In case you don’t know anything about Betsy DeVos, the Washington Post has a good summary.
So does Wikipedia.
She is a huge fan of vouchers. She supports Common Core. She thinks vouchers will give every child a great education.
The story says that some studies find that voucher students are more likely to go to college. Those studies show that voucher schools have high rates of attrition. The students who don’t transfer back to public schools are slightly more likely to go to college. The studies typically don’t factor in the students who leave when calculating the graduation rate. In Milwaukee, for example, 44% of the kids who started in voucher schools in 9th grade dropped out before graduation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
An Amway billionaire next public schools will be selling Amway products. Just what we need welcome to the Rump Make America Great Again lie
You hit it right on the head. I guess the principal of each school will be at the top of the pyramid and sales will be part of teacher evaluation. WTF, where will we end up??
DeVos’ first scheme will be to mandate that all new schools be built in the shape of a pyramid.
You forgot one word:
“DeVos’ first scheme will be to mandate that all new CHARTER schools be built in the shape of a pyramid.”
This too is a must read…her brother is the famous Blackwater mercenary guy who profits off wars. Wait until you see these creepy family connections.
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/devos-family-foundations-heritage-americans-prosperity-blackwater
Have been reading about Blackwater and it’s scum bucket founder since Georgie the Least’s god told him to invade Iraq.
Diane just think where DeVos money comes from. Amway. A very questionable business model. Get rich by selling out of home type of business. I shudder at the morality of quick money. Quick fix for educating children. Gov. Rick Snyder of Flint fame. Detroit bankruptcy fame. is her guy.
The pyramid racket of so-called education reform, openly declaring itself for the first time.
This was always the ed reform goal, right? A fully privatized system?
Maybe it’s good that’s out in the open now- it adds clarity and gives the public an opportunity to weigh in.
Hopefully this ends the misleading and deceptive claims of ed reformers that they hope to “improve public schools”. They hope to completely eradicate public schools.
Let the debate begin. I’m hoping Americans will reject privatization.
No, it’s not good.
Chiara, that was the point of my parody-satire about endorsing DeVos. I would never in real life endorse her.
She hates public schools. She gave money to fight same-sex marriage in other states. She is a true reactionary.
If they actually allow the public to have a voice, most communities want strong public education. “Reform” is not coming from parents or students. It is coming from billionaires and corporations. They see a way to get their hands on public money. The problem is that “reformers” start buying elected representatives that make unilateral decisions to privatize without allowing any public participation. It’s a rigged system, kind of like our last election.
You’re exactly right, Chiara. Remember, now they own everything.
More background info on Betsy DeVos involvement with privatization:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/5/16/123025/506/Front_Page/Prince_and_DeVos_Families_at_Intersection_of_Radical_Free_Market_Privatizers_and_Religious_Right
OMG dChristine!
Strong words of protest from Presidents Garcia and Weingarten won’t hide the fact that their early, unthinking endorsement of Hillary, against the wishes of so many teachers they claim to represent, before even one primary vote was cast, is partly to blame for the fix we are all in now. Imagine if the Dems had run a candidate who legitimately opposed TPP and legitimately supported workers’ rights, and who would have campaigned for and won the votes of those Obama supporters who voted this year for Trump in the rust belt states. I don’t think we’d be discussing the demerits of a DeVos-run Education Department. Is there any Democrat in the Senate who understands what is at stake with her appointment and could lead a strong, intelligent challenge to her confirmation? I question whether even Sanders or Warren get it. Will our unions educate them? Hopefully.
GST,
That’s a stretch. I think Hillary would have won the primaries without the teachers’ unions’ endorsements. When the race started, Bernie Sanders was not a Democrat.
Diane,
Respectfully Joe Biden was a possibility too, and I believe would have run a better race in those rust belt states than Hillary. As you posted today, Hillary now has a two million vote lead, but those votes are sadly in the wrong states. Also, I don’t believe my Union restricts its endorsement to registered Democrats. If Fighting Bob LaFollette would come back, I’d vote for him.
GST,
Do not look to Booker.
I won’t. He did for Newark what Christie is doing for Camden. Destroying public education. Since Cory is a friend of Rachel Maddow, it may be interesting to see how she spins this appointment on MSNBC Education Nation should be a blast this year.
Maybe Sherrod Brown or Bob Casey?
Yup.You think Weingarten or Garcia are going to be personally affected by Devos? Nope. All the schmucks that pay their exorbitant salaries are going to pay the price. Unions have become expensively useless.
The Times is covering this at the moment under the headline, Trump Moves to Diversify His Cabinet With Latest Picks.
Masters of the irrelevant.
“The selections could blunt criticism that Mr. Trump’s early choices have come from a homogenous bloc of older, white men.”
Yeah, because one man of color, one woman of color, and one right-wing, incredibly wealthy, white woman really “diversify” his picks. I love how a lot of media wants to say Trump is “different” because of these picks. Hogwash.
John Heilmann on Bloomberg News tonight said that he didn’t think the nomination of Devos to be Ed. Sec. wasnt particularly controversial since her policy views weren’t really any different from those of Obama’s choice, Arne Duncan. Very perceptive.
Not really.
Schools are for girls.
This woman, if one can believe what Jane Mayer wrote about her in “Dark Money,” (and I feel confident you can–she’s a competent journalist) is unscrupulous and self-serving. I wondered who could be worse than Arne Duncan, and I think now I know.
Must be tough for liberal ed reformers to admit they’re exactly the same conservative ed reformers, but that is in fact true.
Here’s a former Obama staffer cheering on DeVos:
Betsy DeVos is a well-known proponent of school choice, but her home state of Michigan, where she has played an active role in expanding choice, has a mixed record on charter school authorizing and accountability. As the U.S. Secretary of Education, her job will be to fight for all children by advocating for accountability in all schools—including traditional and public charter—and more high-quality educational options where they are both wanted and needed.”
One word about public schools in the whole statement. One. “Traditional”. That’s the only value our schools are assigned.
What a weirdly hostile statement to make about our children and our schools:
“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” Trump said Wednesday in a statement. “Under her leadership, we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families.”
The public employees I’m paying at the US Department of Education are tasked with “breaking” my son’s school?
Why would I pay them to do that? How do they plan to break his school? Will we have a chance to evacuate the kids first before they destroy it, or what?
I adore DC, I really do. Only in DC would they appoint a billionaire to run the schools of poor and middle class people.
They’re so out of touch they may as well be on another planet.
The question, Chiara, is whether Betsy might set foot in a public school. It would be a first, I suspect.
I’m oddly hopeful for public schools. There’s an opportunity, an opening, now that ed reform has completely abandoned public schools.
DC can run charters and private schools and that leaves an opening for people who value public schools.
It’s a genuine opportunity. They’ll be all but irrelevant as and for our schools. It’ll be up to us to fill the hole that politicians left. and I think we can do it.
DeVos is an ideologue. She mostly focuses on union busting in her home state. She has zero interest in public schools. That leaves it up to the people who built and paid for and attend public schools.
She probably doesn’t set foot in Michigan charters, either, to be honest.
Not exactly a shining example of the “sector”. Most of the charter cheerleading squad steers clear of midwest charters. Not good for the marketing campaign.
DeVos funds and manages Right wing political campaigns, mostly.
Schools aren’t really “her thing” 🙂
For more info on DeVos and the DeVos clan wee Russ Bellant’s 1996 170 page book The Religious Right in Michigan Politics (Americans for Religious Liberty. — Edd Doerr
Will kids and teachers from the unfashionable public school sector still be allowed to enter the US Department of Education, or is it Best and Brightest only?
Seems unfair to exclude them. After all, they’re paying the employees, including DeVos.
Boy, all those rural Trump supporters have a nasty surprise coming when Betsy parachutes in to close their schools.
NOT what Mr. Trump ran on. Oh, well. Maybe they should have spent less time at rallies and more time looking at Donald Trump’s cronies.
Some data on the DeVos clan …
When is USDOE scheduled to be closed?
Betsy might want to keep it open since she runs it.
struggling students at any school more times than not have issues outside of that school preventing him/her from succeeding….not the fault of the school and the voucher school will make little or no difference because of this fact…yet public schools are punished on several levels for this lack of success
When traditional public schools are eliminated, where will private and public charters send the children they wish to counsel out?
The coal mines that Trump will be opening up all over Ohio and West Virginia as he promised.
Just the person who will care about the vast majority of our students and their parents who will find that the vouchers will let schools choose their students. Voucher holder beware. Lamar Alexander seems to think she is a good pick, No experience needed or wanted, just like Trump, in more ways than one.
Here is the Devos 22,000 sq. Ft mansion in Grand Rapid. shown in multiple views. http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/09/amway_heir_dick_and_betsy_devo.html
Here is a bit the Vero Beach family home(s) and family chatter.. http://www.veronews.com/32963_features/arts/amway-s-devos-family-extends-love-of-arts-to-vero/article_dbfe74fe-f243-11e3-a791-001a4bcf6878.html
This has more about her favorite charities. http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2016/3/1/school-choice-but-much-more-making-sense-of-devos-family-phi.html
Like many with excess wealth she is also into the arts and the management thereof. I think the Devos Art Museum is his, with family on the board. It is not nearly as pretentious as the Broad or the Walton art museums. The Kennedy Center gift (rolled into arts management training) was from him and from her. The art prize also seems to be a joint venture.
Here’s DeVos” opinions on schools.
It’s politician-speak. A series of mushy, sound-good slogans, which shouldn’t surprise anyone since she’s a political operative:
“How are we going to really truly ensure that every child has the opportunity to become everything he or she can be? When you consider education as a really fundamental part of anyone’s future, without a good education — without preparation to navigate not only today’s world but the world 20 to 30 years from now, without the ability to think critically and to be able to tap into the innate talents that each individual is endowed with — without unlocking those things, we all as a society suffer.
And so I think that if we can continue to draw people’s attention back to the importance of every single child developing their fullest potential, and how that is best accomplished. We believe it’s best accomplished by empowering their parents and the students themselves to make the right choices for their future.”
Also, I think DeVos funds The 74 so we can expect full-throated cheerleading for everything she says and does.
http://the74million.org/article/exclusive-betsy-devos-trumps-pick-for-education-secretary-on-school-choice-as-bipartisan-cause
I know this is a crazy question, but does it ever occur to anyone in DC to appoint someone with a working class background to help the working class?
I mean, seriously. Is it like “millionaires and billionaires need only apply” in that place?
Billionaires are such a tiny subset of the population! They’re WILDLY over-represented.
I can’t help but wonder if DeVos’ family connections have Trump thinking of how he can play her appointment to his own monetary advantage in other ways. From Muckety news, which has a handy, dandy chart of the intersection of Betsy DeVos’s money:
http://news.muckety.com/2016/11/19/the-moneyed-conservative-universe-of-betsy-devos-possible-candidate-for-education-secretary/48401
“The most infamous family member is DeVos’s brother, Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater. The private security firm, renamed Xe Services and later known as Academi, made the news in 2007, when its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. Four of the employees were sentenced to prison terms.
Prince no longer heads the company formerly known as Blackwater. He moved to Abu Dabai, where he became an adviser to the crown prince. He also reportedly was involved in the training of forces to combat Somali pirates.
Donald Trump has another connection to Prince. One of his security advisers during the campaign was Joseph Schmitz, a former Pentagon inspector general who later worked as COO and general counsel of the Prince Group.”
Seems to me to be the kind of family Trump might invite to Thanksgiving dinner.
Every veteran has had the right since 1944 to decide where he or she wants to spend the educational dollars to which he’s entitled. Why shouldn’t parents have the same right?
In taxing our citizenry to educate ALL our children, is our goal to educate all the kids OR to create a monopoly institution dedicated to education?
John,
Public education is open to all. It is a keystone of democracy. No high performing nation has a choice system that sends public money to private and religious schools.
If everyone is provided the option of vouchers, who will educate all of the children that are kicked out of the charter schools and public schools for not being successful, for having a more “significant” disability, or for having attention or behavior problems that the private schools cannot or will not deal with during the day? All children have something to offer society, but they will not if vouchers become the future of all education.