The U.S. Department of Education was created in 1980 as a Cabinet level agency. Its predecessor was the Office of Education, located in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Cabinet Secretaries take an oath to uphold the Constitution. It is assumed that they will follow the law and safeguard the institutions for which they have oversight.
As Elizabeth Warren shows in this searing document, Betsy DeVos has consistently violated her oath of office. She has rolled back civil rights protections for students with disabilities, for students of color, and for victims of sexual violence. She has protected the interests of predatory for-profit colleges, not the students who were bilked by them. She has appointed high-level personnel who have conflicts of interest (as she herself may have if her vast holdings were completely revealed). She has worked tirelessly to weaken public education. Her budget proposals seek to divert billions of dollars from the schools that enroll 90% of students to private and religious schools, which have the power to select their students and to deny service to students they don’t want.
“Do No Harm” is a very minimal standard for a public official. DeVos actively does harm to the very persons and institutions that she has sworn to protect.
When she was chosen, DeVos was known as a major financier for the privatization movement. Her foundation has long worked closely with the Koch brothers, ALEC, and others who are intent on harming public schools, eliminating unions, and removing any standards for teachers. She is a dedicated enemy of public education, of unions, and of the teaching profession, and a champion of charter schools, voucher schools, online schools, and for-profit higher education.
Betsy DeVos should not be Secretary of Education. Senator Warren provides the evidence for her campaign to destroy the functions and the purpose of the Department that DeVos heads.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
She shouldn’t be leading the DOE; she is public enemy #1. It is outrageous that the person leading the DOE does not represent the interests of the public schools that over 90% of our students attend. Parents and teachers should resist and fight her every move, and parents should cause such a fuss that they block her attempts to destroy public education by repeatedly calling their representatives to complain about her moves to undermine public schools. We need to be vocal and active!
I don’t know how they live with themselves supporting these predatory lenders. We’re talking about 18 year old first generation college students who are borrowing more money than they have ever seen in their lives, with no clue of the DECADES long servitude they’re entering into.
It disgusts me that these incredibly wealthy members of Congress and members of the Trump Administration are eagerly promoting loading teenagers up with tens of thousands in debt like they’re pack mules. You would have to talk to these people to get the despair they feel- they will NEVER get out from under – that one poor decision impacts the rest of their lives. Half of them are making interest-only payments. They are pouring earnings into interest which means they can’t put that money anywhere else.
Congress debated this for LITERALLY 20 years- there are reams of studies, blue ribbon panels, they know that this screws young people. They don’t care.
It makes me particularly angry because so many older people benefitted from state-subsidized higher education. They refuse to offer that same advantage to the generations after them.
They’re too busy collecting campaign donations to care. The only way to raise their level of concern is to organize, be a thorn in their sides, and threaten their positions. We need massive resistance.
And she’s a finalist for worst cabinet secretary ever. Along with the rest of our Dear Leaders courtesans. Just like he makes George W. Bush look better and pushes James Buchanan off the bottom of the list of worst presidents, his cabinet makes us yearn for the statesmanship of James Watt, the judiciousness of John Mitchell, the far-sighted planning of Robert McNamara, and the eloquence of Earl Butz.
DeVos is complaining that states aren’t using enough “imagination” but listen to her scolding speeches and there is NOTHING “imaginative” about her echo chamber ed reform approach.
What does she offer public school families as far as “ideas”? Nothing. She’s selling vouchers and cheap garbage “blended learning” which is a recycled Jeb Bush script from a decade ago.
Her big contribution was to compare schools to Uber and then food trucks. These aren’t “great ideas”. They’re not even ideas at all. They’re a recitation of her ideological beliefs using fashionable products as a “hook” and they’re completely irrelevant to 90% of families in the country.
Schools aren’t food trucks and they aren’t Uber and saying they are isn’t an “idea”- it’s nonsense political jargon.
She knows nothing about public schools. She is brainwashed by the right wing foundations and buddies like Bush. She’s a ‘bot’ repeating biased babble.
She hasn’t been brainwashed. She was reared a far right evangelical, trust fund baby, with a healthy dose of disgust for the poor. She is a dangerous woman who should be jailed for the damage she has done to Michigan education.
Funny, Elizabeth Warren was quiet during the reign of Arne Duncan. Perhaps she and her fellow Democrats believed in the test and punish and privatization policies of the Race to the Top agenda.
“Democratic Airlines”
The rain, it’s plain, stays mainly in the plane”
By George, I think she’s got it!
I wish Elizabeth Warren would direct the US Department of Education to stop selling public schools ed tech under the guise of “offering assistance”.
This is improper. Surely the ed tech industry is profitable enough to hire and pay their own salespeople and I don’t have to pay them. Why we need a cheering section of federal employees promoting this industry is beyond me.
I wish public schools would stop listening to them. They’re captured.
“Today begins #TeenTechWeek! The @NAEP_NCES Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) assessment measures whether students are able to apply tech skills to real-life situations. In 2014, 43% of 8th-graders performed at or above the Proficient level. ”
Today as every day, the US Department of Education is selling ed tech to public schools.
It’s an emergency! Buy, buy, buy! Programs, devices, consultants- don’t think or make a good decision based on value, buy QUICK or your students will fail the TEL assessment and never get a job!
They are indistinguishable from an industry lobby.
Too many districts suffer from the “keeping up with the Jones’ mentality.” Then, they have no money for the library or electives for students.
“The Worst of the Worst”
If Betsy is first
In “Worst of the Worst”
Then Arne is second
(Or first, some might reckon)
“Worst Education Secretaries all the way down”
Sec Ed’s worst idea
Is resting on another
And what is very clear
Is this one had a brother
Agree. DeVos not qualified to be Sec. of Education!
Here’s an example of Betsy DeVos’ work in Michigan:
“Michigan ranked last in a study of third-grade reading levels, with just 44 percent proficiency in the 2016-2017 school year — down from 50 percent proficient in 2014-2015”
They’ve done the same thing in Ohio. They shoved the worst ed reform gimmicks and garbage into Michigan and Ohio and they have harmed every public school student in those states.
Twenty year of market-based ed reform and Michigan and Ohio slip in rankings every single year.
Interesting in that Devos is still around in the Trump cabinet. After all… many if not almost all cabinet members have left the White House. The fascinating thing is that Betsy Devos had to have a waiver from Mike Pence to get the position as Devos proved to congress she was a dum wit regarding education.
Yet Devos remains on staff and continues to attend Trumps galas….Betsy will dress up as I have seen her in her best suits, etc. How is it that this ill witted public ed enemy is still in the White House?? Omarosa could not even outlast Devos and that says a lot.
She’s been doing this illegal BS for over a year and the FEDS have NOT done a thing about her. It’s not brain surgery, it’s simple conflict of interest’
Please get your facts straight.
The Department of Education was created in 1867 right after the Civil War. It became part of the Department of the Interior in 1868. It became a cabinet level agency in 1980.
I have my facts straight. There was very briefly a “Department of Education” from 1867 to 1868, but it was quickly relegated to a minor Bureau in the Department of the Interior. Its purpose was collecting statistics about the “condition and progress” of American education. It was not a cabinet-level department until 1980. Before then, it was part of the huge Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.