U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called Arizona a "leader" in school choice and praised its Empowerment Scholarship Account program during her visit to the state Thursday.
"Arizona is really a leader in giving parents and students the kind of freedom that they need to find their right fit for education, . . . And I'm so grateful for the example that you are setting here."
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NOTICE: How the words choice and freedom have been mis-appropriated and given new meanings adapted to the political agenda of the conservative privately-funded ALEC who chose a location in Scottsdale for their 2019 States and Nation Policy Summit
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NOTICE: How the words choice and freedom have been mis-appropriated and given new meanings adapted to the political agenda of the conservative privately-funded ALEC who chose a location in Scottsdale for their 2019 States and Nation Policy Summit
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Betsy DeVos in conversation with Gov. Doug Dicey Ducey:
Arizona is a 'leader' in school choice
By Lily Altavena, Arizona Republic
"DeVos is in Arizona attending the American Legislative Exchange Council policy summit. The round table discussion With Gov. Doug Ducey and remarks later in the day centered around her Education Freedom Scholarships proposal.
Please scroll farther down to watch-and-listen to those more detailed comments and how the interaction appears spoon-fed, staged for public consumption and coordinated and rehearsed ahead of time.
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Please scroll farther down to watch-and-listen to those more detailed comments and how the interaction appears spoon-fed, staged for public consumption and coordinated and rehearsed ahead of time.
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"Arizona is loving their ESAs," she said.
Ducey also commended Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which directly gives qualifying families taxpayer money to send a child to private school or cover other designated education costs if the child fits into a qualifying category, including being a foster child or attending a failing school.
Surprisingly the Arizona Legislature rejected the proposed adoption of the ALEC-originated policy change.
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#RedforEd Arizona Teachers to Protest Trump Adminstration Education Policy at ALEC Meeting
"The focus of the protest will be the educational policies of the Trump administration as implemented by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the Charles Koch Foundation, and members of ALEC who support vouchers. . .
QUESTION:
What does Andrew Breitbart not know about the Arizona State Constitution?
As Breitbart News reported in February:
"A well-funded and subversive leftist movement of teachers in the United States threatens to tilt the political balance nationwide in the direction of Democrats across the country as Republicans barely hang on in key states that they need to hold for President Donald Trump to win re-election and for Republicans to have a shot at retaking the House and holding onto their Senate majority.Source: Breitbart News
This teachers union effort, called #RedforEd, has its roots in the very same socialism that President Trump vowed in his 2019 State of the Union address to stop, and it began in its current form in early 2018 in a far-flung corner of the country before spreading nationally. Its stated goals–higher teacher pay and better education conditions–are overshadowed by a more malevolent political agenda: a leftist Democrat uprising designed to flip purple or red states to blue, using the might of a significant part of the education system as its lever."
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Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos joins ALECTV at the States and Nation Policy Summit
Published on Dec 5, 2019
Views: 35 at time of upload to this blog
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos joins Bill Meierling for this very special edition of ALECTV at the States and Nation Policy Summit.
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Education Secretary pushes school vouchers at Arizona event
December 6, 2019
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday touted her $5 billion plan to fund tuition for private school students, telling a room of supportive parents and lobbyists that it would improve the quality of education.DeVos praised Arizona's devotion to school choice programs that provide public funding for private and charter schools.
“Arizona is a real leader in giving parents and students the kind of freedom that they need to find their right fit for education, and I'm so grateful for the example that you are setting here,” DeVos said, seated next to Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on the sidelines of a conference of conservative legislators.
DeVos is pushing her plan to create "Education Freedom Scholarships" allowing businesses and individuals to get 100% federal tax credits for donations to scholarship-granting groups. . .
The Republican is a major backer of school vouchers and formerly led the American Federation for Children, which promotes the programs in Arizona and other states.
Arizona has a similar program that uses tax credits to fund private school tuition scholarships. It also has an “Empowerment Scholarship Account” school voucher program that takes state general fund money and funnels it to more than 6,000 private or home-schooled students.
Arizona public school teachers revolted in 2018 and persuaded voters to block an expansion of the state's school voucher program enacted by the GOP-controlled Legislature and endorsed by Ducey. Voters rejected the expansion by a nearly 2-1 margin. Tens of thousands of teachers also went on strike that year over low pay and school funding and won big pay raises from Ducey and Arizona's Republican-dominated Legislature after he had rejected them earlier.
Despite the voucher program rejection at the ballot box, Ducey praised the program and urged DeVos to take it nationwide.
“Empowerment scholarship accounts work and there's no better time to scale this successful model to the rest of the country,” he said.
DeVos says her new $5 billion tax credit program allows parents to choose the best education for their children. Democrats pronounced it dead on arrival in Congress, but DeVos hasn’t given up.
Her plan would allow states to design their own programs or use the credits in existing programs, with parents allowed to use the funds for a education costs, including school tuition, tutoring, special education costs and home schooling.
Public education backers have said vouchers and private school tax credit plans drain tax dollars that should support public schools.
Later Thursday, DeVos carried a similar message to a conference held by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of conservative lawmakers, business interests and others on the right who promote the advance of conservative legislation. The group known as ALEC drew protesters from several liberal groups and teachers at the start of the three-day event on Wednesday.
“Families in every state need more opportunities,” DeVos said, adding President Donald Trump's administration will back efforts in the states to expand school choice.
She also criticized the existence of her own agency, saying education should be left to the states.
“Federal taxpayers contribute less than 9% of total education funding in this country,” DeVos said. “So why is a federal agency of more than 3,000 employees needed to administer it at all?”
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