejoicing about a reduced extent of unauthorized federal meddling in state affairs, we should work to remove the heavy hand of centralized government entirely from every sphere in which it has no legitimate authority. A quick visit to the U.S. Department of Education’s website reveals just how thoroughly the feds have burst the seams of their constitutional pants. There we find the agency reminding states about deadlines for submitting “State plans” for education...

“This is not a drill,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen García told the 2017 NEA Representative Assembly. “We stand in a dangerous place. We stand between a profiteer and his profits. We have a president who resides at the dangerous intersection of arrogance and ignorance and travels with a moral compass that always points to his own self-interest.” In her keynote address on Sunday, Eskelsen García laid out in stark terms the dangers posed by the agenda of President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, but reminded the 7,500 delegates gathered in the Boston Convention Center that “we can win. We...

California and 17 other states on Thursday sued Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, alleging she unlawfully delayed new federal regulations designed to protect student loan borrowers from being ripped off by for-profit colleges and other schools. The rules, which would have made it easier for students to have loans forgiven if they were defrauded or deceived, were developed by the Obama administration and had been set to take effect last Saturday. But last month DeVos delayed their implementation and launched an effort to rewrite them, arguing they were unfair to students and schools while putting taxpayers at risk for “significant costs.”...

The president of the country's largest labor union, Lily Eskelsen Garcia of the National Education Association, told delegates at her organization's annual gathering that they would not work with the Trump administration because the president and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos could not be trusted to do what is in the best interests of children. Eskelsen Garcia just addressed the 96th NEA Representative Assembly meeting in Boston, accusing President Donald Trump of residing "at the dangerous intersection of arrogance and ignorance" and labeled DeVos as "the queen of for-profit privatization of public education." She said in part: "Let me say this...

The Story: The Trump administration recently issued a letter stating that teachers and students could be investigated for a civil rights violation if they refuse to use the “preferred pronouns” of transgender students. The Background: In February the Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued a notice withdrawing the statements of policy and guidance issued last year by the Obama administration that affected public schools. In May 2016, the Obama administration sent a letter to all public schools in America notifying teachers and administrators of a new regulation for treating “gender identity.” The letter stated that, to comply with federal law,...