David Smith of The Guardian, a British publication, writes that Betsy DeVos “is viewed by many in the sector as its most dangerous and destructive since the post was created by Jimmy Carter in 1979. DeVos, a devout Christian, stands accused of quietly privatising schools, rescinding discrimination guidelines and neutering her own department’s civil rights office. Along with the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, she is said to be at the tip of the spear of Trump’s illiberal agenda.”
Trump doesn’t care for the details of policies he supports. He has left DeVos alone to do whatever she wishes.
Neil Sroka, spokesman for the liberal pressure group Democracy for America, said: “Trump doesn’t care about education, much like he doesn’t care about healthcare in any meaningful way. Betsy DeVos has been given a blank cheque to do pretty much whatever she wants. And what she is doing in the department of education is the dream of the rightwing ideologues who work on education policy.”
Critics point to DeVos’s record in Michigan, where she used her wealth to push legislators to defund public education in favour of for-profit charter schools. Students’ test results have plummeted as a consequence, they argue.
Sroka, who is based in Detroit, said: “What’s so amazing is that Betsy DeVos and the DeVos family have almost singlehandedly destroyed public schools in the state of Michigan. They’ve gone from some of the best in the country to among the worst in the region. It’s mind-boggling that anyone would put her in charge of education policy.”
If Michigan is her petri dish, DeVos has demonstrated that her ideas have failed. And now she is free to push them obsessively on the nation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. Duncan was far more dangerous because he was a “good guy” with the support of the Democratic establishment. Aside from Duncan’s preference for charters and DeVos’s preference for vouchers, their policies were very similar – privatize education by demeaning and controlling public schools and teachers. But when Duncan did it, good “liberals” stood silently by and let it happen. Now that the “bad guys” are doing it, suddenly liberals are finding their voices and mobilizing to stop it. The alignment in viewpoints between Democratic groups like DFER et al and the Trump administration is becoming more obvious and the former are finding it difficult to maintain their positions while still distancing themselves from the odious orange one.
It’s far easier to fight a known enemy than a “friend” with a knife hidden behind his back.
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Dienne,
You are right. Duncan was a backstabber. DeVos is a front-stabber.
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Arrrrgggghhhh!!!!
You beat me to the punch again, Dienne77!
Must be your youth!
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Has she been effective though?
Congress isn’t going to give her the billion dollar subsidy for private schools. She’s pouring money into opening charters but the federal government has been doing that for years- they always increase charter funding.
She’s cutting funding to public schools but that’s also standard for ed reform- Congress has cut funding to public schools every year since 2010.
She travels the country bashing public schools but Duncan did that too. None of them ever have anything positive to contribute to public schools and haven’t for years.
I don’t see that she’s much different than status quo ed reform other than promoting private schools over public schools and ed reform was 90% of the way to “backpack vouchers” before she ever arrived anyway.
I have a question for ed reform. Public school parents were told Common Core was Job One. That it was essential for NATIONAL SECURITY that we turn our schools upside down for Common Core. I haven’t heard a word from any of these folks about Common Core since my son sat for the Common Core exams.
They should admit it was all about the tests. Those tests went in and they dropped the whole thing. They have ALL, en masse, moved on to telling us personalized learning is essential for national security 🙂
My heart breaks for all those public school teachers and administrators who busted ass to put that program in, only to find ed reform doesn’t care AT ALL what we actually DO in public schools. As long as we turn in the data in a timely manner they could care less about public schools.
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I do not share this “the sky is falling” attitude. It sounds odd, but the SecEd does not have very much influence on education policy at the state level. 90+% of education funding is provided by states/municipalities.
To be fair, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the Interior each run more schools that the Sec of Ed.
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Chas,
You don’t seem to understand that the Feds wag a huge tail with the 10% of the funding they control. The threat to withhold it causes states and districts to capitulate.
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You have a valid point. Another reason to abolish the federal department. With federal “sheckels” come “shackles”.
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The Feds. were instrumental in forcing states to educate all students rather than leave certain groups out of the funding loop.
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Charles, in my state (Utah), even that little bit of federal funding is incredibly important, particularly for lower-income schools. The very conservative states are cutting education funding to the bone, and the federal funding is keeping a lot of schools from going under.
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I agree, that not all states have the financial resources to operate their schools, properly. No dispute at all. If the citizens do not demand the spending and the resultant taxation, that will properly operate the schools (or the highway department, or any other state operation), then sometimes the states go to the feds, hat in hand.
However, instead of a federal department of education, doling out the funds, with all kinds of nit-picking regulations and “strings” attached, would it not be more efficient to have the funds disbursed in the form of “block grants”?
This way, the individual states and municipalities, would have much more flexibility, and not have to have faceless Washington bureaucrats looking over their shoulders, and micro-managing what should be a local affair.
Another reason to abolish the federal Dept of Ed.
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Republicans have demanded block grants for years.
Democrats have earmarked money for poor kids, kids with disabilities, and other purposes.
Democrats never trusted that the money would get to those who need it if the requirements were removed.
Some states might use the money to subsidize a tax break for the rich.
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Your points are all valid. As far back as Richard Nixon, there was “revenue sharing”, where federal money was doled out to the states, with virtually no supervision at all.
Nevertheless, the feds have provided funding to the states in the form of block grants, with varying degrees of supervision. The feds can attach any number of “strings”.
Example: The interstate highway system was built with a combination of federal and state money. The feds provided funding to the states on a 1-to-9 ratio. The states put up money, and the feds contributed on this formula. The feds closely supervised highway construction, and made certain that the roads met engineering and technical standards.
A similar program can be set up to provide educational funding for the states. The feds can devise guidelines and regulations, to insure that any block grants are disbursed as intended. A grant to provide states with funding for additional teacher training, can be supervised, and the feds would ensure that the spending went as intended.
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“With federal “sheckels” come “shackles”.”
That’s a good one, Chas!
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I see DeVos as one in a long series of national ed reformers who are essentially the same.
Her job to take the ball from Duncan and move us a little further down the field toward “backpack vouchers”, which is where they are inexorably heading.
This “movement” only goes in one direction and it is never towards public schools.
If you measured the amount of time DC spends on charters and vouchers versus the amount of time they spend on public schools it would have an inverse relationship to the reality of schooling. It would be 90% charters and vouchers versus 10% public schools, which is the direct opposite of US students and parents.
There’s a word for that and that word is “capture”. It’s as if the Social Security Administration spent 90% of their work day on IRA’s.
In a way they’re irrelevant to public school parents. They deal exclusively in the system they prefer, not the system that exists.
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You have to read inside the echo chamber to really get a sense of how nuts this is.
It’s like another world inside the club. I encourage every public school parent to enter. You’ll be amazed.
We somehow ended up with a huge group of politicians and public employees who are specifically and vehemently opposed to the schools our children attend.
It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Public schools sometimes pay these people as consultants! The mind boggles.
Do you think Eva Moskowitz hires people who oppose charter schools? Hell no she doesn’t, because that’s insane. Yet I’m supposed to hire them and also pay them.
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Three years ago just about every public school in the country turned their school upside down putting the Common Core in.
The reward for that from ed reform? They hired a Secretary who refers to public schools as “dead ends” and Congress cut their funding.
Oh, and no one mentions Common Core anymore. Now we’re being ordered to spend billions on ed tech product lest we be accused of “protecting the status quo” or “clinging to a 19th century model” by the same people.
Please don’t fall for this again. If you put every kid in front of a screen 6 hours a day by the time you get it done they’ll be pushing something else. It’s not like they’ll notice anyway. Turn the scores in on time and you’re golden.
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All the top down power wants to ensure that the schools are on the express train to privatization. It is just a matter of the details between Republicans and Democrats of how we are forced to get there.
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The Dunce, the Kling, and now the DeVoodoo are ALL BAD. How low we have sunk! And our tax dollars PAY them, too…more than sickening.
Where are our professional orgs.? Oh, kissing rear-ends.
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It’s becoming obvious that the “swamp” #FakePresident Donald Trump swore to drain was the entire United States, the public sector, swaths of the private sector, its government, and Constitution. He plans to replace the United States with TrumpLand, and if the Kremlin’s Agent Orange achieves Putin’s goal and changes the name from the United States to Trumpland, he will call that new fascist, nightmare of a country the greatest empire on earth and he will brag that it will last 10,000 years.
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Those right wing ideologs don’t just want the end of public education, they also want an end to an educated public. The False Christian zealots (who also want to destroy the separation of church and state) see this as a way to drive people back to religion and to give the church more power over people’s lives. In their small, narrow minds this is the solution to all of societies “problems”. The oligarchs and other corporate rent seekers see this as a way to continue the conversion of America into a giant company store under their exclusive control. Dumpsterfire’s privatization enabling infrastructure plan exemplifies this, as do the policies of his Sec. of the Interior. It does not stop there. The nation our ancestors built is being put on the auction block behind a smokescreen of lies and distractions, and We The People will not be allowed to own any part of it.
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“. . . see this as a way to drive people back to religion. . . ”
Well, they certainly have to go the coercive route as their 2,000 year old desert tribal myths certainly haven’t been “capturing” very many who aren’t brainwashed as children growing up with those myths.
We’ve seen that coercive route before in things like the Inquisition, the 100 years wars, Islamic suicide bombers, American xtian Air Force pilots bombing the shit out of innocents, etc. . . . History is littered with the corpses of many who did not believe the right belief.
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What can we do as citizens to get Betsy Devi’s fired? There is a conflict of interest here. We have to save public education.
Debra Summers
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