Stuart Egan, a high school teacher in North Carolina, notes that Betsy DeVos relies on two rhetorical strategies: 1. Pleasant (and meaningless) platitudes; 2. A decided opposition to “the status quo.” She, who insisted at her Senate hearing on being called Mrs. DeVos wants to disrupt traditional public schools, not charters or religious schools.
She loves “great schools.”
She likes schools that “put children first.”
Platitudes.
Calls for disruption.
Who knew that conservatives believed in destroying traditional institutions?
Egan writes:
“Ironically, the conversation about changing the “status-quo” in public education has been fueled more by the business world and politicians who have been altering the terrain of public education with “reforms.”
“A Nation at Risk, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Every Student Succeeds Act, Common Core, SAT, ACT, standardized tests, achievement gap, graduation rates, merit pay, charter schools, parent triggers, vouchers, value added-measurements, virtual schools, Teach For America, formal evaluations – there are so many variables, initiatives, and measurements that constantly change without consistency which all affect public schools and how the public perceives those schools.
“If there is any “status quo” associated with the public schools, it’s that there are always outside forces acting on the public school system which seek to show that they are failing our kids.
“DeVos is one of those forces.
“That’s the status quo that should not be accepted.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Disruption. Think about that. Disruption is anarchy. When there is anarchy it lasts for a brief time and is replaced by totalitarianism. Those who play the game in politics know that. After a brief period of anarchy, citizens beg to be “saved’ and it is then when the false savior appears. The fascist corporate state is on the horizon. Question is, will we stop it in time?
LikeLike
Disruption is from the Milton Friedman playbook. This is one of the platitudes of privatization. It is an old, hackneyed expression used by privateers to make what they are trying to do sound interesting. The so-called free market is not a solution for anything other than a capitalistic ideal that is being imposed on a public institution to gain access to public funds. DeVos represents the radical evangelical right, and she is the least qualified head of the DOE ever. She has nothing to offer public schools other than her bias and misinformation. Whether the attacks on public education come from the left or right, the assault to public education is the status quo.
LikeLike
You identify the business model that the DeVos, et al, believes should be applied to schools. It is the same model that caused the chaos in 2008. If you want to be a registered rep all you need to do is take a cram course and pass a test. Doesn’t matter that the new rep can’t remember much 10 minutes after they get their scores, and isn’t ready to help people invest. They passed. Business loves it! Meaningless testing must be good for children too. Sad.
LikeLike
The Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation has a blog where people are paid to promote disruption in education. Most recently, there is enthusiasm for personalized learning with a minimal role for teachers. https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/release-control/
LikeLike
Arnie was such a hack and so is she – they use this language that sounds like they know what they are talking about but they really don’t. Their policies bring destruction and grief when played out in the real world. Please we all need to educate family and friends to the truth. It sounds good but people need a reality check on arnie and betsy’s version of reform. Do not be fooled.
LikeLike
It’s all smoke and mirrors. Parents need to be warned to not believe all the hype and spin from charters. It’s corporate blather to get people hooked.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have begun to wonder if perhaps this insane moment of having a man like Trump take the Presidential office will be useful in allowing a larger percent of society to recognize that there is a very intentional flim-flam chicanery afoot: as the status quo currently stands, way too many citizens are unwilling to let themselves see that the hype is nothing more than hype, and that the school “reform” platform has become little more than camouflage meant to cover short-term profiteering.
LikeLike
I visited Stuart Egan’s blog just now and poked around for a while. It strikes me as being clever, thoughtful, informative and just a pleasure to look at. It also seems to be written by someone who questions authority and doesn’t like B.S.
In other words, it’s the exact OPPOSITE of the sort of gibberish put forth by Betsy DeVos and her ilk. Stuart Egan is clearly the Anti-Vos.
He speaks in plain English, values the truth and has a respect for real learning. That’s in contract to the money grubbing, suck up, phony, cliche-ridden world that DeVos calls home.
I have no doubt that if Betsy DeVos was ever a school principal and Stuart Egan was one of the teachers in that doomed building, DeVos would use every diabolical tool she could think of to make his life a living hell -his students be damned. And, all the while she be grinning her poisonous, saccharine smile, and saying, “We always put children first.” Yeah, right!
Instead, she’s the leader of our nation’s public schools. God, help us all.
LikeLike
“I have no doubt that if Betsy DeVos was ever a school principal and Stuart Egan was one of the teachers in that doomed building, DeVos would use every diabolical tool she could think of to make his life a living hell -his students be damned. And, all the while she be grinning her poisonous, saccharine smile, and saying, “We always put children first.” Yeah, right!”
Unfortunately, many of us teachers have been put through that process and many more continue to go through it now when they challenge what an adminimal dictates.
LikeLike
Yup. And, if an educator hasn’t been subjected to this unique brand of “torture by teaching” then he or she probably has a colleague who did endure this sort of daily humiliation. It’s the stuff teacher nightmares are made of.
Of course, I can just hear someone say, well, why doesn’t that teacher just quit and find another job? Well, yeah, but….
Like many members of American middle class (or, aspiring middle class as it were) public school teachers are held over a barrel. Retirement, health benefits for your loved ones, maintaining your home and getting the kids through college are all at stake.
The alleged school “reformers” like to yak, yak, yak about how they want to create critical thinkers etc. etc.. But in reality one of their real goals appears to be keeping a docile, compliant, non-union, benumbed work force under their collective thumbs.
Real education is to DeVos as light is to Dracula.
LikeLiked by 1 person
EXACTLY! Even from principals who claim to be “liberal.”
LikeLike
TOW,
Are you going to be able to make it to the NPE conference in Oakland? I hope so!
LikeLike
I bear witness to the process Duane.
LikeLike
I’d push the like button but how can one like it when fellow teachers have been abused?
LikeLike
Thanks, Duane. I’m going to try. I would love to meet you if I can get there (I’m assuming you would be there as well).
LikeLike
Have registered.
LikeLike
The Gates Foundation doesn’t bother with veneer in its Frontier Set invasion. The program was created this year “to implement business models for collaborative course development and delivery” in higher ed. Joining the jackals, the Center for American Progress ($2 .2 mil. in Gates funding) and Marco Rubio, have gone after college accreditation, removing faculty from the process and replacing them with data churning student outcome measures. The success of the jackals, will mean one more and, maybe the final institution of democratic values, falls.
Two state higher ed systems joined Frontier. Also joining in are managers in the groups who act as a collective voice for the colleges that America’s people created- schools for those not wealthy enough for legacy admission colleges. The organizations are APLU and AASCU. Students, parents, alumni, taxpayers and staff working in state higher ed., should picket outside of the organizatioln’s headquarters.
The evil that claims they don’t want government involvement, turn the government they buy, against the people by enacting laws like Rubio’s.
LikeLike