Gage Skidmore
Cabinet Secretaries do not always explicitly outline their craven agendas. But because the Department of Education has a stack of money to give out as grants, we get an actual document—released earlier this month—spelling out eleven proposed “priorities” that Secretary Betsy DeVos will consider when doling it out.
Though the priorities aren’t final (and are open to public comment until mid-November), the document helps answer one of the big DeVosian questions: Would DeVos, who always decried the use of federal leverage to control state and local decisions, sing a different tune once the power was in her hands? Reading between the lines of her priorities, below, the answer seems to be yes.
Priority One: “Empowering Families to Choose a High-Quality Education that Meets Their Child's Unique Needs.”
What it means: More school choice. This is no surprise; DeVos’s entire adult life has been devoted to promoting school choice. The Department of Education specifically targets poor and rural students, as well as students with disabilities and students who attend “failing” schools. Nothing new to see here—keep plugging charters and vouchers and anything that gets students out of public schools.
Priority Two: “Promoting Innovation and Efficiency, Streamlining Education with an Increased Focus on Improving Student Outcomes, and Providing Increased Value to Students and Taxpayers.”
What it means: Doing away with as many regulations as possible by promoting “innovation” and “efficiency” to provide more “value” to the public. This seems right for DeVos, who has been unable to think of a single scenario in which the feds would step in and tell a school, “Hey, you can’t do that.” But the “streamlining” portion is especially concerning. Remember: “student outcomes” means “scores on narrow math and reading tests.” If that’s what we’re focusing on, and we want to cut other school costs, then we could get rid of, well, everything that isn’t math and reading.
Priority Three: “Fostering Flexible and Affordable Paths to Obtaining Knowledge and Skills.”
What it means: Computerized, “competency-based” education. This model is a darling of the tech world and would, in its most extreme form, do away with schools entirely. Just log in and complete the next module. Such a shift would require us to simplify and flatten education to something that can be delivered by computer modules. It also raises security and surveillance issues, since everything your child does will be carefully stored on line. DeVos is also talking about post-secondary education here, and the idea of awarding credits and degrees for Work Experience, Life Experience, and Stuff You Just Know.
Priority Four: “Fostering Knowledge and Promoting the Development of Skills that Prepare Students to be Informed, Thoughtful, and Productive Individuals and Citizens.”
What it means: Kids These Days just lack the grit and discipline and critical thinking (because we always have to mention critical thinking somewhere) to be good employees. This may be the creepiest one here. This grant category may as well be called “Make Good Drones.”
Priority Five: “Meeting the Unique Needs of Students and Children, including those with Disabilities and/or with Unique Gifts and Talents.”
What it means: These sorts of needs will be best handled by the marketplace and not by the feds saying, for example, that you must build a school that a child in a wheelchair can actually get into. Here we have one of the problems with using a free market approach to education—it’s just not good business to have to serve some of the “customers.”
Priority Six: “Promoting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Education, With a Particular Focus on Computer Science.”
What it means: STEM!! This set of priorities is, if nothing else, a great aid to people playing edu-buzzword bingo at home. We hear STEM’s a big deal. Let’s do that! (I’ll leave it to you to google “STEM crisis is fake” on your own and read the results like this one.) DeVos also uses this priority to pitch the use of classroom tech, like, say, cyber schools in rural areas (despite their terrible record).
Priority Seven: “Promoting Literacy.”
What it means: You can’t just promote literacy any old way—there are highly specific department-approved methods to use. For instance, the grant calls on promoting literacy by “providing family literacy activities (as defined in section 203(9) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014).”
Priority Eight: “Promoting Effective Instruction in Classrooms and Schools.”
What it means: The usual litany of ways to erode the teaching profession. Alternative career paths. Creative pay methods. Data-based methodology (meaning “based on student test scores”). And getting more students “access” to the same teachers. Given DeVos’ focus on moving education into cyber-school and personalized software delivery systems, the inclusion of “in classrooms and schools” as a qualifier here is… curious.
Priority Nine: “Promoting Economic Opportunity.”
What it means: See, and you thought that using education to fix the economy was a hopey, changey liberal thing. But DeVos wants solid pre-K and more engaged families and fewer economic barriers, as well as more school-business partnerships, on the theory that these will help fix the economy. There’s a big debate to be had there—I know, because we had the debate for the eight years that the Obama administration’s ed department pursued the exact same goal.
Priority Ten: “Encouraging Improved School Climate and Safer and More Respectful Interactions in a Positive and Safe Educational Environment.”
What it means: Students want safe schools, and the Department of Education hears that there are some bad actors in some schools. We’ll have to do something about Those Children. Also, free speech is important. So there is a point at which DeVos would think about intervening, maybe—like when a school won’t let a nazi speak there.
Priority Eleven: “Ensuring that Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families Have Access to High-Quality Educational Choices.”
What it means: Make sure veterans have access to “school choice.” DeVos doesn’t even obliquely mention the number of vets who have been ripped off by for-profit colleges.
Bonus Definition: In the priority list glossary, we find a new, expanded definition for “educational choice:” the opportunity for a student (or a family member on their behalf) to create a personalized path for learning that is consistent with applicable Federal, State, and local laws, is in an educational setting that best meets the student's needs, and, where possible, incorporates evidence-based activities, strategies, and interventions.
What it means: Notice, it no longer includes the idea of school at all—not even a private or charter school. Just wherever you can find some education stuff, preferably evidence-based, but if not, well, that’s okay, too.
Now we just have to wait and see what these grant seeds bring to fruition. Hold tight and stay tuned.
Peter Greene has been a classroom secondary English teacher for over thirty-five years. He lives and works in a small town in Northwest Pennsylvania, blogs at Curmudgucation, and is Midwest Regional Progressive Education Fellow.