Peter Greene imagines Betsy DeVos’s first speech to the people of her hometown Grand Rapids, Michigan, explaining her belief in replacing public schools with privately managed charters and religious schools.
Here, in Greene’s words, is a portion of Betsy’s sales pitch for “school choice”; open the link to read it all:
You have to understand– when the founding fathers said that all men were created equal, they didn’t mean that all men are actually equal. The Puritans understood that some people are favored by God and therefor blessed with greater prosperity than others. These Chosen are more favored, more suited to take dominion over the rest of creation, more deserving of honor. They’re just better.
Are some people better than others just because they’re rich? No, that would be ridiculous. They’re rich because they’re better. People criticize me because every cent I have either was passed to me either by my parents or my husband, but those people are missing the point. God made me rich because I deserve it.
These signs of God’s favor and an individual’s superiority used to be pretty clearcut, and they used to be the foundation of America. But the founders made one crucial mistake– they let all sorts of people vote, and over time, those people got uppity. There was a time when America was still great, back when everybody knew his or her place, back when black people and poor people handicapped people and non-Christians didn’t try to take things they weren’t entitled to. Back when the homosexuals had the decency to pretend they didn’t exist. But those days are gone– ruined by a bunch of uppity people who won’t just shut up and listen to those of us who know better. Now homosexuals and blacks and women and Muslims can all strut around like they’re perfectly normal and it’s we decent Christians who have to hold our tongue and avoid saying simple things like “Jesus hates you and you’re going to hell.” It’s a topsy turvy world.
And it all starts in school.
We let the children of the better class of people mix with the children of Those People. Teachers don’t seem to know their place, and insist on teaching things they just shouldn’t teach, the kinds of things that students were never taught back when America was great– certainly not in the fine private schools my children and I attended. That is why I absolutely support the Common Core– someone has to tell Those People what they should teach. However, I understand that some of you are not fans of Common Core, and so I totally promise that the federal regulations requiring Common Core will be stricken from the law, along with the regulations requiring students to wear clown shoes and the regulations requiring lunch ladies to be certified Yeti’s. I guarantee you that in just a few months, all of those laws will be gone, and you will be free to have your state government enforce Common Core under some other name.
We will also do our best to crush both teacher unions and all those other unions, too. Unions are unnatural, a terrible attempt to interfere with the natural order of things. People who want to control working conditions and wages should not choose to be the kind of people who work at those jobs. It is their place to simply do their jobs and let those of us who Know Better make the important decisions.
Government has also interfered with the God-given natural order of things by forcing money to flow to people who don’t deserve it. If God wanted Those People to have money, He would have made them rich, and it is not government’s place to interfere with that just process. By getting government to takes its paws off schools, a choice and charter system can allow money to again flow to those who actually deserve it. A choice and charter system also allows children of the better people to get their education without having to deal with the children of Those People. Really, isn’t it better when people associate with their own kind?

Is this real? It can’t be real. But I’ve been saying that a lot lately.
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Link: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/
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OMG! Truly frightening! I only teach as a volunteer and I’m guessing I know more about public education than this Betsy DeVos twit.
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Well, obviously, because all public schools are “horrible” according to her boss.
It’s this weird alternate reality where “public schools” are not composed of “the public”.
Who built, fund, work in and attend these horrible public schools of which they speak? Isn’t it “the public”? I’m pretty sure it is.
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Unfortunately, and as “imaginary” as it might be, it (or something close to it) wouldn’t surprise me.
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Is DeVos planning more ‘public schools suck” rallies like the one she and Trump held in Grand Rapids?
Is there some reason the public should be forced to pay for those? Can’t she promote the “sectors” she favors on her own dime?
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This is fine example of satire from Peter Greene. He reveals the deep understanding behind the thinking that creates people like DeVos, Trump and to some degree minus the religiosity, Gates. We have a whole cabinet of billionaires just waiting to be given their chance to pounce on the rest of us little people. They will work hard to figure of ways to monetize us and every public institution in every conceivable way.
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It’s obvious that Trump thinks the same way.
Trump’s dad helped him out the 1st time with $1 million.
Later when Trump failed, his dad managed to sip him $3 million through chips in one of DT’s casinos.
Trump’s companies have filed bankruptcy six times.
After daddy was gone and Trump failed again, he turned to his family and they bailed him out again.
Here’s Newsweek on Trump’s business failures. Compare the Newsweek piece to his boasting in the video.
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/12/donald-trumps-business-failures-election-2016-486091.html
Trump is a con man and he keeps finding fools to believe his lies.
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Trump’s companies file for bankruptcy, never Trump.
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Trump’s business are Trump, and he uses them to take the fall so his own personal wealth doesn’t take a hit. Even when a company is going down, he pays himself as CEO increased annual wages and bonuses.
That’s what being a corporation does. The company you create that’s not publicly traded takes the fall, but you don’t lose any money in your own accounts. The wealthy have it all set up to favor them.
It’s legalized fraud for the master con man. Like Trump has boasted before, he never loses. Only his partners, the banks, and the govenrment lose.
Trump made a lot of money off of government subsidies and tax breaks similar to the 7 million he offered Carrier to hang on to a few hundred jobs they plan to automate anyway so Trump can brag/lie about him keeping jobs here.
Like I said, Trump is a master con man, a serial liar, a super narcissist and a psychopath who just might have Alzheimer’s because it runs in his family and he has already displayed the early symptoms.
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Peter Greene on Diane ravitch:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/12/why-honor-diane-ravitch.html#comment-form
An excerpt:
“Ravitch has been a fighter, a scholar, a connector, a sharp writer, and a vocal advocate for public education. I have never seen her be anything but kind and generous, and she feeds my belief that I still have at least a few good decades left in me. She is an invaluable leader in a hugely important movement who has stepped up when it would have been easy to sit back. Those, to me, are all qualities well worth honoring, particularly when that helps support a group that does work I believe in. If, like me, you’re not going to be in NYC tonight, consider making a contribution– as I just said yesterday, in these times, we must all do what we can. Thanks to Diane Ravitch, who has done so much.”
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Great stuff. Sarcastic realism that warms my sarcastic heart. What the people really want is a DeVos-Ravitch steel cage match!
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One question, did all those formerly middle class people swindled by Amway to make Ms. DeVos rich deserve it because they’re not “better”?
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