Remember the wonderful and tragic novel and movie “Sophie’s Choice”? The novel by William Styron was made into a film starring Meryl Streep. It was about a Holocaust survivor who tells her story of having to choose which of her children will live and whic will die.
Steven Singer writes about what he calls “Betsy’s Choice.”
Which will she be faithful to: civil rights or school privatization?
“As U.S. Secretary of Education, she is responsible for upholding the civil rights of all U.S. students.
“She is NOT a paid lobbyist for the school privatization industry.
“Yet when asked point blank by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) whether her department would ensure that private schools receiving federal school vouchers don’t discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students, she refused to give a straight answer.
“She said that the these schools would be required to follow all federal antidiscrimination laws but her department would not issue any clarifications or directives about exactly how they should be doing it.
“On areas where the law is unsettled, this department is not going to be issuing decrees. That is a matter for Congress and the courts to settle,” DeVos said at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education yesterday.
“I think you just said where it’s unsettled, such discrimination will continue to be allowed under your program. If that’s incorrect, please correct it for the record,” Merkley replied.
“DeVos did not correct him.”
No, she will not protect the rights of LGBTQ students to learn free from harassment or discrimination.
It is also unclear whether she will protect the rights of students who attend voucher schools, which may discriminate by race, religion, language, disability status, or any other grounds. Why? Because the pretense of voucher advocates is that voucher funds go to the family or corporation, not to the schools. So a voucher school may exclude children of a different faith because it does not directly receive federal funds. Betsy doesn’t know many things, but she certainly know the legal dodges to get around constitutional barriers to funding religious schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can’t print what I’m thinking about BD. BD for Betsy the Bad; DeVos the Deranged.
Diane Also: “Betsy’s Choice,” in the long run, eliminates parents’ choice: of state-supported qualified public neighborhood schools. Betsy’s choice, then, is even more like “Sophie’s Choice” because, like the train-station guard, it seeks to control the kinds of choices available (both untenable) AND, like Sophie’s choice, it seeks to eliminate the quality of what would be the default position–leave me alone (not an option for Sophie) or for parents, no more quality public education for the nations children–all of them.
And so Betsy also seeks to diminish and then eliminate any kind of viable “opt-out” for parents or, like the Train Station guard in the movie, Betsy leaves the opt-out situation worse than any of the other choices–no public school at all or the struggle to home-school, which is a joke for most if not all poor people or single-parent households.
What was existential slavery for Sophie (someone must die), is moral and cultural slavery by corporations, and for Betsy we can add “religious slavery” to that mix.
“Which corporation” is that kind of “choice.” And for Betsy, religious education, or none; and the utopia would be THIS religious education, nor none.
“What was existential slavery for Sophie (someone must die), is moral and cultural slavery by corporations, and for Betsy we can add “religious slavery” to that mix.”
Exactly!
Diane and Lloyd Lofthouse: There is another twist to the argument coming from those who are pimping the ideas of freedom and choice: The the idea is that public schools are involved in “unfair competition”–unfair to corporate/private schools who, presumably, must cover costs themselves and where public schools aren’t under the same monetary rules.
This whole argument ASSUMES that public and private schooling (or anything public for that matter) all have capitalist-only foundations and are “on the same playing field.” That field is made of a zero-sum-game, bottom-line goals, ideologue controls of “choices” including curriculum, immune to public oversight, etc.). They don’t and aren’t.
But if UNFAIRNESS a criterion for judgment, well-funded corporations use many means that are unavailable for public schools, and that went unneeded in another time, that is, before well-healed people saw public education as “a new frontier” to make and launder money, and to control the national ethos.
Unlike those who have benefited from public education over several generations and who now support it, neo-fascist corporations are working within the democratic framework in order to destroy it. They use LONG-TERM persuasive measures–including diversions and carrot sticks against harried, but trusting and “underfunded” parents (underfunded in terms of time, money, and background resources) to transform a democratic nation into an oligarchic kleptocracy.
In that sense, **as unfair competition–corporations have it backwards. That is, they have it all over public schools (or anything public, for that matter), not to mention presently-clueless parents, good teachers and, of course, the nation’s children.
DeVos is dangerous and believes in private education. Another blunder by this President.
DC d reformers are debating “what makes an ideal school system” next week.
Not a single representative from public schools is included:
https://conference.publiccharters.org/2017/program/search_results.php?text_search_value=sean%20gill&text_search_bool=OR&orderby=TITLE&Search=Search&FIELD_SPEC%5B0%5D=bmFtZT0na2V5d29yZGlkW10nIGVtcHR5bGFiZWw9Jy0tJyBzdHlsZT0nd2lkdGg6IDMwMHB4JyBpbnB1dF90eXBlPSdJTlBVVF9TRUxFQ1QnICBwb3N0X25hbWU9J2tleXdvcmRpZCcg&FIELD_SPEC%5B1%5D=bmFtZT0naGFzX2hhbmRvdXRzJ3ZhbHVlPScxJyBpbnB1dF90eXBlPSdJTlBVVF9DSEVDS0JPWCcg&FIELD_SPEC%5B2%5D=bmFtZT0na2V5d29yZCcgdmFsdWU9J3Nlc3Npb25fZm9ybWF0OjpJbnRlbnNpdmUnIGlucHV0X3R5cGU9J0lOUFVUX0NIRUNLQk9YJyA%3D
I have the feeling public schools are going to get the short end of this super-awesome “reinvention” of public education!
We don’t have a single advocate for kids in public schools at any of these high-powered events. They simply aren’t heard from.
Chiara That’s the plan, as being implemented.
For the last month “our” representatives in DC have focused exclusively on private school vouchers.
Guess what they’re up to next week? Charters!
Can we get a public employee on the payroll who has some interest in the schools 90% of kids attend? Alternately, if they ignore kids and parents from public schools can we ignore them?
We get the worst of both worlds. We get all the mandates but none of the benefits.
Betsy’s choice is choice for choice’s sake whether it makes sense or not. She does not understand or care that most Americans support their public schools. She does care about the many accomplishments of public education and the excellent teachers that serve them. DeVos is a fanatical ideologue, and fanatics are not logical or necessarily ethical. She will attempt to impose what she considers her “superior” views on others, whether they want it or not. Choice does not have to make sense as long as it is choice according to DeVos and her disciples. We must continue to thwart her misguided efforts.
Catherine Blanche King .
You have this nailed.
The “markets are everything” ideology assumes that competition is a perfectly normal way to make decisions and govern the nation. Public-private partnerships are a way to encroach on all of the shared services and resources captured under the meaning of “public.” Public goods and services are portrayed as monopolies that need to be dismantled. Competition means there will always be winners and losers. Equity is a non-issue but useful as a cover for exploiting opportunities for profit seeking and getting more bang for the buck in all public matters.
Customer choice, outsourcing, seeking “efficiencies,” pushing depoliticized “best practices,” setting up targets, benchmarks, metrics as if these are neutral, objective, value-free–all are technocratic moves that substitute for democratic voice and choice.
I truly think DeVoodoo hates students and anyone who is not a billionaire. Her actions speak volumes.
WOODEN CIGAR-STORE INDIAN: Betsy DeVos is just “there”. She isn’t even good at advocating for her own causes. Trump and the GOP have been saying since the campaign that the “civil rights” issue of our time is that poor children of color are “trapped in failing schools”. This is a huge lie of course, but it was the perfect response/deflection for a capable Republican politician.
This said, the Democrats could be doing a much better job in hearings of bringing attention to her incompetence. She became a household name because she could not answer basic questions about her job. THAT is what these hearings need to highlight.
As much as I hate to say it, this needs to become a quiz show and we need as many hearings as possible because those are the clips that will go viral and that’s what we need more of.
She can’t even