MEMORANDUM

TO: Interested Parties

FROM: The Democratic National Committee

DATE: September 6th, 2017

RE: Back to School: The Many Ways Secretary DeVos Has Hurt Students,
Teachers and Parents

Throughout their time in office, Secretary DeVos and President Trump two
people who have never attended public schools have actively worked against
the interests of our nations students. Now, as students head back to school this
week, here is a look at the many ways Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos have hurt
students, teachers and their families.

DeVos sole intent as Secretary of Education has been to weaken public education
and promote school choice; DeVos has chipped away at protections and backed a
budget that would cut funding for student loan borrowers; her the Trump-DeVos
budget eliminates childcare and teacher training programs; she has actively
sought to roll back civil rights protections and investigations in schools; and she
is now considering ending rules to crackdown on campus sexual assault.

Our students, parents and teachers deserve so much more beginning with a
Secretary of Education and President who are committed to our students and
public education. That is why Democrats will keep fighting to protect students
and invest in their futures by providing them with access to an affordable
education and job training that expands opportunity for all Americans.
DeVos refused to promise that she would not cut funding for public
schools.

NBC News: DeVos refused to promise that she would not privatize or
strip funding from the public schools she would oversee if
confirmed. Asked bluntly by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington whether
she would commit to keeping funding for public schools intact, DeVos
dodged the question. I look forward, if confirmed, to working with you to
talk about how we address the needs of all parents and all students, she
said. We acknowledge today that not all schools are working for the
students that are assigned to them, and Im hopeful that we can work
together to find common ground and ways that we can solve those issues
and empower parents to make choices on behalf of their children that are
right for them.

DeVos agenda lacked accountability standards for charter schools

and for-profit charter school operators.

Washington Post: President Trump has proposed spending hundreds of

millions of dollars in new federal funding to expand charter schools, and
his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has made clear that her major
priority is expanding school choice, including charters. But one thing
missing from their agenda is anything that seeks to hold charter schools
and for-profit charter operators accountable for how they spend money
and educate children and their level of transparency to the public.

DeVos praised Trumps budget, which included devastating cuts to

education spending.

MLive: DeVos Says Trump Education Budget Places Power In The Hands
Of Parents And Families.

NPR: President Trumps full budget proposal for fiscal year 2018, to be
released Tuesday, calls for a $9.2 billion, or 13.5 percent, spending cut to
 education. The cuts would be spread across K-12 and aid to higher
education, according to documents released by the White House.

As it slashes funding for traditional public schools, Trumps budget

would take Title I school funding for disadvantaged students to
bankroll a new school-choice program.

Los Angeles Times: It would use part of a funding stream for

disadvantaged kids to pay for school choice. The federal program known
as Title I pays for services for low-income students. The Trump
administration is proposing to use $1 billion in Title I money to pay for a
new school-choice program. The $550-million increase in Title I that a
recent budget deal gave states would be cut from their shares of the
regularly scheduled funding formula moving forward.

Associated Press: For elementary and secondary education, the budget

seeks to expand charter and voucher-type programs for private schools
around the country. It calls for an additional $1 billion in funds to
encourage school districts to advance choice options, $250 million in
scholarships to low-income families to attend private schools and $167
million to start or expand charter schools.

Trumps budget would eliminate after-school programs that serve 1.6

million children, primarily from low-income neighborhoods.

NPR: The Education Department faces a 13.5 percent cut in spending,

including the elimination of $1.2 billion in after-school programs and a
$2.3 billion program to reduce class sizes and train teachers.

Washington Post: The cuts would come from eliminating at least 22

programs, some of which Trump outlined in March. Gone, for example,
would be $1.2 billion for after-school programs that serve 1.6 million
children, most of whom are poor, and $2.1 billion for teacher training and
class-size reduction.
Trumps budget cut teacher training programs by $2.1 billion and
funding for special education programs.

Education Week: The biggest single line-item to be eliminated is $2.1

billion for supporting teacher development and reducing class size under
Title II.

Education Week: Grants for special education, which also go out by

formula, get $12.7 billion in Trumps budget, a decline of about $112
million from the amount in the fiscal 2017 budget deal.

Trumps budget eliminated grant programs for groups educating

native Hawaiian and Alaska native students.

Politico: Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native education programs: The

administration wants to eliminate roughly $65 million through two
competitive grant programs for groups educating Native Hawaiian and
Alaska Native students. The administration argues Hawaii and Alaska are
better suited to support those programs and budget documents include
figures showing those programs have missed performance targets in
recent years. For instance, just 46 percent of students served by the Native
Hawaiian program scored at the proficient level or higher in reading on
the states annual assessments in 2015 a far cry from the goal of 70-
percent of students. Hawaii and Alaska, however, dont receive Bureau of
Indian Education Funding that helps educate native peoples in other parts
of the country and the proposed cuts have drawn ire from lawmakers
from those states.

Trumps budget eliminated a program providing on-campus childcare

for low-income parents pursuing a college degree.

Politico: Campus childcare: Parents pursuing a college degree who might

have grown accustomed to bringing their children to campus would have
 to look elsewhere for childcare as the administration would get rid of the
Child Care Access Means Parents in School program, which provides on-
campus childcare for low-income parents. Budget documents say the $15
million program provides an important service, but subsidizing expenses
associated with child care is not consistent with the Departments
mission.

DeVos Education Department stopped approving new fraud claims

against for-profit schools.

Politico: More than seven months into the Trump administration, DeVos
has: Stopped approving new student fraud claims brought against
for-profit schools. The Education Department has a backlog of more than
65,000 applications from students seeking to have their loans forgiven on
the grounds they were defrauded, some of which date to the previous
administration.

DeVos allocated two spots on panels reviewing the borrower defense

and gainful employment student loan rules specifically for
representatives from the for-profit college sector.

Inside Higher Ed: The Department of Education on Tuesday outlined

qualifications for potential negotiators taking up the borrower defense and
gainful employment regulations in separate rulemaking panels later this
year. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced in June that she would
block the borrower defense rule from going into effect and establish
separate panels to reconsider both sets of regulations. The borrower
defense rule outlined a process for student borrowers defrauded by their
institutions to seek discharge of their student loans. The gainful
employment rule sought to hold career education programs accountable
for graduating students with more debt than they could pay off. The
department is seeking nominations for negotiators from a range of
constituencies as is typical in the rulemaking process.

Inside Higher Ed: And the department created two slots for
representatives from the for-profit sector on both panels -- one
representing institutions with 450 students or less, and another
 representing larger institutions. And it added a slot for a representative of
business and industry, such as a labor economist, to the gainful
employment panel.

DeVos announced a new federal student aid oversight approach that

advocates said encouraged fraud and abuse.

Inside Higher Ed: In a news release announcing the hiring of several key
employees at the Office of Federal Student Aid, which is responsible for
administering financial aid programs, DeVos and the department outlined
-- with few details -- a new oversight approach focused on risk
management and communication with top officials at institutions
themselves. That message was attacked by advocates for strong
enforcement who said it promised more cooperation with bad actors.

Inside Higher Ed: Advocates for students, however, warned that the
announcement promised a more lax approach to enforcement of colleges
and universities that defraud students."

DeVos eliminated a federal task force that helped crackdown on

abuses at for-profit colleges.

Politico: Beyond those changes, for-profit colleges are notching wins

behind the scenes, as Education Department regulators scale back their
enforcement of the industry and decide individual cases in ways that favor
the industry. The administration quietly killed a federal task force
designed to crack down on abuses at for-profit colleges and share
information across investigative agencies such as the Federal Trade
Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Securities
and Exchange Commission and state attorneys general.

DeVos terminated two agreements between the Department of

Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that were
intended to combat student loan fraud.
 Inside Higher Ed: In a letter rebuking the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau for overreaching and expanding its jurisdiction, the department
said it would end two agreements between the agencies to share
information for oversight of private actors involved in federal aid
programs -- chief among them student loan servicers, the private entities
that manage and collect payments on federal student loans.

DeVos allowed for-profit colleges to continue using an accreditor that

the Obama administration had shut down for lax oversight.

Politico: DeVos has also offered a reprieve to the hundreds of for-profit

colleges scrambling to find a new accrediting agency since the Obama
administration last year terminated the Accrediting Council for
Independent Colleges and Schools, which it said approved too many
dishonest schools. The Obama administration told schools they needed to
make progress in their quest for a stamp of approval from another
accreditor by this fall or else lose their federal funding but the Trump
administration relaxed that requirement, pushing back the deadline until
the end of this year, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.

DeVos reversed an Obama-era decision to withhold federal funds

from Globe University, which was accused of defrauding its students.

Politico: In another case, DeVos effectively reversed an Obama

administration decision to deny federal aid to some campuses being sold
by Globe University to another school owned by the same family. Last
December, the Obama Education Department yanked federal aid to Globe,
a Minnesota-based chain of for-profit colleges, after a state court said the
company defrauded students and misrepresented its criminal justice
programs. The change was first reported by Inside Higher Ed and also
confirmed by documents obtained by POLITICO under a state public
records request.
DeVos pick to lead the student aid enforcement unit at the Education
Department had recently been at a school that was fined $100 million
for misleading claims.

GQ: Betsy DeVos' Newest Hire Was A Dean Of DeVry, Everyone's

Favorite Sham University

The Hill: A former DeVry University official has reportedly been picked to
head the Department of Education's enforcement unit. Julian Schmoke
who serves as the executive director of campus relations for West Georgia
Technical College has been hired for the job, Politico reported. Schmoke
formerly worked as an associate program dean for DeVry's college of
engineering and information sciences. The Student Aid Enforcement Unit
was created last year to respond more quickly and efficiently to allegations
of illegal actions by higher education institutions."

DeVos Education Department announced they would delay two

Obama-era rules aimed at reigning in for-profit colleges that
defrauded or misled students.

Inside Higher Ed: The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday will

announce plans to hit pause on two of the Obama administrations
primary rules aimed at reining in for-profit colleges.

DeVos changed the gainful employment rule to make it easier for

career training programs to contest allegations that they misled and
failed to prepare students and delayed implementation of the rule
by a year.

MarketWatch: U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced a

change to an Obama-era rule Thursday that borrower advocates say will
put students at risk of being preyed on by schools that are supposed to
prepare students for careers. If the Department of Education decides
career-training programs dont adequately prepare their students for
employment, those programs can now dispute the agencys findings with
 their own data with no baseline requirements as to the size of the sample
as long as DeVos deems them to be reliable metrics. The announcement
is the latest step taken by the Trump administration that slows
implementation of the gainful employment rule, which aims to measure
whether job training programs are delivering on promises to prepare
students adequately for a career.

Inside Higher Ed: Two weeks after announcing a regulatory

rewrite of the gainful-employment rule for nondegree career
education programs, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced
late Friday that she was delaying key provisions of the existing rule.
The department will give those programs until July 2018 to disclose
information such as graduate employment rates or debt levels to
prospective students, a year later than originally scheduled.

Trumps budget eliminates loan forgiveness for public servants.

NPR: In the process of that simplification, the budget would phase out
the program known as public service loan forgiveness, which erases
student loans after 10 years of employment for the government or a
qualifying nonprofit. Almost half a million people are enrolled in this
program. Those with graduate, not bachelor's, degrees, have the largest
balances, such as teachers, doctors and lawyers. It's not yet clear whether
the program would be sunset or canceled immediately. The first group of
participants was set to have their loans forgiven this coming October.

Trumps budget stops subsidizing interest on students loans.

NPR: The federal government would stop subsidizing the interest on

student loans, for a cut of $1 billion in the next fiscal year. This would add
thousands of dollars to the cost of college, primarily for low-income
graduates.
Trumps budget eliminates loan programs that subsidize college
education for low-income students, and nearly halves the work-study
program.

Insider Higher Ed: The White House estimates that $143 billion would be
saved over a decade by allowing the Perkins Loan program to expire and
phasing out subsidized federal student loans and Public Service Loan
Forgiveness after next year.

Associated Press: The budget also proposes to nearly halve the federal
work-study program to $500 million. The program provides funding to
colleges and universities to create jobs for students, which help them pay
tuition.

DeVos would not commit to withholding federal funding from private

schools that discriminate.

New York Times: Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, on Wednesday

fiercely defended budget plans to spend $1.4 billion on the Trump
administrations expanded school choice agenda, but refused to say
whether her office would withhold funds from private schools that
discriminate against students.

DeVos called HBCUs the real pioneers of school choice.

U.S. Department of Education: Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos

released the following statement after meeting with presidents and
chancellors of Historically Black Colleges and Universities at the White
House: [] HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They
are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are
afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that
more options help students flourish.
 Washington Posts Answer Sheet: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has
sparked a new controversy, this time making comments about historically
black colleges and universities that betrayed ignorance of the history of
HBCUs and racial segregation in the United States.

DeVos supported Trump rolling back federal protections for

transgender students.

Washington Post: Trump Administration Rolls Back Protections For

Transgender Students.

Secretary DeVos: This is an issue [protecting transgender students] best

solved at the state and local level. Schools, communities, and families can
find and in many cases have found solutions that protect all students.

DeVos Education Department rapidly closed civil rights complaints

and narrowed its focus in civil rights investigations.

Politico: Betsy DeVos Education Department has closed more than 1,500
civil rights complaints at the nations schools including dismissing more
than 900 outright in the two months since her acting civil rights chief
took steps to reduce a massive backlog.

Politico: The June directive from acting Assistant Secretary for Civil
Rights Candice Jackson told the department's investigators to narrow
their focus to the merits of a particular claim, rather than probing systemic
issues, as they had done during the Obama administration. Jackson also
gave regional civil rights offices more autonomy to close cases without
approval from D.C.

Trumps budget slashes funding for the Education Departments

Office for Civil Rights and does not dedicate any money for a fund
supporting anti-bullying initiatives.
 Los Angeles Times: The $9.2 billion in cuts represent a 13.5% drop from
the U.S. Department of Educations 2017 budget of $68.2 billion. It
includes a $2-million cut to the Office for Civil Rights, the group
responsible for enforcing civil rights law in the nations schools.

USA Today: Trump is also proposing cutting childcare for low-income

parents attending college and eliminating a fund that underwrites anti-
bullying programs, Advanced Placement courses and STEM coursework.
Hed keep the same level of funding $492 million for historically
black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving
colleges.

DeVos defended meeting with mens rights activists, college

attorneys and students who claim they were wrongfully accused of
sexual assault.

Politico: DeVos is scheduling a series of meetings next week with

advocates for survivors of campus sexual assault, as well as with groups
representing students who say they were wrongfully accused and college
attorneys, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the meetings.
It could be a sign that she will soon make changes to controversial 2011
guidance on campus sexual assault issued by the Obama administration,
which required colleges to take certain steps to crack down on sexual
violence on campus.

ThinkProgress: Betsy DeVos Meets With Mens Rights Activists.

Wall Street Journal: She has met with advocates on both sides, including
sexual-assault survivors and wrongfully accused students; the latter
meeting prompted another protest, outside her office. Its important to
listen to all perspectives, and to hear from those who, as I heard that day,
have never felt that theyve had a voice in this discussion, she says. Were
listening and were considering what future options might be. Stay tuned.
The head of the Education Departments Office for Civil Rights,
Candice Jackson, is reportedly thinking about putting the 2011
campus sexual assault directive up for notice-and-comment, which
could change Title IX rules.

BuzzFeed: A top deputy under Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has

indicated she wants to put a key Obama-era directive on campus rape
policies through a process that could change federal Title IX rules, sources
have told BuzzFeed News. Candice Jackson, the current head of the US
Department of Education's civil rights office, has said in private meetings
with different organizations in recent weeks that she wants a 2011 Title IX
directive to go through a process called notice-and-comment. That would
give the public the chance to submit comments to the department about
the rules in this case, how schools handle sexual assault cases and let
the department respond to their comments. It's a slow process that gives
proponents of the 2011 directive a chance to argue for keeping the rules in
place, but ultimately, the department has the final say over the future of
the regulations.

The Education Department is reportedly considering not publishing a

list of colleges and universities under investigation for mishandling
sexual assault claims.

Politico: TITLE IX LIST GOING OUT OF PRINT? The Education

Department may soon stop publishing a weekly list of colleges and
universities under investigation for allegedly mishandling sexual violence
claims a list that started with 55 schools when it was first published in
2014 and has since ballooned to nearly 240 as of this week. Candice
Jackson, the acting head of the departments Office for Civil Rights, called
it a list of shame this week at the National Association of College and
University Attorneys conference in Chicago where she said its high on the
list of things the Trump administration may soon do away with.