Trevor Noah of the Daily Show reviewed Betsy DeVos’s performance at the Senate hearings and concludes she failed every subject. But she will be confirmed anyway. Why? Because she passed “Donations 101.”
Now you will understand why Senator Lamar Alexander cut off the questioning and limited other senators to no more than 5 minutes.
You can also find the video link in this article.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Really enjoyed this and Trevor Noah.
Laura H. Chapman: Do you think Betsy DeVos knows what “oligarch” means? And I liked the clip from the Daily Show also–I wish Trevor had also mentioned the moment where the Congresswoman focused on the charter school who wouldn’t admit a disabled student unless they gave up their federal rights to a good education.
One thing that is so terribly wrong with privatization is how mere oversight and accountability, that is applied regularly to public schools and institutions, must turn into POLICE SURVEILLANCE for private schools and organizations–whose administrators continually look for ways to subvert the rules to serve the “bottom line” and stockholders “needs” at the expense of their students or customers. Instead of accountability and guidance, you have to play whack-a-mole with them. A recent analogy is the Wells Fargo effort to defraud their customers by using their accounts to line their pockets. I’m convinced that there is nothing inherently wrong with capitalism–it’s the moral degenerates who populate it who give it its bad name.
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It was brilliant. As I wrote in an earlier post, without comedians today, there would be little journalism taking place at the national political level.
Trevor did not mention her intense questioning by Senator Murphy on his legislation re Rape and Justice. DeVos repeatedly equivocated and refused to say she supported justice for victims. She evidently had donated to a group that protects the accused ‘perps’.
Is she a real person? Or is this a comic diversion to keep us from watching carefully the Tillerson appointment? Hard to believe anyone could be as ignorant about ed issues as DeVos who supports ‘perps’ in sexual assaults on campuses, does not support Federal law re special needs students, and does not know the difference between proficiency and growth.
Ellen, I believe they have a strategy of political whack-a-mole that is designed to create, as I call it, a collective exhaustion among political opponents to chip away at our will to resist. The first big test will be on Saturday in DC and rallies around the country and the world. There may be a divine message in the weather. Rain is predicted for DC on Friday and Sunday, but not on Saturday.
Ah so…sunny skies on Saturday = ethereal intervention.
Transbearancy
The confirmation hearing
Was perfectly transbearant
With Alexander fearing
An answer that was errant
wow.
Damn, that is damn good!
Standing ovation!
Simply tremendous
Too bad the comics can’t keep our system honest. The travesty is that this biased, know nothing will be appointed to lead our DOE because of her political donations. She will inflict her misguided agenda on our young people, and I hope we will see her in court.
The only pleasure in the hearings is watching the only remaining Democrats willing to take a stand point out the inadequacies and double dealings of the candidates. Sanders and Kaine are assertive, but Warren is aggressive. She is like a pitbull on steroids. She was actually toying with DeVos when she asked if DeVos is against waste and fraud. “Oh, good, so am I against waste and fraud,” and she replied with a condescending sneer that would have pleased Snape from “Harry Potter.”
retired teacher: In her interview, when asked about the federal disabilities act, DeVos either didn’t know about the law, or she thought that, as secretary of ed, she could just dismiss it and put the problem to the states–which is another way to say FU to the federal government because to put control closer to the states means to put control closer to oligarchs like herself–insofar as they own state legislatures.
As someone else said here earlier–it’s the laws that are keeping us from arbitrary rule and utter chaos.
I’ve begun to hear advertisements where the promise is made that the Republican “Health Care” plan is soon to be unveiled … a much better plan without those silly regulations. Anyone for an arbitrarily chaotic health care?
“Bell Biv Devos” I like it. Take all the federal money and start a 90’s inner city – Dutch reform fusion school system.. Uniforms of parachute pants and wooden clogs. On the P.A. system some MC Hammer, ‘we got to pray, to make it through the day’.
It’s all about the money. Where’s that 20 billion of federal money headed? Any ideas? If someone is proposing a voucher system or backpack of money system, the important detail is getting the stipends right for different students to comply with federal law. Is the federal government going to fill the backpacks of students with learning disabilities to the tune of 40K or 50K a year? Is the federal government going to police the states to see that they fund students the correct stipend to comply with federal law?
With a single system, the law of averages evens out federal mandates for expensive students. In a voucher system getting the per student stipends correct to match the law is imperative for a functioning system.
Let’s get the CODING clear:
“Choice” (Giving more control to states and parents)
in Reform-Speak is CODE for
(1) Consolidating oligarchic or group control under ideological corporate and/or religious agendas.
and
(2) Killing public schools; or using them (a) as fronts for voucher-public tax distribution to private schools and (2) to warehouse students they don’t want to educate, e.g., serving their panoply of biases.
Catherine,
Important to remember that none of the “choice” advocates increasing the education budget. So every dollar for a charter or a voucher is a dollar taken away from the public schools that enroll the vast majority of students.
You understand, right, that this comedic bit ends with a devastating critique of public education and a Devos style lament about “social promotion”? I really wouldn’t rely on the late night comedians as much.
I agree.
A lot of these so called comedians Eg Samantha Bee) are really idiots and not the least bit funny. Many of them think the more you use the F word, the funnier you are. .
Disagree with both critiques. Stewart, Oliver, Bee, and to some extent Colbert and Noah do a better job of explaining issues than any in the “news” business–and it is a business that gives us the business. And sometimes a succinct, well-placed expletive says more than a book. The issue, as Wallace Stegner once observed, is judicious use.
Bee is as dumb as they come and not the least bit funny.
But I agree that John Oliver has some good stuff.
She just recently “discovered” that Obama has deported a large number of people– when she could easily have found that out with a few second internet search.
Of maybe she’s just dishonest?
I’d like to see Arne Duncan nominated again as Secretary — just for the confirmation hearing.
I think it would be very educational, with the roles switched.
I wonder if Elizabeth Warren and All Franken would be as confrontational.
Actually, given their virtual silence during Duncan’s reign of “error” I know they would not.
Challenging the opposition is not courageous Or even particularly admirable.
Challenging your own party is
That was worth watching, but he missed a chance in his conclusion to also mention that she never attended public schools and is a product of elite private schools that only the super rich can afford to send their children to.
When she mentioned Grizzly bears, I thought she was talking about this.
http://www.sebastienmillon.com/The-Right-to-Bear-Arms-Art-Print-15
Given the obvious needs of Barron Trump you would think the Rump would want to appoint a Sec. of Education that has at least a basic understanding of IDEA.
Baron Trump will be going to the $50k (annually) private school Trump and his children attended and now he will have Secret Service protection while he’s at that elite, very expensive private school.
I wonder what it will cost taxpayers to provide protection to Trump hotels around the world.
Trump might solve that problem by closing down all the U.S. embassies and consulates around the world and having the U.S. govenrment rent a floor or two in his hotels. He’d charge the government ten times the going rate and get free security for his hotels too.