When she delivered her keynote remarks to the National PTA, Betsy DeVos took potshots at 60 Minutes, claiming the show edited her remarks. She apparently did not explain in what way she was misquoted.
“So, now that I have the opportunity to speak unedited, I’m not afraid to call out folks who defend stagnation for what it really is: failure,” she said, criticizing those who are against school choice given that U.S. students are ranked 40th in math, 23rd in reading and 25th in science compared to other countries.
“The Education secretary is a proponent of school choice, which encompasses policies such as letting students attend religious or charter schools with public funding.”
DeVos did not acknowledge that the US placed dead last in the first international assessment in 1964.
She did not acknowledge that the US was never a high scoring nation and typically scores around the median.
She did not acknowledge that test scores are the result of child poverty and that any effort to raise test scores must address as child poverty.
She did not acknowledge that the US is #1 in child poverty among the OECD nations.
She refuses to acknowledge that school choice does not produce higher test scores. On the whole, school choice lowers test scores. The prime example of the effects of school choice is Michigan, where NAEP scores have fallen since Betsy DeVos’s choice policies were imposed. The other examples are Milwaukee and Detroit, which demonstrate the null impact of choice. Milwaukee has charters, vouchers, and public schools that must take the kids the choice schools don’t want. Detroit has loads of charters. Both are among the lowest scoring urban districts tested by NAEP.
She has an agenda, but it has already failed. She is an ideologue and zealot, who pays no attention to evidence, not even in her own state.
She would destroy public education if it were in her power. But we will stop her. She is already an object of ridicule. It won’t get better.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Since she has different goals, she seeks different evidence. Her goal is destruction of public schools, not equity. As public schools close or are financially starved, to her that is evidence of success. Expansion of charter schools and vouchers is success by her accounting, regardless of whether children learn. https://goo.gl/JHVc7G
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Devos escaped being fired as Trump was busy firing sec of state Tillerson oddly enough an accomplished executive in. his own right. Here we have good ole Betsy and her money and Trump lets her off the hook especially after the 60 minutes interview.
However, I am sure that Trump will fire her he just did not want to do it right after a media event as to not give the media any credit for exposing this creepy midwestern lackey. People like Devos need to be rid of this country as they surely are dangerous in their relentless pursuit to push their ill minds on the rest of us.
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You got it wrong.
Trump fired Tillerson to save Betsy, because she was taking so much heat.
Distractions work for him!
He also took Stormy D off the front pages.
If you want to see a really funny Twitter feed, look at hers.
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I cannot access this link, please try again.
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Charles,
Stop wasting time writing comments on why you love choice. I have posted dozens of them. No more. Write about something else.
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Keep up the ridicule and criticism. She is the worst in a recent series of disgraceful Ed. Secretaries
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She speaks like a robot. She has become a national laughing stock.
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She’s an idiot with a Christianist agenda.
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Does not matter as she is in power and those who laugh at her are not.
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Gruff,
She won’t be there forever. She has become a laughing stock.
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And i bet the pts group stood up and applauded
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Betsy DeVos is a hideous Medusa of blonde hair whose bleach has seeped into her brain.
She is a religious plutocrat who only cares about money and power and she knows darn well that Darwinism is God’s way of strengthening the herd. She is among one of the most evil and vile pieces of filth on the face of this earth, and you’d never know it based on her genteel gleaming white toothy smile and her twinkling blue eyes. I picture the French peasants of the 1700s and 1800s getting a hold of her.
She will not prevail.
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DeVos needs to ask for repentance.
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DeVos is draining public tax money away from children who are in genuine public schools and is siphoning that public tax money into private charter schools in spite of the fact that The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report which finds that, because of their lack of financial accountability to the public “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of financial fraud and the artful skimming of tax money into private pockets, especially hedge fund pockets.
If nothing else is required of charter schools, one thing must be required so that charter schools are accountable to taxpayers and inform taxpayers as to how taxpayer money is actually being spent; that one key thing is: Charter schools must be required to file the SAME detailed, public domain financial reports under penalty of perjury that public schools file.
Charter schools will cry that this is “too burdensome” — yet public schools file such reports. What would the outcry be if public schools were “freed” of this “burden”? Why, the outcry would rattle the very heavens! So, why is it that private charter schools are allowed to get away with taking public tax money and not have to tell the public on an annual basis how those public tax dollars are spent?
Charter schools bill themselves as “public schools”, but Supreme Courts in states like New York, Washington and elsewhere are catching on to the scam and have ruled that charter schools are really private schools because they aren’t accountable to the public because they are run by private boards that aren’t elected by voters and don’t even have to file detailed reports to the public about what they’re doing with the public’s tax money.
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What was the response of the delegates.
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They should have walked out leaving DeVos to lecture herself. Giving DeVos any semblance of authority over education is a travesty.
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The students from Bethune-Cookman did it best, standing up and turning their backs to her as she spoke. The people attending the National PTA legislative advocacy meeting should be ashamed of themselves.
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Christian dominionism is DeVos’s ultimate goal. She cares not one iota about what anyone else thinks. It’s why she has no problem ignoring students with special needs or who are second language learners, not protecting students from sexual predators or intruders with guns, doesn’t see poverty as a problem, is ignoring student debt, etc., etc. She doesn’t care that her professed preferences have proven a failure time after time. It’s all about her religiius beliefs. She is dangerous.
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She want us all to become Calvinists.
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jcgrim: I’d hate to think about what the Calvinist religion stands for if DeVos is their model adherent. A true Christian would be concerned about the difficulties special needs kids have. They would recognize the toll students who have been sexually abused struggle with their whole lives. Guns would be something to abolish because it destroys valuable human life. Jesus says to help those in poverty. That was one of his main goals. Ignoring the life-time of debt that some students put themselves into to attempt to progress in life is a determination that should be aided.
She is no valid ‘Christian’. She is a horror that shows complacency in the face of true human disasters. She is not worry of being called anything but a disgusting person with no morals.
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Eva Moskowitz: “BetsyDeVos has the talent, commitment, and leadership capacity to revitalize our public schools and deliver the promise of opportunity.”
Let’s not forget to recognize the woman who made it her personal mission to tell America that DeVos absolutely MUST be confirmed and worked so hard to make it happen – Eva Moskowitz.
Let’s not forget to recognize Joseph Belluck, chair of the SUNY Charter Institute, whose response to Eva Moskowitz’ strong endorsement of DeVos, was to reward Moskowitz’ “superior” judgement in education matters and insist — against the wishes of the State Board — that Moskowitz should be training her own teachers.
We should thank them all — loudly and frequently — because Moskowitz worked so hard to bring us DeVos, and Joseph Belluck insisted that the ideal person to train inexperienced teachers should be the charter leader who recognized that Betsy DeVos demonstrated true excellence and talent.
It’s hard to know whose judgment to admire more! Moskowitz for “knowing” how talented and terrific Betsy DeVos is, or Belluck,for “knowing” that anyone who placed great value in DeVos’ “talent and commitment” is the perfect person to train teachers the way Belluck knows they should be trained.
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Excellent, NYC public school parent, and thank you.
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“SUNY Charter Institute”
Sounds like a mole institute in a public university. Who allowed it?
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It’s a fake “institute”. It’s a bunch of Cuomo-appointed mostly white lawyers and businessmen who constitute the entire “oversight” of charters all over NYC and NY state. The pro-charter media considers Joseph Belluck and the SUNY Charter Institute the “model” oversight agency for charters.
Apparently, “model” oversight for charters consists of “Are the students who are allowed to stay until 3rd grade getting good test scores? If so, whatever you need to do to achieve those scores is no business of ours. We don’t care about high suspension rates (in Kindergarten!), high attrition, parent complaints. And on the rare occasions there is actual video proof or e-mails that we can’t pretend not to say, we always accept without question your excuse that such behavior was an “anomaly”.
SUNY Charter Institute has bent over backward — often breaking its own rules — by giving Moskowitz’ charters early renewals long before they should. Despite their legal mission to focus on at-risk students, they have allowed Moskowitz to re-locate charters to richer neighborhoods and change lottery preferences to drop preferences for at-risk students.
And the grand finale is that not very long after Moskowitz demonstrated the good judgement to strongly endorse and fight for DeVos, Belluck took the unprecedented step of deciding she should now be free to train her own teachers. None of that pesky state licensing for charter CEOs who recognize the excellence of Betsy DeVos. Belluck says they show such good judgement they should train their own teachers and a few weeks of training is perfectly good if those DeVos-endorsing charter CEOs say so.
Joseph Belluck – in his wisdom – considers the question “Who do I trust more — the lifetime educators at the NY State Education Department and Board of Regents or the charter CEO who said Betsy DeVos is a fine example of education excellence?”
And Belluck says, why of course it’s the charter CEO who endorsed DeVos! That’s the kind of judge of good education professionals I demand should be training her own teacher. I trust her judgement implicitly!
I think it is important to remind the public exactly why Joseph Belluck puts so much faith in Eva Moskowitz and believes Moskowitz’ judgement is far superior that that of the lifetime educators at the Board of Regents. Moskowitz understands what education needs — Betsy DeVos. And Belluck understands that brilliant judgement should be highly rewarded.
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Somewhere someone should release her entire unedited interview with CBS and call it “Betsy Does 60” Surely it would go feral, at least. I am sure she comes across as knowledgeable and erudite… and then, whoever at CBS was able to edit it to make her look dumber than a bag of hammers should get a special lifetime achievement for their editing prowess!
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Great idea, Bertis!
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👍👍
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Reblogged this on Network Schools – Wayne Gersen and commented:
As always, Diane Ravitch provides a cogent synopsis of why international test scores are a bogus metric…. and why our current Secretary is unqualified and inept.
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It seems our structures and paths to power are making this country uncivilized and effectively immature, while the overall populace is not.
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“The prime example of the effects of school choice is Michigan, where NAEP scores have fallen since Betsy DeVos’s choice policies were imposed. ”
So she imposes school choice on Michigan, hence takes away resources from public schools, and then she blames public schools for low scores and “stagnation”.
It was satisfying to hear the question in the interview “How does it feel to be the most hated cabinet secretary?”
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NPE should issue a response to DeVos’ remarks at the National PTA Board and put it on youtube. People need to understand that an average of scores can lead to false conclusions and can be misleading. The is exactly what the deformers want to do. Public schools have lots of high performing students, but we also have a high poverty rate.
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So Trump’s way of ending the scourge of white young males shooting in schools is to relax discriminatory treatment of minority students. Then to make sure all is done correctly, Betsy DeVos is put in charge of examining the ‘repeal of the Obama administration’s ‘rethink School Discipline’ policies. Apparently her working to destroy public schools makes her an expert on school discipline.
……………….
Trump Finds Unlikely Culprit in School Shootings: Obama Discipline Policies…NYT
The president, goaded by conservatives, is targeting an effort to address racial disparities in school discipline, arguing that any relaxation of policies could let a killer slip through the cracks.
WASHINGTON — After a gunman marauded through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month, conservative commentators — looking for a culprit — seized on an unlikely target: an Obama-era guidance document that sought to rein in the suspensions and expulsions of minority students.
Black students have never been the perpetrators of the mass shootings that have shocked the nation’s conscience nor have minority schools been the targets. But the argument went that any relaxation of disciplinary efforts could let a killer slip through the cracks.
And this week, President Trump made the connection, announcing that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will lead a school safety commission charged in part with examining the “repeal of the Obama administration’s ‘Rethink School Discipline’ policies.”
To civil rights groups, connecting an action to help minority students with mass killings in suburban schools smacked of burdening black children with a largely white scourge.
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Trump will stop at nothing to pin everything and anything on Obama. The feds rarely get involved with discipline unless it relates to civil rights as in the high suspension rates of African American boys.
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This is Trump’s way to defend DeVos & the NRA simultaneously. He & his white supremacist advisors are always prepared to use racism to drive a wedge up teachers’ & students growing coalition against her power grabbing privatization efforts and growing anger against his NRA-lovin’ allies.
In this case, there are many disagreements within the teaching profession on discipline. None is more incendiary than the use of suspensions for misbehavior. Addressing racial disparities in school suspensions has been a thing long before the Obama administration- research & policy go back to the early 1990’s.
Federal law IDEA requires a functional assessment (FBA) and a PBIS on every child with an IEP who faces suspension for poor behavior. When disciplinary action must be taken, the process can become even more contentious when a child has an IEP, in which case the teachers must develop a Positive Behavior Intervention & Support Plan (PBIS) before any suspension can happen.
For many children these procedures are highly effective. When antecedents & consequences of the problem behaviors consistently replace the underlying communication functions with appropriate behaviors, the PBIS is a tool that helps many children learn new self-management skills.
However, not all human behaviors are predictable or manageable, particularly when they happen outside of controlled environments. There is a high probability that the shooter in FL was in SPED ever since he was a young child. He most likely had many FBAs and PBIS plans while in school. The public schools cannot reveal that information without his permission. No doubt, he is a deeply disturbed individual who, once he left school, can operate with no constraints as an adult.
According to reports from his classmates they all knew he was disturbed. All I can assume is that this family and the schools tried to do their best for him but there are no easy answers to his problems.
It’s a testament to public education that we serve all children even when they have deep psychological problems. No other country in the world does what we do for children with severe psychological problems.
There is one thing that’s clear, however. This young man should never have been able to get an AR-15.
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It’s interesting that Betsy ever agreed to go on 60 Minutes in the first place.
Even if she did not herself realize that it would put her in a precarious position that might (would?) make her look bad, surely, there must have been at least one of Betsy’s advisers at DOE who realized that. Surely, Betsy’s performance during her confirmation hearing was enough to make someone within DOE have reservations about such a highly visible interview.
But perhaps they were afraid to say out loud that the Emperor has no clothes.
The “yes, Sir or yes Ma’am ” phenomenon seems to be pervasive among both our political ruling class and our billionaire ruling class.
Many of the people employed by our “leaders” are afraid of saying anything that it is critical of those leaders, even if they see that it will lead to a situation that makes the “leader” look bad because they know they will be fired if they do.
But perhaps there are also some at DOE who actually WANTED Betsy to look bad and quite purposefully did not advise against her appearance for that reason.
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Poet: Trump is proving to the country that he only values true sycophants. He wants everyone to recognize that he, and he alone, knows what is best on every topic. Remember, he has ‘excellent intuitive abilities’, ‘extreme intelligence’ and ‘great genes’.
Any team member who doesn’t follow that line will eventually be fired.
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I think devos’ philosophy is “the more I suffer here, the happier I am going to be in Heaven”, so she purposefully tortures herself with such interviews.
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Máté Wierdl: Is she smart enough to realize she did badly?
I was in a mall recently and saw a man wearing a ‘CNN Fake News’ tee shirt. Gad. There’s a lot of ignorance running around. I wouldn’t want to advertise it.
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Máté
If they played back Betsy’s interviews in interrogations, they would have greater impact on the prisoner than “stress positions” , loud music or even waterboarding.
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Yeah, so get some confessions out of our most dangerous criminals using devosian interviews, and when the time comes to incarcerate her (which will soon come), put her in the same prison with these guys, and document how they treat her.
Personally, I enjoy these interviews with devos. She never ever disappoints, she always satisfies the expectations. I want more!
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Not so, Mate.
She takes care to speak only to allies. The 60 Minutes interview was supposed to be her chance to show the world that she is really smart and on top of everything. She did not expect Stahl to be well prepared with questions.
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I do not think the questions were very tough or provocative—except the one on why she thinks, she is the most hated cabinet member—and that was the only question she handled well.
She simply cannot articulate her own thoughts and strategy at all. As I listened to the interview, I found myself trying to help her, giving her words that would be much more convincing.
We should have tally to see who thinks devos will be fired and if yes, when. My bet is before the summer, and it will be “her initiative so that she can take care of education issues better in Michigan.”
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It’s hard to believe that Betsy had any expectations for the interview.
If Betsy was not prepared for a certain line of questioning, it is most likely because she did not think about it ahead of time, period.
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Betsy will resign before the year is out,claiming she wants to spend more time with her family — the Vouchers.
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DeVoucher or DeVulture—both fit. She is birdlike, no doubt. We are such teenagers….
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DeVoid works best.
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You mean the DeVouch family?
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I think our resident poet doesn’t like to be told when he should write his poems, but let’s just make it impossible for him to resist by collecting some name-variations:
DeVoid
DeVouch
DeVoucher
DeVulture
DeVouer
DeVostate
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“She did not expect Stahl to be well prepared with questions.” – she did not expect that a big network will decide to do its work and actually ask meaningful questions.
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DEVO… Oops, already taken.
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This is just a quick reminder that DeVos is the sister to mercenary & Christian crusader Eric Prince. Prince has been a secret advisor to Trump for foreign policy at the same time he has contracts with the Chinese deep state. At one point, Prince asked Trump to sell him Afghanistan so Trump wouldn’t need to send US soldiers there to fight & die. Gee Mr. Magnanimous cares so much about our soldiers.
Devos-Prince royalty think they are entitled to own the world.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/9/at_urging_of_blackwater_founder_trump
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/14/congresswoman_confirms_erik_prince_tied_to
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