Tag: Betsy DeVos

Trump backs DeVos plan to limit student debt relief

The president vetoed legislation that would have blocked a policy by DeVos limiting debt relief for defrauded student loan borrowers.

President Donald Trump on Friday sided with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her plans to make it harder to forgive the debt of defrauded student loan borrowers.

Trump vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have blocked a policy by DeVos that limits debt relief for defrauded student loan borrowers.

Trump backed DeVos over the objections of veterans organizations, which had urged him to sign the measure to stop a regulation that they said makes it too difficult for their members to obtain help if they are cheated by their colleges. Continue reading.

DeVos Funnels Coronavirus Relief Funds to Favored Private and Religious Schools

New York Times logoEducation Secretary Betsy DeVos, using discretion written into the coronavirus stabilization law, is using millions of dollars to pursue long-sought policy goals that Congress has blocked.

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is using the $2 trillion coronavirus stabilization law to throw a lifeline to education sectors she has long championed, directing millions of federal dollars intended primarily for public schools and colleges to private and religious schools.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, signed in late March, included $30 billion for education institutions turned upside down by the pandemic shutdowns, about $14 billion for higher education, $13.5 billion to elementary and secondary schools, and the rest for state governments.

Ms. DeVos has used $180 million of those dollars to encourage states to create “microgrants” that parents of elementary and secondary school students can use to pay for educational services, including private school tuition. She has directed school districts to share millions of dollars designated for low-income students with wealthy private schools. Continue reading.

Betsy DeVos announces new rules on campus sexual assault, offering more rights to the accused

Washington Post logoEducation Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday released a sweeping new directive governing how schools must handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, granting new rights to the accused and handing colleges a clear but controversial road map to navigating these highly charged investigations.

The new rule bars universities from using a single official to investigate and judge complaints, a popular model, and instead creates a judicial-like process in which the accused has the right to a live hearing and to cross-examine accusers.

The rule also adds dating violence and stalking to the definition of sexual harassment. But it otherwise offers a narrow definition of harassment, requiring that it be severe and pervasive, as well as objectively offensive. Continue reading.

‘A New Low’: Betsy DeVos sued for garnishing wages of nearly 300,000 student loan borrowers during pandemic

AlterNet logoA home health aide who earns just under $13 per hour is the lead plaintiff in aclass-action lawsuit filed Thursday against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose department has continued garnishing the wages of hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

The CARES Act, which was signed into law in late March, prohibits the Education Department from seizing the wages and tax refunds of student loan borrowers who have defaulted on their loans.

But Elizabeth Barber of Rochester, New York, says the Trump administration has nonetheless continued to take 12% of her paychecks since the legislation passed—garnishing $70 from her check as recently as last week—adding to the financial strain which forced her to default on $10,000 in federal loans in December. Barber’s hours have also been reduced by 10 to 15 hours per week since the coronavirus pandemic began. Continue reading.

Ukrainian Giuliani ally hires ex-lawmaker to lobby Trump administration

The ex-lawmaker is a business partner of Erik Prince.

A Ukrainian associate of Rudy Giuliani has hired a business partner of Erik Prince to lobby Washington on his behalf regarding “corruption,” according to public records and interviews. The move became public on the Justice Department’s lobbying registry the same day that Joe Biden became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.

The business partner, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Artemenko, is registered to lobby using a different name. He’s also in the transportation and logistics business with Prince, and the two have been very busy because the coronavirus pandemic has snarled air travel around the world, Artemenko told POLITICO.

The Giuliani associate who hired Artemenko is Andriy Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s Rada who drew attention in U.S. media during President Donald Trump’s impeachment saga, and who was once a member of the Ukrainian political party that Paul Manafort worked for. Continue reading.

Betsy DeVos’s problem with numbers

Washington Post logoEducation Secretary Betsy DeVos has a problem with numbers. As in, she sometimes cites numbers that just aren’t accurate.

DeVos, of course, is hardly the only government official to cite inaccurate numbers to make a point, but that’s no reason not to point it out when she does — and she did during two appearances in the last week before congressional committees when defending the Trump administration’s proposed 2021 budget.

Let’s look at a few examples from her testimony. Continue reading.

Betsy DeVos cornered by congressman for lacking basic information about the US education system: ‘You don’t know the answer?’

AlterNet logoSecretary of Education Betsy DeVos testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee Thursday and was repeatedly unable to answer basic questions, got snippy with Democratic lawmakers, and falsely claimed research cited by top Democrats was wrong and had been “debunked.”

(The numbers behind that research came from DeVos herself, according to this piece in the Washington Post.)

In an exchange with Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), DeVos got heated, refuted his claims, and yet was unable to give a correct answer. Continue reading.

AG Barr and Betsy DeVos rail against secularism and a ‘culture of disbelief’ at religious broadcasters convention

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump views his alliance with the Christian right as essential to his 2020 campaign, and two Trump loyalists — Attorney General William Barr and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — were clearly pandering to religious conservatives this week during a speech at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, which is being held in Nashville, Tennessee and continues through this Friday, February 28.

Barr’s speech was sponsored by the nonprofit group Save the Persecuted Christians, which is headed by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. — a far-right conspiracy theorist and Islamophobe who has claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to infiltrate the U.S. government and impose sharia law. Before Barr spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, Gaffney stressed that he was not sponsoring a panel that would be held later and feature attorney Asma Uddin (who he smeared as a “sharia supremacist”).

During his speech, Barr (who is a Catholic, not a Protestant evangelical) railed against secularism in the United States — telling the crowd, “While most everyone agrees that we must have separation of church and state, this does not require that we drive religion from the public square and affirmatively use government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” Continue reading.

Betsy Devos’ Education Department under fire after humiliating oversight failure

AlterNet logoThe Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges & Schools (ACICS) accredited a college which appears to have no faculty or students after Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos reversed an Obama era decision to shutter the federal agency after it accredited colleges that defrauded students, according to a new investigation.

The ACICS, which accredited now-shuttered for-profit schools, including ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, and Brightwood College, was shut down by former President Obama’s administration in 2016. The department argued at the time that the agency, which oversaw 725 schools and more than $3 billion in federal financial aid, “exhibited a profound lack of compliance” with the “most basic” responsibilities of an accreditor.

A judge allowed DeVos, who has often sided with for-profit institutions, to reinstate the ACICS in 2018, The Washington Post reported. A former Obama administration official told the outlet that Devos “ignored her career staff’s 57 findings of ACICS’s noncompliance.” The education secretary similarly came under fire for ignoring career staff when she gutted a debt relief program for students defrauded by the for-profit colleges accredited by ACICS. Continue reading.

Betsy DeVos’ approval rating is 28 percent as voters back investigations into student debt scandal: poll

AlterNet logoA majority of voters support congressional investigations into Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ handling of student debt programs, according to the results of a new poll, which exposes how deeply unpopular the Trump Cabinet member is across the country.

DeVos has an approval rating of just 28%, according to a survey conducted by Global Strategy Group on behalf of government watchdog Allied Progress, who provided the results to Salon. DeVos received the lowest approval rating of any Trump administration official tested. The next most unpopular official was acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney at 33%.

The survey, which sampled 1,008 registered voters, also found overwhelming support for congressional investigations into whether DeVos abused taxpayer funds or used her position to benefit herself or her family. Continue reading.