Gun Advocate Betsy DeVos did not get a warm welcome when she visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, this morning. Some students, like Emma Gonzalez, didn’t come to school. Others confronted her.
If she expected adulation and deference, she must have been disappointed.
“Her visit immediately sparked criticism and backlash from shooting survivors and advocates on social media.
“Do something unexpected: answer our questions,” Aly Sheehy tweeted at DeVos. “You came to our school just for publicity and avoided our questions for the 90 minutes you were actually here. How about you do your job?”
And this:
”She also told reporters she toured the school with student journalists, and vowed to return to sit down with them and further delve into the issues. The editor of the school’s newspaper “The Eagle Eye,” however, said DeVos “refused to even meet/speak with students…
”When further pressed on the issue of arming school staff, with questions surrounding training standards and student opposition to such a program, DeVos walked away from her podium and ended the press conference.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is she really stupid, or is it a show?
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BOTH! Betsy is CLUELESS. She needs to go back to selling soap, and wash her mouth out with her soap.
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She may have bought her position, but money can’t buy brains.
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i LOVE it!! These kids are a lot smarter than most (all?) politicians. They are not afraid to stand up for what is right. Stick it to DeVos. She deserves it.
I’ve signed up to attend a March for Our Lives in Highland, IN on March 24th. These kids started this movement and I’ll be there with some friends. Will be making posters…my specialty!!
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Ha! Props to the students at MSD HS!! The truth will be told.
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Here’s another link: https://www.pscp.tv/w/1dRJZeDwRroGB
Goodness, Betsy is a DITZ.
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Great. Those incredible students sabotaged her attempted theocratic, racist, kleptocratic PR stunt. She failed … again … to mislead. The only people she can mislead are Trump’s willing-to-die for him, followers, because they want to make “America White (not ‘Great’) Again”.
To make America all white means eradicating are enslaving everyone that isn’t white and anyone that is white that disagrees with Trump’s brain dead, hate filled followers, the Koch brothers, and ALEC’s agenda.
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I don’t know why she keeps saying Trump didn’t say they want to arm teachers. That’s exactly what he said. He went into great detail at one point- talking about how armed people in schools could “shoot thru doors”.
Of course they’re not “mandating” it- they don’t have the power to mandate it at the federal level. No one ever claimed they were “mandating it”.
She really thinks these kids are dopes. They know this issue much better than she does. They know exactly what the President said.
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DeVos is used to education reporters dutifully reporting what she said with no follow-up questions. So of course she assumes that she can say anything she wants without anyone pointing out that the things she is saying are blatantly untrue. Same goes for Trump. Same goes for Eva Moskowitz.
It is always a treat during the one in a thousand times that any of those three spew their propaganda that someone actually challenges them on the facts. Then they sputter and stammer or walk out the door because how DARE anyone question them. And usually the reporters are far too cowardly to do so.
Lying politicians and leaders need a compliant and complicit press to get away with what they are doing. Too long they have been enabled.
Hooray high school students for pointing out what the emperor has no clothes.
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The fact that she repeatedly advocates for Florida’s school privatizing, student segregating, teacher blaming, test fanatic and now gun happy educational policies, often arguing that Florida is leading the nation in educational innovation, serves to prove the students’ point.
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Thanks you, students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, for confronting this callow, self-satisfied, and ignorant heiress. She’s in way over her head, and you showed her that.
Bravo!
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“Betsy DeVos has the talent, commitment, and leadership capacity to revitalize our public schools and deliver the promise of opportunity.” Eva Moskowitz, January 2017
“Why charter school leader Eva Moskowitz, a Democrat, is going to bat for Betsy DeVos”
http://www.chalkbeat.com/posts/ny/2017/03/23/eva-moskowitz-talks-about-betsy-devos-vouchers-discipline-and-how-the-tide-is-turning-for-charter-schools/
Let’s all remember who worked so very hard to support Betsy DeVos and to date has not had even one word of criticism for Betsy DeVos. (Moskowitz did finally mildly criticize Trump but only after the CEO of her board got in trouble after racist remarks and Trump said the racist marchers in Charlottesville were “good people”. Nothing Trump did before that bothered her enough to say anything.)
But Moskowitz’ over the top praise of Betsy DeVos that she offered last year as she insisted — and I mean INSISTED — that any Senator who cared about education needed to confirm DeVos, has never been retracted by Moskowitz.
I think it is important to remind people who to thank for Betsy DeVos.
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^^And I add to that Joseph Belluck and the entire board of the SUNY Charter Institute.
Because Belluck and the SUNY Charter Institute have said that Eva Moskowitz shows such good judgement when it comes to who is good for education and children — as her ringing endorsement of Betsy DeVos demonstrated — that of course she should have complete power to train any person she wants to be a teacher at her school. No questions asked.
Because who else would Joseph Belluck want to entrust with the training of teachers in charge of young children than the woman who insists to this day that Betsy DeVos has the talent and commitment to be a great leader in education.
When Moskoiwtx tells Joseph Belluck that the teachers she is training are just as qualified as qualified as Betsy DeVos, Joseph Belluck and the SUNY Charter Institute board’s response is hooray, train as many teachers as you want! We love it and we love your judgement on the kind of person who is a great education leader.
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The students are wonderful, no BS even if a billionaire pretends to care.
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Students have an uncanny ability to smell a “rat” and a fraud. Cruella Devos got their message and couldn’t take the heat.
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Here’s the President. You have to wade thru 15 paragraphs while he pats himself on the back for the great job he’s doing and promotes his political cronies, but he did say he wants to arm teachers when they (eventually) got back to talking about schools rather than telling one another how great they are:
“One of the fake news networks, CNN, last night was saying I want teachers to have guns. I don’t want teachers to have guns. I want certain highly adept people, people that understand weaponry, guns — if they really have that aptitude. Because not everybody has an aptitude for a gun. But if they have the aptitude, I think a concealed permit for — having teachers and letting people know that there are people in the building with a gun — you won’t have — in my opinion, you won’t have these shootings. Because these people are cowards. They’re not going to walk into a school if 20 percent of the teachers have guns. It may be 10 percent or it may be 40 percent.
And what I would recommend doing is the people that do carry, we give them a bonus. We give them a little bit of a bonus. Frankly, they’d feel more comfortable having a gun anyway. But you give them a little bit of a bonus.
So practically for free, you have now made the school into a hardened target. For instance, if the coaches, who I guarantee had plenty of experience with weapons — if they had guns — you need to hard, because no matter what you do to keep them gun-free, they’ll be able to get in there, and they’ll crawl through the back of a window or something. And you’re going to have everybody, again, without any protection.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/02/22/read-transcript-president-trump-thursday-meeting-gun-violence/AOGxMuGdt5y63KWeoFX7RP/story.html
Incidentally- the kids were right. The adults have done absolutely nothing in response.
Trump has moved on to tariffs. He did nothing.
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Thank you for becoming the voice of the future. Stand tall, these Washington bureaucrats know nothing of the daily life we live, how we survive, what makes us tick. She should head back to Washington because she is an icon from another era. You kids have it right! Keep going, I cannot wait to see where it will lead us all.
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Every time I see a pic of that witch I want to slap her face.
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I wouldn’t, you’d probably catch some nasty disease. Spongiform Encephalitis or some such degenerative neurological affliction would be my guess.
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Snarky fake quote: “Who knew being Sec. Of Ed was going to be so hard? I don’t understand why nobody likes or trusts me because God is on my side.”
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Just imagine… All those products of PUBLIC education being so capable and strong… Good job MSD students! 😊
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Why did the national media cover the visit by Dwyane Wade to MSD, but made no mention that the Secretary of Education stopped by for a (quick) Q and A? Then again, apparently he listened to them.
“Thank you @DwyaneWade for sitting down and listening to us!!! So grateful that you want to get involved! #NeverAgain”
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Hard to believe that Devos went to this school and did not have a heart to heart conversation with the students there. Instead, she put on a dog and pony show and the interesting thing about this visit is this:
The visit proves how Devos is such a fake and that everything she does is calculated and without any passion of caring. A real secretary of education would have gone there and spent endless time with students discussing how our country can implement change for the good of our schools. Instead Devos made a spectacle of herself and the story there became about her instead of the kids who are there carrying the burden their past peers had to suffer through. Devos really needs to leave as this secretary of education really is way over her head.
You know, I am a teacher here in NYC public school system and Betsy Devos reminds me of a school chancellor NYC had several years ago when Michael Bloomberg was mayor here. Bloomberg picked Kathy Black, a rich publishing executive who had no education experience what so ever. Bloomberg picked Ms. Black after he meet her at a cocktail party. Needless to say, Kathy Black lasted all but 3 months because. every time she visited a school she was not welcome and people wanted her out. Very similar here with Devos however Devos has been able to stay under the radar of Trump but I am sure Trump will fire her its only a matter of time.
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Secretary of Education: ” I am sure Trump will fire her its only a matter of time.” I believe Betsy knows how to successfully bow to Trump. I haven’t heard of any discord between them. It’s two unqualified, ignorant, wealthy people thinking they are the greatest ever.
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where are my comments
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Sorry I was busy
I am a staff and company of one
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Diane people are sabotaging this site as my comments about devos are disappearing…this woman has the money to edit comments now?
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When did you post your comment and how long did you wait before you protested that your comment had not appeared?
For instance, I only check for comments on my four blogs once a day early in the morning and all comments must be approved by me before they appear.
I suspect, that the same applies on Diane’s site and she gets a lot more traffic and comments than my blogs do.
Be patient.
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I hereby nominate Secretary DeVos for Monty Python’s “Upper Class Twit of the Year Contest.”
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Totally disgusting and unacceptable. She is a disgrace. Shame on you. Our children deserve better than this unqualified (other than her wealth)nothing
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This is our democracy in action.
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Full Livestream: Seven students arrested protesting for gun control
News2Share
Published on Mar 7, 2018
High school and college students sat in outside Senator Mitch McConnell’s office for gun control. The activists barely managed to sit down before being promptly issues three warnings. Of the two dozen or so, eight were arrested.
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