The Schools That Shaped Betsy DeVos

June 11, 2017 //

The New York Times writes today about the Holland Christian School that educated Betsy DeVos. The article gives a picture of her strong preference for “God-centered” schools. Readers are assured that she is willing to allow public schools to exist, if they are “great.” However, as we have also learned from her previous statements, she believes that “choice” is more important than quality.

Categories Betsy DeVos

17 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

howardat58 says:

June 11, 2017 at 8:19 am

Greater than what? Charter schools?
In any case, if they are all great eventually they will all be average.

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- Duane E Swacker says:
  
  June 11, 2017 at 1:31 pm
  
  Made me chuckle out lout with that one, howardat58!
  
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Chiara says:

June 11, 2017 at 8:21 am

“Holland Christian is one of several western Michigan nonpublic schools ”

Does anyone know where this practice of referring to private schools as “nonpublic” schools started?

Later in the same paragraph they use “private”. Is “nonpublic” different than private? Where did this word come from and what does it mean?

Is it like how they use “scholarships” and “vouchers” interchangeably now?

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Chiara says:

June 11, 2017 at 8:37 am

Here’s a DeVos speech. She recites the boilerplate line about how ed reform is “agnostic”. That’s required- must be stated in each ed reform speech no matter how often the substance of the speech immediately contradicts the claim.

But then all her stories (the same stories she repeats all over the country) are about failing public schools.

I mean, come on. We’re not idiots. This is publicly-funded propaganda.

No one who writes speeches at the US Department of Education can find a single successful student who attended a public school? Not one? In a country where 90% of kids attend public schools and the VAST majority of adults attended public schools- not DeVos and not Duncan either- they didn’t attend public schools- but the VAST majority of us did.

What does bashing public schools say about how they view the vast majority of the people they’re supposed to serving?

https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/us-secretary-education-betsy-devos-prepared-remarks-brookings-institution

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retired teacher says:

June 11, 2017 at 8:50 am

DeVos operates from a position of bias. Without knowing much about public education, she has decided it has little to no value. Her view is more than “lopsided;” She never attended a public school, and she knows nothing about the history of the institution she wants to destroy. If DeVos is leading the DOE, her main objective should be about quality, not choice. Choice without quality is a meaningless choice. Most public schools offer far more choice than any Christian or charter school with their limited expertise and staff with questionable training. Public schools offer options and special programs designed to serve the needs of diverse students, and the same cannot be said about most charters or religious schools. If the federal government wants to promote religious education, it should fund church schools in a budget that is separate from public education and stop the disinvestment in the public schools. It would also help to limit the amount of commercialization in education. We need a reinvestment in the schools that built our nation. If public schools are not “independent and flexible” enough, we should loosen the testing noose around the neck of public schools. Give them flexibility and greater autonomy.

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Chiara says:

June 11, 2017 at 8:54 am

It continues to amaze me what a small portion of DC “ed reform” concerns actual public schools:

“Dozens of charter school leaders met in Washington, D.C., last week, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, to discuss a number of pressing issues facing the charter sector – chief among them, how to navigate the politically thorny situation of opposing much of the Trump administration’s agenda despite that agenda including the expansion of charter schools.

The closed-door, off-the-record meeting, confirmed to U.S. News by several sources, comes at a precarious time for the charter sector and the broader school choice movement on the whole.

In recent months, however, the unified school choice group has shown signs of fracture, in large part due to the Trump administration’s education agenda and the woman it’s chosen to pursue that agenda – Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, an ardent private school choice supporter.”

They spend VASTLY more time on charter and private schools than they do on public schools. Ed reform has not only completely captured policy, they’ve hijacked the entire debate and focused it on the schools they prefer.

It’s true in state legislatures too. We have a conservative majority legislature and “choice” so dominates every legislative session they;re to the point where they’re all but irrelevant to public school parents and students. I no longer care what they do down there in Columbus- it never has anything to do with the public schools most kids attend. If they DO reluctantly turn their attention to our schools it’s only to cut our budgets and then run away.

This is exactly what DeVos has done at the federal level. It’s 90% charters and vouchers. The only thing public schools get is budget cuts. This is a PREFERENCE they are expressing here- to deny it is ludicrous.

https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-06-09/charter-school-leaders-navigate-new-political-reality

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artseagal says:

June 11, 2017 at 9:03 am

Michael Duke (CEO of Walmart) and Rex Tillerson (now a household name thanks to Trump but formerly CEO of ExxonMobil) are just a few “leaders” who graduated from public high schools… such irony considering companies they lead…
How did these “leaders” ever get to such high levels considering they went to what bubble- brained Betsy DeVos deems a waste land for learning – public schools????

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Chiara says:

June 11, 2017 at 9:13 am

I really TRY to find something positive for public school students and parents in ed reform – people should try it themselves. Look for ONE positive idea or program for students and parents in existing public schools.

This is some ed reform big shots at yet another “global conference” – their ONE positive idea for 90% of students in the US?

Purchase ed tech product. That’s it. That’s all we’re offered. They see public schools as a huge market for this industry. That’s our one and only role- as big institutional purchasers of the ed tech product they’re all selling.

Part 1: A Conversation with Betsy DeVos, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education | Part 2: U.S. Education Policy Discussion
Monday, May 1, 2017 / 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Pavilion

Moderator
Lowell Milken, Founder, National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET); Chairman and Co-Founder, Milken Family Foundation

Speakers
William Bennett, Former U.S. Secretary of Education; Chairman, Conservative Leaders for Education
Steve Bullock, Governor, Montana
Jeb Bush, President, Founder and Chairman, Foundation for Excellence in Education; 43rd Governor of Florida

Guest
Betsy DeVos, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education

It’s really kind of appalling to read if you’re an outsider to this very exclusive club. They don’t even see that they offer NO VALUE to parents and students in public schools. They’ve been in this echo chamber so long they’re blind to it.

Why would a parent who supports their child’s public school hire any of these people? What do they offer? And how did they come to believe they don’t HAVE to offer anything? They go to work every day as “advocates for public education” while excluding 90% of students and parents and schools? That’s crazy.

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- retired teacher says:
  
  June 11, 2017 at 9:34 am
  
  These people are the insular echo chamber of “choice.”
  
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Laura H. Chapman says:

June 11, 2017 at 10:23 am

“…she believes that “choice” is more important than quality”

and more important that equity.

The idea that Betsy Devos and Trump are “agnostic” relative to education is absurd.

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Marian Cruz says:

June 11, 2017 at 11:09 am

She has no business being Sec. of Education!

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Lloyd Lofthouse says:

June 11, 2017 at 12:40 pm

How does Betsy the Bonehead define “Great” schools? Based on test scores is my bet. Secretive flawed tests that profit a company like Pearson.

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Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

June 11, 2017 at 12:53 pm

DeVos has NO CLUE. She lives in a BUBBLE. She has a warped view of schooling.

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- Duane E Swacker says:
  
  June 11, 2017 at 1:33 pm
  
  Actually she has a wrapped view of schooling, bubble wrapped that is!
  
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L H Partridge says:

June 11, 2017 at 1:18 pm

From the end of the article about the Potter’s House school:
“Though teachers are not unionized, they are certified, and all are required to sign off on their application that “I accept without reservation the school’s statement of faith.” Parents are required to sign a similar statement, attend all three annual parent-teacher conferences and commit to 25 hours of service a year or leave the school. No one has had to leave. The school has a waiting list of more than 200.”

Can parents choose this school for their child and also choose not to sign the statement of faith? If not, then is this choice really a choice for all students?

Apparently, DeVos wants all taxpayers to fund schools which set out to exclude teachers and students who do not choose to sign a statement of faith.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  June 11, 2017 at 2:04 pm
  
  I assume that the statement of faith excludes Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and others who do not agree with the school’s religion.
  
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bethree5 says:

June 12, 2017 at 12:06 am

This NYT article is pathetic: no comment thread!

MY comment would be something along the lines of what Chiara has expressed so well above.

Are we to infer from this article that BDeVos’ plans to deconstruct American public education via billions of fed $ pumped into state voucher programs is somehow rationalized by her background in fringe Christian schools supported by philanthropists such as herself, & their anecdotal superiority as alternatives to the public schools in her Western corner of the state of MI? [completely unsupported by any sort of performance data, much less data on admissions & accessability to low-income families (let alone SpEd or ESL students or families not willing to sign an agreement of faith) which might shed light on their comparative merits?]

Are we to infer that from that tiny, fringe, minority experience, she extrapolates upending a tradition of public schooling for the masses founded 200 yrs ago — a tradition still attended by 90% of US students today? Her plan is to return us to the pre-1821 paradigm of unmonitored, uncredentialed private schooling, but this time funded by universal taxes. [And I project, should that plan be realized, soon to be followed by elimination of all school taxes.]. Haven’t we seen this movie before… Isn’t this where we came in [in 1821]?

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