Arming teachers bullshit...

DeVos revives bitter debate over arming teachers

By CAITLIN EMMA and MICHAEL STRATFORD

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is weighing whether to allow school districts to tap more than $1 billion in federal money to put guns in schools in response to requests from Oklahoma and Texas to train and arm “school marshals.”

The highly unusual move would fly in the face of recent congressional efforts to prohibit the use of federal funds for guns in schools, and has revived the already explosive debate over arming teachers. A number of powerful Republicans in Congress have already slapped down that idea, which was touted by President Donald Trump after 17 people were slain at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day.

“I’m no fan of arming teachers,” Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters on Thursday when asked about DeVos’ thinking. But he said he believes Congress has already allowed states and school districts to decide whether to use federal money to buy guns. Alexander is chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Democrats immediately launched an attack to kill the idea, first reported by The New York Times. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said he plans to introduce a last-minute amendment to a massive spending package Thursday “to stop DeVos’ plan even before she formally introduces it," adding that the Senate "should do something about it this week.”

Murphy noted that when Republicans and Democrats authorized $50 million in new spending on school security in March, they expressly prohibited the use of federal funds for firearms.

“Parents don’t want this,” he said. “Teachers don’t want this. The only people who want this are Secretary DeVos and her gun industry allies.”

But a senior Trump administration official told POLITICO that Oklahoma and Texas had asked DeVos about whether they could use a popular pot of federal school funding for firearms and firearms training, so agency officials are researching the issue.

Texas, which launched a program in 2013 to train and arm “school marshals,” specifically asked whether the funds can be used for guns, gun training and marshal training for school personnel, according to the state’s inquiry, which was reviewed by POLITICO. The Texas Education Agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The funding program that state school officials are eyeing — known as Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants — was created by the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal education law that replaced No Child Left Behind in 2015.

States and school districts can use the funds for a variety of things, from dropout prevention programs and counseling to upgraded technology.

The notion of using the grants to arm teachers has sparked internal tension at the Education Department, leading to disagreements between the agency’s political leadership and career attorneys who worry it may conflict with federal law, according to one Education Department source familiar with the discussions.

While the law doesn’t expressly prohibit weapons purchases and training, it does say the grants should be used to promote school safety and “a school environment that is free of weapons.”

DeVos chairs a White House commission on school safety, which was launched after the school shooting in Parkland. But the idea hasn’t come up during the commission’s meetings, some of which have taken place in states like Wyoming, where few school districts have taken advantage of state laws to permit the training and arming of teachers.

DeVos’ commission is expected to issue a recommendations by year’s end.

Her thinking has also prompted some confusion on the Hill. A senior Republican aide said it appears DeVos has the authority to allow districts to use the funds for guns and weapons training, with the idea resting on her interpretation of the law.

But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who said she wasn’t familiar with DeVos’ potential plan, told POLITICO she didn’t know whether school districts buying guns was an “allowable use” of federal funds.

“I don’t think that the administration’s plan to arm school teachers makes sense,” she said. “They have enough to do teaching their students and they should not be expected to be security officers as well.”

A coalition of organizations that advocates for increased funding for enrichment programs, known as the Title IV-A Coalition, said, it’s “absolutely a stretch” to think the grants can be used to arm teachers.

“The fact that the Department of Education is so desperate to promote guns in schools … that it is willing to raid a federal program intended to provide educational services like mental health programs, music and arts education ... is absolutely preposterous and in the opinion of the many diverse organizations we represent, frankly dangerous,” the organization said in a statement.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz recently proposed an amendment to the spending package before Congress to clarify that schools can use the funds to strengthen physical school security measures. But even that says nothing about guns.

Asked about allowable uses of the grant program on Wednesday, Education Department press secretary Liz Hill said it “was created to be a very flexible program that allows educators to tailor investments based on the needs of their unique student populations to be educated in a safe, healthy, and well-rounded school environment.”

Hill said the Education Department is continually reviewing the guidance it has given states and "questions we receive from stakeholders to ensure that the program is being implemented as written and Congress intended."

The Trump administration has twice proposed zeroing out funds for the program. So the news that DeVos is considering the use of funds for firearms took some school-safety advocates aback.

“This is a pillaging of a program that the Education Department didn’t even seem to care about until now,” said Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, director of policy and advocacy for the National Association of School Psychologists.

School safety and education advocates also broadly condemned the use of funds for arming teachers.

JoAnn Bartoletti, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said the idea amounts to a “perverse distortion” of the law.

“Under the guise of flexibility, the secretary continues to abdicate her responsibility to advance sound, research-based efforts to safeguard students,” she said.