Nancy Bailey valiantly followed Betsy DeVos’s national tour, from a distance.
Her message everywhere was the same: Public schools suck! Private schools are awesome!
In public schools, children sit in desks arranged in rows. In private schools, well, maybe the same but it doesn’t matter.
In public schools, children hate going to school. In private schools, they are enthusiastic and happy.
This woman is an ideologue. She knows nothing and learns nothing. Whatever she proposes is meant to damage public schools and communities.
Education is a learning profession, and she is not open to learning anything!
We will wait her out, fight her at every turn, and return to the task of improving and strengthening public schools for all children, a concept unknown to her.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m getting tired of waiting. I’ve been waiting for years for something productive to happen. I’ve been waiting for years for my children to receive the education they deserve. We live in a society that is ruled by money and greed. No one cares about kids. No one cares about old people. No one cares about addicts. NO ONE CARES!
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There are lots of people that care, they just happen to all be poor or middle class, therefore they are not in positions of power to fix the problem.
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I agree. The wealthy live in a bubble from which they view the rest of the world. They don’t commiserate with the difficulties of the lower and middle class. There are always people who don’t fit that criteria, but many more who do.
As Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to get through the head of a needle than for a wealthy person to get into heaven”. I’m not particularly religious but I do get the meaning of this statement.
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I am beginning to feel like we are turning back the clock back to 1500BC in England with their class system where only the upper economic groups were allowed to be educated.
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Correction 1500AD….not BC
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Carol, it’s eye of the needle, which is or was one of the entrances into Jerusalem back in the day. The context doesn’t change the meaning in this case, but it apparently was based in reality. It would have been quite an operation to get a well-laden camel of a wealthy merchant through that gate. I always liked that passage, too.
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Me too, Lisa M. I’ve been waiting since Reagan, and the situation has gotten WORSE THAN EVER.
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Many people who are reading and analyzing Devos’ “Let’s Wipe Out Public Schools” tour speeches from this tour are saying the same thing as Nancy Bailey.
Here’s Jeff Bryant:
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/betsy-devoss-back-to-school-message-clashes-with-what-parents-want/
Here’s Peter “CURMUDGUCATION” Greene:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/09/betsy-devos-is-rethinking.html
Here’s THE WASHINGTON POST’s Valerie Strauss:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/09/12/in-front-of-kids-betsy-devos-says-school-is-too-often-a-mundane-malaise/?utm_term=.b0a7b5a596d0
VALERIE STRAUSS:
“U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, in Wyoming on Tuesday to begin a six-state ‘Rethink School’ tour, welcomed young students at a learning center in Casper — but it was hardly a typical back-to-school speech. DeVos called school a “mundane malaise” for too many kids and said that it must be reinvented so that the country can get out of ‘the mess we’re in.’
“Speaking at the Woods Learning Center before faculty and staff at the elementary/middle school program, she made a new attack on the traditional public school system by insisting that there is, in fact, no such thing as an ‘education system.’DeVos has long expressed hostility to the traditional public education system — once calling it a “dead end” — but she usually makes her attacks in front of exclusively adult audiences, not ones that include elementary and middle school students.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
I’m off to go teach and make my contribution to that “mundane malaise” so abhorred by Devos.
Cheers!
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That “mundane malaise” is Common Bore OR curriculum in a can. Pushed by none other than DeVos and her other Billionaire friends. Gotta love it….create drama only to swoop in to try and fix it with the next fad. But this is America(!) and we like our next “new thing”.
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Next “new thing”… IBM Watson advising teachers…
http://teacheradvisor.org/landing/
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I would say that you pretty much describe the whole of my experience with NCLB and then R2T: create drama only to swoop in to try and fix it with the next fad.
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“They like to visit their old teachers and appreciate routine.’
This really is true. My youngest loves it when the teacher knows his older sibs. He always tells me when it happens.
I’ve been in this district long enough where the classmates of my oldest son are now teachers in the system.
I thought her speech to the Wyoming children in the “choice” school was terrible, because there is a main public system there where MOST of the children go.
She was up there bashing the schools down the street. It’s like she doesn’t get how this “community” thing works. It’s bizarre to ignore the majority of public schools and focus on the “choice” school. It’s ignorant of how systems function.
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The only community DeVos has are those other Christian right wingers like Pence that live in the bubble with her. They are lead by blind bias and no regard for the needs of others.
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Betsy has long stated that she wants to “advance God’s Kingdom.”
And that includes encouraging the support and proliferation of private, religious schools.
These Christianists would love nothing more than to indoctrinate the young and eventually move this country into a Christian-ruled theocracy.
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a behind-the-scenes goal truly happening
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Yes, it is, very unfortunately, ciedie aech.
And those who think all would be better if we can only get rid of Trump have not counted on what Mike Pence would try to do as President.
He might not be as likely to start throwing nuclear weapons around (which would, of course, be a very positive thing) but a Pence presidency would not bode well for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and anyone who is not a white Christian.
So we need to get rid of Pence, too.
Then we are stuck with Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand’s spiritual son.
Sigh.
Votes count, people. Get out and vote and work for decent candidates.
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I’ve been through the same scenario in the line of succession in my mind. There’s no light at end of that tunnel, just a gaping black hole.
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The only thing I can say….at least with Trump, you know what’s gonna happen. He can’t keep his fingers off his phone and stay out of the twitterverse. Pence is the puppet master….never was Bannon.
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Trump and Betsy have the same damaged psychological limitations.
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Lloyd, almost all politicians, of either party, have a bunch of limitations.
If it’s not their own weird religious beliefs and/ or mental limitations, then it’s the fact that they are in the pockets of the big corporations and the very wealthy who give them lots of money.
Either way, the average person is screwed.
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Heavens to “Betsy”. Would she PLEASE get her feet on the ground. Her vision is “clouded”.
Seriously, she is only one of the ignoramuses in the Trump administration. Ignorant, incompetent – shall I go on.
I wonder if the world, let along the U. S. can survive the Trump administration. Trump is right on one count. The world is laughing at us, cannot believe that we were so insane as to elect someone like him. In my view, George W started the process – we can NEVER be the same country but Trump I fear will finish the job.
One thing after the other.
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