The Fruits of Betsy DeVos

Betsy DeVos's heart must be beating harder as she learns about what is happening in Florida's school districts. DeVos has little regard for traditional public schools, nor does she have experience with public education. What most activates her heart are vouchers to private schools, and, especially, religious education.

In Florida, school districts will be required for the first time to send a portion of local tax revenues to charter schools; also, the law gives charter schools the flexibility to open multiple schools each year. The law funds a new initiative, called Schools of Hope, that transfers the lowest-performing public schools to charter school management companies.

Miami-Dade Schools may see a quarter of a billion dollars of its funds transferred to charter schools. [1]

Florida's  statewide voucher program, called a tax credit scholarship, cost state taxpayers over $600 million in the first ten years of operation, from 2002-2012, according to Fund Education Now, a state-based public school advocacy group. Much of that money may have been wasted, as more than 300 charter schools in Florida have failed due to poor performance.

80 percent of parents who use the vouchers send their children to religious schools. Only 25 percent of those using these vouchers transfer their children out of the lowest-performing schools. [2]

Florida ranks 41st on school funding, according to the Education Law Center and Rutgers Graduate School of Education.



ADDENDUMS:
*Steve Bannon told CBS's Charlie Rose that the Catholic Church and bishops "have been terrible about" undocumented immigrants. He suggested they were unable "to come to grips with the problems in the church" because they rely on undocumented immigrants to fill the churches and have an economic interest in "unlimited illegal immigration."

*President Trump may next attack those in "temporary protected status," a provision of immigration law that allows the government to grant temporary work authorizations and protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants from certain countries where life remains dangerous.

*DAMAC Properties, a Trump Organization partner, signed a $32 million contract  with the Middle East subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering Corporation.

*President Trump asked for deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health; however, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bipartisan bill providing $36.1 billion for the health institutes.

*An audit by the inspector general of the Interior Department  found that $84 million was improperly spent to help develop California's plans to build two giant tunnels to ship Northern California's water to Southern California. California's water districts, and not federal taxpayers, were supposed to bear the costs of the $16 billion project.

*The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that the Graham-Cassidy bill that would convert Obamacare into block grants for states, would result in a 34 percent cut in spending, compared to Obamacare over ten years. This cut would be mostly in Medicaid funding.

Footnotes
[1] Jeff Bryant, "Like Her Boss, Betsy DeVos Makes a Disaster All About Herself," Our Future.org, September 5, 2017.

[2] Ibid.