Betsy DeVos keeps searching for an analogy that will convert non-believers to her love of school choice.
Choosing a school is like choosing Uber. Or a cellphone. Or anything.
At her Harvard address, she compared schools to making a choice between a restaurant and a food truck. Do you think Billionaire Betsy buys lunch from a food truck? I will donate $300 to the campaign of Mark Weber’s (blogger-teacher Jersey Jazzman) wife, Linda, who is running for Congress in New Jersey, to the first person who can produce a photo of Betsy DeVos buying lunch from a food truck in front of the ED in D.C. Linda is trying to flip a Republican seat to Democratic. She will be a friend and ally to public education.
Peter Greene explains that schools are NOT food trucks.
“Note that DeVos continues to drift further and further away from any interest in accountability for quality– in this analogy we pick the choice that tastes good, and if it happens to be unhealthy or toxic or laced with fried dog meat, none of that matters. Taste is not a bad guide for matters of food, but with schools, what “tastes good” today is not necessarily what will best serve the student, the family, the community and the nation over the coming decades. “Tastes good this moment” and “provides a solid education for a lifetime” are two entirely different metrics
“Like every other commercial enterprise, the food trucks of DC are not geared to handle all customers. There are many reasons that comparing schools to businesses is a huge fail, but this is one of the hugest– there is no business sector in this country built on the idea of serving every single person in the country. Each food truck operates on the idea that some people will eat there and other people won’t, and as long as enough people eat there, the food truck is good. But if there are people who don’t eat at any of the food trucks, some people who don’t eat at all– well, that is not the food truck operators problem.
“And as a customer, you can’t get whatever you want– you can only get what the trucks are serving.
“The modern charter industry is a business model, and just like any other business model, it is built on serving some customers. Making sure that every student in America gets a good education is not the goal, the purpose or even the concern of the charter industry. But it has to be the concern of a public school system.
“Schools are not businesses. Students are not customers. And education is not a side of fries.”
Find another analogy, Betsy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Air, water, shelter, and food work pretty good.
God Is Great and Adam Smith Is His (sic) Profit (sic)
Ahmwey is great and DeVos is his profit
You sure it’s not “her profit”?
Betsy’s analogy is absurd. Since Betsy’s is totally ignorant of what public education has to offer, she would not understand that public schools can provide a lot more options for students within one building than any charter or voucher could ever offer. If students have special needs such as special education, reading or writing problems, or if English is not the home language of the student, public schools are diverse enough to meet those needs, even if they share services with another district. Every attempt is made to meet students’ needs, and the instruction is provided by qualified personnel, not an under trained teaching temp. Unlike most charter schools, public schools adapt to the needs of the learner.
The one size fits all model of most charters does not work for many students; perhaps this is why the attrition rates are so high in many charters. DeVos criticizes public schools for being old fashioned. She has no idea of what she is saying. Public schools are far more innovative with current methodology than corporate charters where the instruction is a hundred years behind the times, except for a few computers to provide the illusion of being relevant.
“School is a food truck”
School is a food truck
Greasy and quick
Only with dumb luck
Won’t make you sick
School is a cellphone
Smart as can be
Just choose a ringtone
Then pay the fee
School is like Uber
Something to rave
Pearson is super
Teacher a slave
Talk about trucks…
Steven Spielberg made a great movie when he was first starting out called, “Duel”. In the film, Dennis Weaver, an everyman sort of character, is pursued up and down California roadways by a maniacal truck driver. You never really get a look at the driver’s face. The grimy, scary tank truck that’s doing the chasing becomes this sort of abstract force that goes berserk on Weaver, upending his harried, middle class life. The vehicle is a co-star and a classic villain.
That’s actually the sort of truck I associate Betsy DeVos with. I can just see Betsy driving that monster tractor trailer running regular folks off the road. Or, plowing through the local public school just like the driver in “Duel” demolishes a gas station.
Here’s a video with highlights of Devos’ speech at Harvard:
The Q & A pretty much ended when one a Harvard grad student asked Devos one doozy of a question. This prompted the moderator to tell Devos to refuse the answer the question, then quickly lead her off-stage to chants of …
“WHAT does white supremacy look like?” THAT’S what white supremacy looks like.
Here’s that question:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
(1:55 – )
(1:55 – )
JEFF VERSAY (sp?) :
“Hi, my name is Jeff Versay. I’m a Master in public administration student here at the Kennedy School.
“So, You’re a billionaire with lots and lots of investments, and the so-called *’school choice’ movement is a way to open the floodgates for corporate interests to make money off the backs of students.*
“How much do *you expect your net worth to increase as a result of your policy choices and what are your friends on Wall Street and in the business world—like the Koch brothers—saying about the potential to get rich off the backs of students?”*
MODERATOR:
“You can choose not to answer that, Secretary.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Here’s an account of the protests at the DAILY KOS:
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/29/1702700/-Betsy-DeVos-faces-absolutely-stunning-silent-protest-at-Harvard?detail=facebook
DAILY KOS:
While Trump’s swamp-addled Education Secretary Betsy DeVos tried to speak at Harvard University to sell her special privatization of public school branding “school choice,” she found herself the subject of an incredibly powerful and well-orchestrated “silent” protest.
Silently standing up as the DeVos speech got under way was one young woman, holding up a sheet with “White Supremacist” emblazoned in red on it.
Then another young man stood up silently with a sign reading “Our Students Are Not 4 Sale!” As security tried move protestors along by speaking to them, more and more students unfurled signs saying “Protect Survivors’ Rights,” “Our Harvard Can Do Better,” “Reclaiming My Democracy,” and “Dark Money,” amongst others.
During her stupid speech promoting charter schools, she tried the rhetorical oratory trick of asking a rhetorical question.
DEVOS: “So what do we do? Increase funding? Does that solve the problem?”
To which a student responded, “Yes.”
In the silence of the room, the answer is clear and perfect. Students responded with snapping instead of clapping during the protest—keeping the volume of the event very low.
Maybe the media can actually do their jobs: 1. Start asking questions like that brave student asked; and 2. Find out WHO that moderator is and NAME him. How DARE he tell her she “doesn’t have to answer it”?!?
The government-run public education system in this nation is a monopoly. I distrust monopolies. We used to have one(1) phone company. When AT&T was broken up, a plethora of new telecommunications options were made available. The major airlines used to be a virtual cartel, with the Civil Aeronautics Board setting the rates that airlines could charge. When deregulation arrived, the new small airlines sprang up, and Eastern and PanAm went to the dustbin of history.
Education is a service, like any other. The public education systems in each state, are a virtual monopoly. Their attitude is “take it or leave it, but we still get your taxes to run our schools”. What incentive does a public school system have to meet the needs of individual students?
When school choice comes, and it is arriving nationwide, the education cartel/monopoly will cease to exist. Of course, there will still be public schools, as not everyone will rush to opt-out. Excellent public schools will remain.
Our nation does not have monopolies in package delivery, food service, medical care, etc. Soon we will cease to have an education monopoly.
Your “government run” Medicare is also a “monopoly”. I know you “distrust” it and are hoping the Republicans get rid of it and instead give every American over 65 a voucher for $5,000 and have fun getting your own insurance. They are done. And if you get cancer and they decide to dump you because “the market” no longer finds you profitable to insure, have a great time finding another for profit company happy to insure $100,000 hospital needs for $5,000/year.
It’s shocking that anyone is so short sighted to be conned by the likes of free market advocates. But then again, Trump conned a lot of people in this country.
You do not know what I want. There are some government-run operations. Example: The US Army. Even though I work at the Pentagon, I share the founding fathers’ fear of large standing armies. The constitution requires military appropriations to be on a two-year basis, to ensure solid civilian control.
I do not support giving seniors a voucher for $5k. Ridiculous.
I have lived under communism, in a planned socialist economy. (I enjoyed diplomatic immunity). Trust me, the free market is far superior to a planned, socialist economy. Ask anyone who used to live in East Germany.
“Trust me, the free market is far superior to a planned, socialist economy. Ask anyone who used to live in East Germany.”
How about if I ask anyone who lives in England. Or Canada. Or Israel? How about I ask them why they haven’t abolished government health insurance like the countries that Charles says are “better” . The ones where there is no government health insurance.
Charles, Medicare is government run health insurance. The people who established Medicare understood that if you give seniors a voucher to purchase “free market” health insurance as you wish would happen, you would simply get private insurance companies competing for the healthiest seniors and refusing their business when they got sick.
Which pretty much is what charter schools do in education. Compete for the cheapest to educate students and drop them like a stone if they turn out not to be profitable to the bottom line.
And you somehow think that is preferable because you think the only alternative is East Germany as if countries with government health insurance like England and Canada and Israel don’t exist.
Why? You sound very similar to the Trump supporters who say “get your government hands off of my Medicare”. You probably don’t even understand how ridiculous that sounds.
Charles,
You are confusing the economic concept of monopoly with the political concept of sovereignty.
A nation of people maintains sovereignty over the functions that are essential to its survival in the form its people have chosen for themselves.
Education is one of those essential functions and a civilized democratic nation must keep a jealous and vigilant sovereignty over the education of its citizens or fail to sustain itself as a civilized democratic nation.
This fact was evident to Our Nation’s Founders and all you have to do is look around to get ample more evidence for it.
@Jon: What are you smoking? The public schools in this nation, are a monopoly. People are compelled to pay taxes into the school system, and the government assigns a school for the child, based on their zip code. In New Jersey, sometimes police follow children home, to insure that they are attending the government-assigned school, and not exercising choice.
Where in any document, constitution, or law, is it stated that “Education is one of those essential functions and a civilized democratic nation must keep a jealous and vigilant sovereignty over the education of its citizens or fail to sustain itself as a civilized democratic nation.”
That is the biggest raft of (expletive) I have ever read. The government does not have “dibs” on children’s minds. People are FREE to educate their children, in the manner that the parents feel appropriate (at their own expense). See Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), where the state of Oregon tried to do exactly what you describe, and the Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, NO!
The Supreme Court ruled in 2002, that parents, who participate in a choice program, can enroll their children in the school of their choice, even a religious school.
Q This fact was evident to Our Nation’s Founders and all you have to do is look around to get ample more evidence for it. END Q
Again, where is this “fact” set down in law or any Constitution?
Ms. DeVos and her friends the Koch brothers are trying to convert non-believers to have faith in the magic of the deregulated marketplace. In the magical marketplace of Milton Friedman, Paul Ryan, and Betsy DeVos’ billionaire friends who were born on third base “choice” is easy to defend: they can buy from any food truck and they have a wide variety of food trucks to choose from… The kids born into poverty? They don’t have the same choices… but that doesn’t matter in the free market… if it did, there wouldn’t be food oases in the cities and rural areas….
The poor get a choice of two separate and unequal options, unless the students exhibits qualities that would label them “strivers.” With all the “choice” the value becomes diluted or taxes will have to be raised. It is a losing policy.
Pseudo-Choice
Choices at one level of freedom depend on enabling or prerequisite choices being available at more basic levels of freedom.
A situation of Pseudo-Choice is created when you offer people a choice at a high level of freedom without ensuring them equal access to the enabling choices.
It needs to be added that being put in situations of Pseudo-Choice tends to make human beings extremely angry. Intensely angry. And they always, eventually figure it out, no matter how long it takes.
So Watch Out For That …