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There is so much weird information, somewhat-off information, and just plain misinformation coming out of the Trump administration these days that we at BBA felt the need to set the record straight on a few key whoppers. (And they are by no means limited to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, though she is for sure pulling her weight.)
So here are our top ten, in no particular order, and with the caveat that this is only a partial list:
- School meals don’t help kids, or schools. In the course of defending proposed cuts to federal school breakfast and lunch programs, Trump administration Office of Budget Management director Mick Mulvaney asserted that “they’re supposed to help kids who don’t get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. Guess what? There’s no demonstrable evidence that they’re actually doing that. … There’s no demonstrable evidence they’re actually helping results, helping kids do better in school.” Hunh. He must have missed the reams of evidence (and piles of common sense) to the contrary.
- We don’t really need an Office of Civil Rights. At her confirmation hearing, now-US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recounted prior civil rights issues like gender equality for girls but said she couldn’t think of any pressing current ones that might be high priorities for OCR under her watch.
 How about minority students’ lack of access to advanced coursework – and thus their inability to be prepared for a post-secondary education? Not to mention a recent study showing the cost to the state of California alone (in the BILLIONS of dollars) of so-called “zero-tolerance” policies, which OCR has collaborated with states and districts to replace with constructive, social-and-emotional-skill-building strategies like restorative justice. Presumably keeping thousands of students on track to graduate, helping them be college-ready, and saving states across the country large sums isn’t worth it.
- Vouchers make for an excellent school improvement strategy. Century Foundation fellow Halley Potter is the latest in a string of experts to point to not only the failure of the voucher programs that Secretary DeVos says will help vulnerable students to do so, but their serious downsides. Do Private School Vouchers Pose a Threat to Integration? Yes, Ms. DeVos (and President Trump), they do. Potter is joined in her skepticism about funneling public school money to private schools by Kevin Carey, Education Policy Director for the New America Foundation, who writes for the New York Times that the evidence to support DeVos’s advocacy is not just lacking but downright “dismal.” Stanford University professor Martin Carnoy finds only the thinnest of evidence in his recent paper for the Economic Policy Institute, and even that stands on pretty shaky grounds, while Century Foundation senior fellow Richard Kahlenberg argues that vouchers “and their close cousins, tax credits for private schools,” strike at the very heart of democracy.
- Repealing the Affordable Care Act will improve children’s health (and thus their academic success). Low-income students and their families rely on Medicaid, whether to cover immunizations and well-child visits to their pediatrician, or to reimburse school-based health centers that keep them in class and out of the emergency room or mental health crisis center. Slashing payments to states will take millions of people off of health insurance – notwithstanding promises that "everyone will be covered" and "care will be tremendous" – and drastically increase the physical and mental health problems that cause chronic illness and absenteeism.
- Muslim, immigrant, and refugee bans will keep the country, and our schools, safe.
 Rather than inspiring a sense of security, President Trump’s executive action on immigrants and refugees, and more recently ramped-up ICE enforcement, have sparked fear among millions of students and their families. Teachers in Austin and Los Angeles report that some of their students are too afraid to leave home to come to school. District leaders in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Santa Fe are pushing back against threats, and teachers are working hard to comfort vulnerable students, but there’s no guarantee that schools, which have traditionally been off-limits for such raids, will retain their protected status.
- Helping rich people pay for their child care will fix our early childhood policy black hole. Among the policy areas in which the United States stands out among its peers in a bad way, lack of support for care and education for our youngest children is a biggie (bigly?). And that’s not due to a lack of evidence-based, economically sound proposals to fix that problem (See, e.g., this one aimed at people running for public office and this one guiding elected officials). This makes First Daughter Ivanka Trump’s proposal to use income tax deductions for pay for child care – which would increase the federal debt but fail to help families who most need help – a serious dud.
- Increasing “law-and-order” will make the country safer for kids. Violent crime across much of the United States is at a record low, yet our jails are bursting at the seams, filled mostly with non-violent offenders, disproportionately African-American men, many of them mentally ill (who lack access to therapy) and/or substance abusers (who lack access to treatment). Since so-called “law-and-order” policies that began in the 1980s, black communities have been hit hard, and researchers find that black students, especially boys, are bearing the brunt. Having a parent in prison makes the poverty, violence, and isolation that many of these children suffer even worse, posing major barriers to their academic success. So it’s hard to see how policies advanced by President Trump and Attorney General Sessions that would put more people in prison, and prevent reforms of some of the worst police practices, could do anything but exacerbate this trend.
- Transgender students pose a serious threat to school bathroom safety. Research shows that, rather than being aggressors, transgender people tend to be victims of bullying and violence. So policies that further stigmatize them make them less safe, without making anyone else more so. In fact, counselors, psychologists, and elementary and middle school principals stress that forcing children to use bathrooms that don’t correspond to the gender with which they identify, or to use separate “private” bathrooms, is the real danger. Students who feel stigmatized may decide not to go to the bathroom at all, causing health problems and accidents (and, in turn, more stigma and humiliation):
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Make no mistake about it: not allowing a transgender student to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity causes harm—emotionally, physically, academically, and socially. It is not a matter of discomfort. Explicitly denying a transgender student’s access to the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity endangers their health and well-being.
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- Slashing support for education will help Make America Great Again. Gutting programs that train and prepare teachers, increase low-income students’ access to afterschool programs and summer enrichment, and that help disadvantaged children prepare for, finance, and work their way through college, are all part of the administration’s brilliant plan to make the US competitive again. Hmmm, are we missing something?
- Public schools are failing and can’t be fixed.
 At the heart of DeVos’s testimony to the Senate HELP committee, and, the President’s assertions about how his administration will improve education, is the claim that U.S. public schools in general are failing, and that support-based strategies won’t work. Thus the need to make vouchers and charter schools central to the administration’s education policy agenda. What should we make, then, of the meaningful and, in many cases, game-changing progress being made in diverse communities across the country that have adopted Broader, Bolder Approaches to Education? These eight communities (and several more on the way) don’t rely on so-called parental “choice,” but rather engage parents as true partners in school improvement efforts. They don’t dismiss data showing disparities across minority groups, but use them to shape more equitable policies and practices. And they are growing in numbers and momentum, as recent convenings for Bright Futures affiliates, upcoming community schools conferences, and many others attest.
The length and breadth of this list, just two months into the new administration, suggests that these bizarre claims are just the tip of a fake-education-news iceberg. So send us your nomination for “education policy alternative fact of the week” (or day) and we’ll keep on keeping track, in service of a Broader, Bolder Approach to Education!
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