27 Jan 2017 18:04:17 UTC
All snapshots from host www.politico.com
<a href="http://archive.today/sOmmT"> <img style="width:300px;height:200px;background-color:white" src="https://archive.is/sOmmT/9f98915283961413c0febf250cd31014a8a74f6f/scr.png"><br> Morning Education - POLITICO<br> archived 27 Jan 2017 18:04:17 UTC </a>
{{cite web | title = Morning Education - POLITICO | url = http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education | date = 2017-01-27 | archiveurl = http://archive.today/sOmmT | archivedate = 2017-01-27 }}
 POLITICO
Weekly Email Signups
 PRO
Already a Pro?
Why Go Pro?
 Search
 Login
 U.S. Edition
Europe Edition
POLITICO Media
 Menu
Sections
POLITICO Live 
POLITICO Live Home
Multimedia
Off Message
POLITICO Nerdcast
Blogs & Columns
Playbook Plus
Roger Simon
45 Presidential Tracker
Series
POLITICO Caucus
Connect With Us
Trump's Yuge Week One
Nervous world watches Trump's meeting with British leader
Trump team walks back plan to fund wall with import tax
Trump's regulation freeze makes losers out of some U.S. businesses
Anti-abortion marchers celebrate a new era under Trump
Trump lurches through chaotic day
A daily overview of education policy news
 Subscribe
 Facebook
 Twitter
 Google +
 Email
 Print
Benjamin Wermund is an education reporter for POLITICO Pro, covering federal policy and national education issues. He's a Texas expat and a diehard Spurs fan and he has a weakness for margaritas and queso. Ben graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked as a reporter, editor and managing editor for The Daily Texan. He spent a brief stint covering West Texas for the Big Bend Sentinel before joining the Austin American-Statesman, where he covered the Austin school district.
Prior to joining POLITICO, he covered higher education at the Houston Chronicle, where he showed a knack for aggressive accountability reporting. His stories exposed the mismanagement of a $425 million bond program at Houston Community College, the questionable spending on a $128 million football stadium at the University of Houston, and UH's decision to spend big on a commencement day speaker: actor Matthew McConaughey was paid more than $135,000 for a 45-minute speech. Ben's education beat reporting was a national finalist for an Education Writers Association award.
 Most Read
The nation's cartoonists on the week in politics
Trump White House abruptly halts Obamacare ads
GOP airs old grievances in private Pence meeting
Trump boasts to GOP lawmakers about his win, crowd sizes
Should You Resign from the Trump Administration?
Miami-Dade mayor: Trump should pay immigration jail costs
Morning Education - POLITICO Archive
Friday, 1/27/17
Thursday, 1/26/17
Wednesday, 1/25/17
Tuesday, 1/24/17
Monday, 1/23/17
View the Full Morning Education Archives »
  Politico Magazine
Trump the Bully
By Jack Shafer
Theresa May Has No Good Options
By Alex Massie
Trump's Bad Voter Fraud Math
By Chris Ashby
By Price Floyd
New Trump Education hire vanishes
By Benjamin Wermund
| 01/27/17 10:00 AM EST
With help from Caitlin Emma, Kimberly Hefling and Michael Stratford
NEW TRUMP EDUCATION HIRE VANISHES: A controversial field organizer for Donald Trump's campaign appears to have abruptly left her new Education Department job — three days after her hire was announced. Teresa UnRue of Myrtle Beach, S.C., was named in an investigation by The Associated Press last year for sharing racially charged content on social media. POLITICO reported earlier this week that she was on a list of 17 new individuals joining the Trump administration's Education Department. But updated transition information obtained by POLITICO Thursday shows that UnRue's name has abruptly vanished from that list of new hires.
— It's unclear what position UnRue, who once said that she would "take a bullet" for Trump, had at the agency. When reached by phone Thursday, UnRue directed questions to the Education Department's press office. An Education Department spokesman said "the department doesn't comment on personnel matters." Caitlin Emma has the story.
— UnRue shared a video on Facebook in July of "a black man eating fried chicken while shaming fellow black people," the AP reported last year. The man in the video asks, "Why are you mad about slavery? Y'all weren't no damn slaves." UnRue wrote of the video, "Had me crack'n up!! Thank you! Please share this with people." In other posts, UnRue shared a statement that said, "We need Islam control, not gun control." She also linked to a website that alleged the U.S. government assassinated Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last year.
— Meanwhile, two new names join Trump's Education Department: While UnRue's name disappeared from the list of new hires, Alexandra Hudson and Michael Oberlies were added to the list.
HAPPY FRIDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING EDUCATION. I'm super pumped for the return of Twin Peaks later this year. I'm not, however, sure what to make of these action figures of the characters on the show. Laura Palmer's corpse is a little creepy. Kyle MacLachlan (Special Agent Dale Cooper himself) weighed in yesterday with what I think is probably the best take. Drop me a line: bwermund@politico.com and @BenjaminEW. Share event listings: educalendar@politicopro.com. And follow us on Twitter: @Morning_Edu and@POLITICOPro.
AN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION ODD COUPLE: A new early childhood initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center is bringing together two politicians from opposite sides of the aisle: Rick Santorum, a former GOP senator and unabashed conservative, and George Miller, a liberal who was the ranking Democrat on the House education committee until he retired in 2015. In an opinion piece in USA Today, the two men, who together are leading the initiative, write, "We are convinced that supporting early childhood development is an issue that can unite both political parties. It's also an area where Congress can begin immediately to work with the Trump administration to support the needs and aspirations of working families: a group our political system has neglected for far too long."
— #FlashbackFriday: In 2011, Santorum said early childhood education programs were an attempt to "indoctrinate" children. "It is a parent's responsibility to educate their children. It is not the government's job," the Des Moines Register reported Santorum telling a crowd in Iowa. "Of course, the government wants their hands on your children as fast as they can. That is why I opposed all these early starts and pre-early starts, and early-early starts. They want your children from the womb so they can indoctrinate your children as to what they want them to be. I am against that," he said.
AFTER DELAY, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT RELEASES INVESTIGATIONS LIST: For the first time in more than two years, the Education Department earlier this week balked when asked to release its weekly updated list of colleges under investigation for mishandling sexual assault cases. They cited the presidential transition, but advocates worried it might be a sign of a coming blackout from the department. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, criticized the decision not to provide the list, saying that the Trump administration "is taking office with absolutely zero credibility on the issue of sexual assault." But on Thursday afternoon, the Education Department released the list — which included two new investigations. Department officials said the whole thing was just a "misunderstanding."
CALVIN ALUMNI OPPOSE DEVOS: Hundreds of alumni and students at Calvin College, Betsy DeVos' alma mater, have signed a letter voicing their opposition to her confirmation. They list several concerns, including that "she has never worked in any educational institution as an administrator, nor as an educator" and that she doesn't have a "strong commitment to public education." The alumni also write that she has demonstrated a "lack of support for federal policies regarding educational systems that receive public funding," particularly when it comes to Title IX and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Calvin College released a statement that said, "Our graduate Betsy DeVos is responding to her sense of call to public service, and more than 60,000 alumni from a variety of political perspectives are discerning the best ways to engage politics and culture in this moment. In all of this, our alumni are living out what we hope our students are learning during their time on campus: to think deeply, to act justly and to live wholeheartedly as Christ's agents of renewal in the world." More in the college's campus newspaper, Chimes.
— Thousands say they plan to rally in opposition to DeVos on Capitol Hill on Sunday. A Facebook event for the rally indicates some 1,400 people plan to attend the rally and another 9,600 may join them. The organizers of the rally say it has drawn more attention than they expected and they hope it won't be confined to just D.C. "Our hope is that those who cannot come to D.C. will be able to meet at their local or city government buildings to send the same, clear message: Betsy DeVos is not good for our schools!"
— Also on the DeVos front: The National Association of Secondary School Principals announced it has decided to oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos. In a letter to HELP Committee leaders, JoAnn D. Bartoletti, the organization's director, said that DeVos' "embarrassing" performance during her confirmation hearing "revealed a breathtaking ignorance of the federal government's role in ensuring equitable access to education for all students, specifically those with disabilities." Bartoletti said DeVos also provided a "glib response" to the issue of gun violence in schools and "lacks understanding of the federal financial aid system."
EDU-PINION: When it comes to undocumented students protected from deportation by Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Trump has said that he'll "work something out that's going to make people happy and proud." While he hasn't touched the DACA issue yet as president, his immigration executive orders issued this week are actually a "blueprint for mass deportation," writes David Leopold, an immigration lawyer and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. While Trump has said his top priority is deporting people with criminal backgrounds, Leopold argues that existing policies already did that. Trump's immigration policy, he says, "threatens millions of immigrants — including Dreamers — who have lived in this country for decades, just because they happen to have an old deportation order." On Thursday, Leopold tweeted, "Trump's lying when sez he wants to work something out for DREAMERs; His Exec Order is a blueprint 4 mass deportation."
MEANWHILE: University of California President Janet Napolitano — who was Homeland Security secretary when DACA was created — is set to talk about the future of the program at a Migration Policy Institute event this afternoon. Donald Graham, the co-founder of TheDream.Us, and Ike Brannon, a CATO Institute fellow and former chief economist for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will join her for the panel discussion. Watch it here.
— A group of immigration historians wants the public to understand the roots of today's immigration debate. The historians, from colleges across the country, are launching a website that includes a 15-week syllabus on the topic — aimed at teaching people how we got here.
WASHINGTON STATE CHARTERS: A case challenging Washington state's charter school law will be heard today in King County Superior Court. The suit was filed by a coalition that includes parents, school administrators and the Washington Education Association. Their complaint alleges that the law violates the state constitution by diverting public funding to privately-run charter schools. There's been a years-long saga in the state over charter schools. In 2012, voters approved an initiative creating public charter schools, but the state Supreme Court in 2015 ruled it unconstitutional. The new law was passed last year to address the court's concerns.
DISSECTING THE LAST EIGHT YEARS: It's been a week since President Barack Obama left office, but scholars are already debating his legacy. A conference today and Saturday titled "Legal and Political Change During the Obama Era" takes place at the George Washington University Law School. Education, LGBT issues and the Black Lives Matter movement are among the topics expected to be discussed by panelists. The event is hosted by the Mid-Atlantic People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference.
— The superintendent of Dysart Unified School District in Arizona, Gail Pletnick, and Virginia Beach City Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence have been named EdLeader21 chair and vice-chair, respectively.
— South Dakota governor vows to veto any legislation restricting which locker rooms transgender students can use: The Associated Press.
— Indiana teachers hold a sit-in to demand Sen. Todd Young recuse himself from voting on DeVos nomination after her family donated to his campaigns: WTHR.
— In the face of financial strain and enrollment losses, Pennsylvania state college system should consider everything — even merging or closing campuses: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
— Among DeVos' many investments: Whole Foods, CorePower Yoga, and a company that makes energy bars out of crickets: BuzzFeed.
— College leaders wary of declaring campuses "sanctuaries:" The New York Times.
Follow the Pro Education team and put your mind to better times. @caitlinzemma (cemma@politico.com), @khefling (khefling@politico.com), @mstratford (mstratford@politico.com), @mrmikevasquez (mvasquez@politico.com) and @BenjaminEW (bwermund@politico.com).
« View Archives
Benjamin Wermund
|  bwermund@politico.com
|  @BenjaminEW
 More on POLITICO
 Core Footer - dropdown links U.S. Edition Europe Edition
POLITICO Links
Tipsheets
The 2016 Blast
RSS/Widgets
SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone. See the Facebook Help Center for more information.