The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions delayed its vote on Betsy zdeVos from January 24 to January 31.
Maybe a few senators became indecisive when they saw how uninformed she was about the Department of Education, federal laws, and policies.
Maybe they were shocked to hear to hear her say that it was up to state’s to decide whether to comply with the federal law that protects the rights of students with disabilities.
Maybe they were surprised that she lied about being a member of her mother’s extremist, homophobic foundation for the past 14 years.
Maybe they hope to get a report on her financial conflicts of interest before approving her.
Maybe the two Republicans on the committee she hasn’t given money to are wavering.
Whatever the reason, the hearing demonstrated that she is unqualified for the job. She knows nothing other than that she wants to destroy public education, and she thinks she has a religious mission to “advance God’s kingdom” by doing so. The last thing we need is a religious zealot as Secretary of Education.
Please write your senators and the members of the committee and urge them to vote NO on DeVos.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Empty Nest, Full Life and commented:
This is great news, from a great education writer.
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“I believe Betsy DeVos has the talent, commitment, and leadership capacity to revitalize our public schools and deliver the promise of opportunity that excellent education provides, and I support her nomination as U.S. Secretary of Education,” Moskowitz said. (NY Post, 1/17/17)
But Eva Moskowitz offered her unqualified endorsement and testament to the excellence of Betsy DeVos. Do you think politicians are finally starting to realize that her word is about as good as Trump’s? And she will say anything that she thinks will further her own ends — whether or not it’s true does not seem to matter.
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The article in Mother Jones reported that Betsy DeVos gave Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain $500,000.
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That’s a pretty cheap price to buy someone’s integrity.
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Wow! Seems like authority can be purchased with wealth, as credentials are now bought at institutions of higher education. There is no longer a focus on instilling altruism, integrity, and self-respect in learners. Back2basic
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Great information.
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Did you hear Trump’s speech? They’re going after public schools.
Ed reform is now officially ridiculous. They created a “movement” that works to destroy public schools.
Good job! We’ll now have thousands of public employees in the federal government working AGAINST the millions of public employees in public schools.
It’s ludicrous. I don’t know if this was the intent when this thing started but this is where it ended up- with a Secretary of Education who is opposed to public schools.
How do they see this working? DeVos plans to visit public schools, announce they’re “dead ends” and, what? Tell everyone to pick up a voucher for a private school on the way out? How is this different than the work she did as a lobbyist for 30 years?
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Democrats are incapable of distinguishing their education agenda from that of Trump.
There’s a reason for that- they differ only on regulation of privatized systems. Republicans want a deregulated privatized system and Democrats want a regulated privatized system.
No one votes on regulation. No one will back a Democrat over a Republican based on the Democrat saying they want to regulate charter and private school systems.
Democrats offer absolutely nothing of value to existing public schools. It was true during Obama’s two terms and it’s true in the Senate now. It’s a measure of what an echo chamber ed reform is that they don’t even see it.
You can’t tell people you’re going to upend their schools and then offer absolutely nothing in return, other than a suggestion they all leave and enroll in private and charter schools. That’s a horrible deal for public school parents and students. They get nothing.
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Yes, it’s awesome that they’ll wait a week, but it means nothing. All it means is that they are hoping that (and in today’s world of ZERO attention span) the public forgets and just accepts things as inevitable, or they praying that we get our first grizzly bear school attack since…since…well, at least since the nominee thought of the idea.
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I’ll make a prediction right now- the worst part of this next chapter of ed reform will be “career and technical training”.
They’re designing career and technical education with absolutely no input from anyone who might seek that training or the people who do these jobs. It’s being designed by CEO’s and bankers.
These are people who don’t even KNOW a person with one of these jobs, people who would never send their own children into trades, or a community college, people who have never “retrained” in their entire lives. It’s as arrogant and clueless as everything else they do.
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No, call the HELP committee.
Indivisible! Check them out. Search the Internet for Republican elected officials fleeing their constituents. Start showing up en masse.
https://www.indivisibleguide.com/
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/watch-colorado-republican-secretly-flees-town-hall-to-avoid-constituents-mad-about-gutting-obamacare/
Search Rachel Maddow and Indivisible – you will find more stories.
This stuff is happening in every state.
Now all we need is to start pressuring the Dems to ‘Resist’ as well as start moving left for the midterms.
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Pip,
Rachel Maddow has great stuff on her show and she’s brilliant but she seldom talks about education. Some say it is because she is friends with Cory Booker and Eva but I don’t know the reason. When I was at MSNBC the other night, I asked Chris Hayes’ producer, who said RM doesn’t touch education
Maybe a letter writing campaign?
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How can we find out which senators on the committee did not receive funds from DeVos?
That is where we may get crossover.
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If you have to give her something, why not an ambassadorship somewhere she can’t do too much damage. Just Saying.
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Hi, Diane,
Here’s the text of a statement the Delran Education Association (New Jersey) released on January 19th. Please feel free to share it with your readers. Many thanks!
(Here is the direct link to our Facebook page, where the statement was originally published.)
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.phpstory_fbid=752481718242080&id=169356469887944
DELRAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION STATEMENT ON SECRETARY OF EDUCATION NOMINEE BETSY DEVOS
In late November of 2016, President-Elect Donald Trump announced that he had chosen Betsy DeVos, a billionaire “education activist” who has a long, documented history of opposition to traditional public schools, to head the United States Department of Education.
DeVos’s lack of credentials for such a position is stunning: she has no training in education, no understanding of curriculum or pedagogy, and no experience as an educator in any capacity—and she has not attended, sent her children to, or taught in any public schools in the United States.
Ms. DeVos has, however, referred to public education in America as a “dead end”—a claim that she, with no meaningful experience in public schools, is in no position to make.
As an “education activist” in Michigan, Ms. DeVos’s financial contributions helped siphon taxpayer money away from traditional public schools and to largely unaccountable and for-profit charter schools and voucher programs that allow public funds to be used for private and religious schools. She actively advocates for lax “accountability” standards for charters and private schools, and the result has been the proliferation of unregulated taxpayer-funded schools that fail to serve the children in their care. Detroit’s experiment in privatization has, by many counts, been deemed an unmitigated disaster, and Ms. DeVos’s family’s money and influence have contributed directly to these failures. (As of the publication of this statement on January 19th, 2017, ethics investigations examining Ms. DeVos’s many potential conflicts of interest have not been completed.)
Ms. DeVos also revealed herself to be grossly unqualified for the position she seeks during her January 17 confirmation hearing before the Senate HELP committee. During the hearing, DeVos:
was unable to make the basic distinction between proficiency and growth in terms of student assessment,
demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, suggesting that the federal law could be ignored and that states could choose whether or not to accommodate children with disabilities,
refused to say that all schools which receive federal funds—including charters and private schools—should be held to the same accountability standards,
refused to commit to enforcing already-existing federal laws that protect students from being cheated by for-profit colleges (like Trump University, which in November of 2016 settled a civil fraud suit for $25 million),
refused to say definitively, when questioned by Senator Christopher Murphy (CT), that guns should not be in schools—commenting that some school officials might need guns to protect students from grizzly bears, and
refused to say that she would not defund traditional public schools.
In recent years, US Secretaries of Education from both political parties have created a test and punish culture that has drained our schools of precious resources, narrowed our curriculum, and forced cuts to programs and personnel. Unfortunately, none of this is surprising, given that bureaucrats and other non-educators have been the ones making policy decisions that affect our children’s education. For the sake of our students and the future of this country, such practices cannot be allowed to continue—yet they are virtually guaranteed to do so under Betsy DeVos.
To Ms. DeVos, and to the members of the Senate who are tasked with voting on her confirmation, we—the members of the Delran Education Association—say emphatically that our nation’s public schools are not “dead ends”: they are cornerstones of our democracy that must be protected and supported in order to ensure that they are equipped to educate each and every child they serve. We invite Mrs. DeVos to visit our public school district to see the amazing things our students accomplish; the wonderful educators who have dedicated their professional lives to the children in our care; the ways in which our district serves our community; and the ways in which our district is directly accountable to our students, their families, and the taxpayers in our town.
It is our fundamental belief that anyone who believes public schools are a “dead end”—particularly if that person has no experience as a public school student, a public school parent, or a public school educator—is categorically unfit to hold the position of United States Secretary of Education.
We are adamantly opposed to Ms. DeVos’s appointment as Secretary of Education, and we encourage everyone with a stake in public education—which is all of us—to watch video of Ms. DeVos’s Senate confirmation hearings, research her positions on education, and contact their senators to insist that our Department of Education be headed by a trained, experienced, knowledgeable, and qualified educator.
As members of the Delran Education Association, our foremost job is to educate and advocate for our students. Regardless of who is confirmed as the next Secretary of Education, we will continue to work tirelessly defend the institution of public education and ensure that all children receive the rich, meaningful, quality education to which they are entitled.
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Of course he had to have a couple of superficial, er, uh, sacrificial lambs and scapegoats – a couple of “your fired”s – and of course, it would be a woman.
You don’t mess with parents with kids with disabilities – and a lot of republican senators hopefully had their phones ringing off the hook from loyal supporters.
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I seem to recall the involvement with crafting NCLB. We all make mistakes some greater than others. The politicizing of education has contributed to the worst era of American education. Elevation of educational gurus over sit on the foxholes everyday has led to reduction of respect for the teaching profession as a whole. We are blamed for poor performance of students, our inability to undo ineffective parenting and poverty. Frankly, i would never go into teaching were my career starting today. Remove politics from education and return teaching to the teachers.
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I live in Tennessee. I called Senator Alexander’s office and left a message. I sent an email. I got a canned response to my email basically telling me that he would support DeVos no matter what. The email told me how wonderful she was. He has been bought by her campaign contributions. No good to email him. He is paid for.
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I value your opinion on education, and I did contact Senator Lamar Alexander in Tennessee. I know that you worked with him, and I thought he might see education in the same light as you. However, I was very dismayed when I received this e mail from his office:
January 19, 2017
Dear –,
Thanks very much for getting in touch with me and letting me know what’s on your mind regarding President-elect Trump’s selection of Betsy DeVos to become the next Secretary of Education.
Betsy DeVos is an excellent choice. The Senate’s education committee will move swiftly in January to consider her nomination. Betsy has worked for years to improve educational opportunities for all children. As Secretary, she will be able to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, the new law fixing No Child Left Behind, just as Congress wrote it, reversing the trend to a national school board and restoring to states, governors, school boards, teachers, and parents greater responsibility for improving education in their local communities. Under the new law, the federal government may not mandate or incentivize states to adopt any particular standards, including Common Core.
I also look forward to working with her on the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, giving us an opportunity to clear out the jungle of red tape that makes it more difficult for students to obtain financial aid and for administrators to manage America’s 6,000 colleges and universities.
Improving our schools has been one of my top priorities in public service, both as a U.S. Senator and during my earlier service as governor, president of the University of Tennessee, and U.S. Secretary of Education. Better schools mean better jobs, which is why I have worked to support states and school districts in improving education so that our students have the tools they need for success.
We are unleashing a new era of innovation and excellence in student achievement—one that recognizes that the path to higher standards, better teaching and real accountability is classroom by classroom, community by community, and state by state—and not through Washington, D.C. I appreciate your taking the time to let me know where you stand. I’ll be sure to keep your comments in mind as this issue is discussed and debated in Washington and in Tennessee.
Sincerely,
Lamar
LA/cs
#ICBAB000000012095DFCCRM
Looks like he’s going to confirm this nomination. Bummer.
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What a shame. DeVos knows nothing about K-12 or Higher Education.
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