Peter Greene tries to determine whether Betsy DeVos is wrongly portrayed by the media and her critics.

She’s no dummy, he says, but she does have the misfortune of saying inappropriate things at inappropriate times.

True, she is often a punch line for late-night TV comics.

Her problem is that she knows so little about American education, almost nothing about public education, and she has only one idea: school choice. Is it her fault that she is totally out of touch?

“DeVos…holds up some Florida choicey programs as a model of excellence, which if nothing else shows once again that DeVos has not done her homework. But her praise of the Miami-Dade system shows, again, where her heart is. She does not praise it for providing excellent education; she praises it for providing lots of choice. This is the greatest danger we face from Choice True Believers– given the options of a no-choice system that provides a great education for every child, and a super-choicey system that delivers lousy educational results, they would choose the latter because when it comes right down to it, they value choice more than they value education.

“DeVos calls public schools the backbone of the system, which is, I suppose, better than calling them the spleen, but not as good as recognizing that they are the education system, and modern choice is just a flock of leeches.

“Then DeVos throws in a line straight out of 2010– “What we will not do, however, is accept the status quo”– which is a hilarious line because the status quo is, of course, a bunch of public schools being undercut and gutted, strapped to bad standards with the bungee cords of toxic testing, while charter- and voucher-privatizers hold positions of high office that they use to further attack and dismantle public education so that they can sell off the parts. The more typical reformster stance is to rail against schools that haven’t existed for decades, but since DeVos has no real frame of reference for public schools, she can cast back even further. DeVos throws out the old saw about public education being stuck in the 19th century which only makes sense if you’re someone who has spent no real time in a public school.

“Technology! she declares, and you might think that this is, again, because she hasn’t been in public schools to see that we actually have them new-fangled computer machines, but it turns out that she has particular tech in mind:

“Today, it’s possible for every student to learn at their own pace, with responsive technologies advancing them through topics they’ve already mastered and delving deeper into areas where they’re struggling.

“So, competency based education, or personalized learning, or computerized training modules for the underclass, or whatever we’re calling it this week.

“She also thinks it’s foolish to assign schools based on where you live, which is another way of saying that’s it’s foolish to let a community organize, maintain and run its own schools. Having previously failed metaphorical framing by suggesting that education should be a Uber, DeVos now compares schools to banks and video rental stores, neither of which need bricks and mortars any more, and both of which are totally like public education. Also, a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves.

“DeVos frames these ideas as necessary because (again harkening back to the 2010 reformster playbook) we are falling behind our economic competitors in the world, because having students who score better on standardized tests would totally make up for having someone in the White House who keeps discovering that governmenty things are hard.”

But, but, but, it’s all about the kids! Of course!

“As I said– any shred of sympathy I might have felt for DeVos is pretty much shredded when she starts talking. Is she occasionally criticized unfairly? Yes, I think she is. But is she misunderstood, with her policy goals unfairly maligned and misrepresented? I think not. We have a person in charge of our nation’s public education system who does not value that system and would happily preside over its destruction, a dismantling she has worked for her entire adult life and never disavowed.”