Jack Schneider, historian of education, urges Betsy DeVos to stop telling lies about our nation’s schools.
Schneider offers a capsule of education history and concludes:
“When critics contend that America’s public schools are preparing students for the jobs of the past, they are engaging in a kind of rhetorical feint. The implication is that today’s students are already being trained for work, and that such a focus has always been an aim of schooling. It suggests that vocational training is something that Americans broadly agree upon, and that is simply in need of an update.
“In reality, workforce preparation would represent a significant shift in the mission of schools. President Donald Trump made this shift plain in 2018 when he unveiled a plan to combine the Department of Education with the Department of Labor into a new agency called the Department of Education and the Workforce. (There seems to be little movement on the proposal since it was announced.)
“Jobs certainly matter, and the future labor productivity of today’s students will impact the entire economy. Yet even if schools could be reoriented to focus effectively on job training, the result would hardly be an unqualified good. Any shift in the present orientation of schools will come at the expense of school activities organized around the preservation of rights and liberties, as well as the inherent value of education. By and large, Americans of the past were unwilling to make that trade-off. If they’re aware of what’s happening, Americans of the present may be no different.”
in the past, vocational training was often designed to prepare students for occupations that would soon be obsolete.
As a basic rule of thumb, never believe anything DeVos says. If she is not lying, she simply speaks from ignorance. Her knowledge of the real world is very limited.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
cosign…
We should have to choose between education for life, work, and citizenship. From three years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/02/12/whats-the-purpose-of-education-in-the-21st-century/?utm_term=.0a83b69dbf23
“As a basic rule of thumb, never believe anything DeVos says. If she is not lying, she simply speaks from ignorance. Her knowledge of the real world is very limited.”
For “DeVos” substitute “Trump,” “Sanders,” “Mnuchin,” “Ross,” “Carson,” “Zinke,” “Pruitt,” “Pompeo,” “Mulvaney,” “Nielsen,” “Perry,” “Azar,”Wilbur Ross,” “Wilbur Ross,” “Wilbur Ross” and others . . .
And you have a fairly accurate description of the current administration.
Good one!!!
Thus, it will always be WHAT they DON’T know, is the
cause of our problems, and NEVER WHAT we know
for sure that ain’t so…
With all this “Democracy” going on, why are the UNELECTED
dictators calling the shots? Exhibit A. The DOE
The oligarch only wants workers who know enough to follow orders without questioning. This is called SLAVERY.
Remember when children were working in factories under DIRE conditions? That’s what the oligarchs want. To them, other people’s children are disposable and unworthy.
Her knowledge of the world is limited. Nailed it.
I don’t know about that. The other day, a grizzly bear walked into my classroom here in West Los Angeles and ate all my students. If I had been armed, I could have injured the bear while it was eating, maybe. Betsy knows real world guns. Betsy knows real world grizzlies. That’s why the Senate confirmed her!
On a more serious note, I recall an article posted here about tech companies convincing schools to teach coding to increase the size of the computer science labor pool thereby depressing computer science wages. More for executives, less for everyone else. Search “coding” on this page if you’re interested. As always, follow the money. As always, follow it to the greedy top.
Betsy DeVos and a Grizzly bear are sitting at a bar downing whiskey shots.
Betsy goes for her gun, but before she can fire, the griz swipes her with its massive forearm, knocking her to the floor.
Betsy complains to the bartender about the grizzly, but he simply points to the sign behind the bar:
“The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Betsy and the bear are at the bar. He pulls a gun and threatens to take her purse full of vouchers. She complains to the bartender, who points to the sign reading; The Right To Arm Bears May Not Be Infringed.
SomeDAM Poet: Oh, good one. You win on creativity!!
She seems to misunderstand apprenticeships, too. She characterizes them as sort of cut rate training that students pay for- a cheap certificate that they can buy on credit.
I don’t think she should be traveling the country inventing definitions that fit her ideology.
The basic idea of an apprenticeship is the employer kicks in something of value and so does the student. It wasn’t intended to be an unpaid staffing solution for large corporations.
Maybe they should see if they can find anyone who actually participated in an apprenticeship. Millions of people have, for decades, well prior to ed reform discovering the word.
We might also introduce her to “vocational schools”. Those exist. We have a huge and popular one here and it’s been there since 1954. It’s big enough I think she could spot it from her plane.
How ironic is it that while the nations public schools are under fire every day from reformers and republican governors, devos is sitting quietly in her wheel chair recovering from a bike accident seemingly oblivious to what is going on with america’s [public schools.
I mean devos did not even mention the LA teacher strike, did she? Devos is starting to amuse me in her actions which seem to go unnoticed by the president. Devos figures she will ride out the job until trump crap hit the fan
Forget the wheelchair. She just gave $47 million for more charters in Michigan
over and over and over….
Ed reformers think students have to be “flexible” and “nimble” so they can be ready for lousy, low pay part time jobs.
Luckily, it’s yet another of their cherished myths:
“Myth No. 1: Millennials love to gig. There is a common perception that somehow the millennial generation just loves part-time, gig employment. But a recent study by EY found a more complicated picture: Sixty percent of millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — were not involved in the gig economy at all, and only 24% report earning money from the gig economy. In fact, the percentage of millennials with full-time careers is rising at a brisk clip from 45% in 2016 to 66% in 2018, according to the data we collected. That reflects a growing economy that’s offering more full-time employment, but it also shows a generation that may want the same thing as their parents: Steady jobs with a clear advancement track and benefits such as health insurance and paid time off.”
There’s a shocker, huh? 30 year olds want what every other person wants. They want the same things that people who work for ed reform think tanks have!
Is it an accident that ed reformers always seem to be promoting whatever most benefits billionaire owners? Why would they tell young people they can’t expect to have a real career with reliable income? Would they accept that? Apparently no, since they all have full time jobs.
https://hbr.org/2018/10/myths-of-the-gig-economy-corrected
Has Angela Duckworth sent a grit/get well card to Betsy? Mrs. DeVos should show her grit by making her own meals from the wheelchair, laundering her own clothes, maneuvering the aisles of the grocery store to do her own shopping, planning her own doctor’s appointments, and making her own bed. And, to show the grit that builds America, she should do it on less than $3,000 a month.
You win this entry on the blog!
She’s only faithfully following in the footsteps of the Fabricator in Chief.
DeVos is a very expensive “Chatty Cathy” doll. You pull the string and out pops some libertarian blather or a lie. She has nothing to offer education as she has no understanding of the purview of her job. She is unqualified to lead the DOE. She is a wooden headed ideologue biased to the max. She makes good fodder for late night comedians, and that’s her best “talent.”
To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: “Believe me, I’ve known Chatty Cathy dolls (my daughter had one) and Betsy DeVos is no Chatty Cathy.”
Chatty Cathy was more eloquent.
The primary focus if k-12 must be to develop a love of reading, and critical thinking and problem solving skills. Once those skills are established, those children grow up to become life-long learners and can easily adapt to new jobs.
I propose, that K-12 should also teach students how to detect bias, lies, and recognize people who base their life on greed.
Every child should also grow up with a powerful bias detector, a lie detector,and the ability to delete the influence of social media viruses, cookies and Trojan Horses from their thinking that is based on deliberate propaganda similar to the Russian ads that helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election.
Even if Mueller never links Trump to the collusion between Trump’s campaign, — that has already been proven beyond a doubt with the guilty verdicts and admissions of guilt by many members from his campaign and even his White House administration after he lied when he took the oath of office —- Trump benefited from that collusion between his campaign staff/lawyers and Russia, and Trump will always be an illegitimate president.
Even a thousand years from now (if our species survives Climate Change), historians (probably historians in China that live in underground cities) will study how Trump became the first illegitimate president in US history thanks to help from the Russians who worked with many of Trump’s campaign staff to make it happen.
The Chinese will study this to make sure China never allows anyone like Donald Trump to lead their country.
Can’t we EVER get rid of Trump…and DeVos? Do we really need classes that teach the bible? I got through school just fine. My religious classes were taught outside of school hours.
…………………..
Trump Supports “Bible Literacy” Classes in Public Schools
At least six states have introduced “Bible literacy” bills that would allow schools to teach the Bible, a move that some critics say may violate the separation of church and state — but it has at least one big fan: Donald Trump.
President Trump, whose knowledge of the Bible is shaky at best, gave the idea a resounding thumbs-up via Twitter, ensuring that an already fraught discussion would get even more charged.
First, some context. This is not about religious instruction or school prayer. In theory, ”Bible literacy” means that if schools wish to do so, they could teach students about the Bible as a historical document.
In fact, some schools already discuss religious texts in the context of world religions classes or other settings where they’re relevant. For example, when studying the medieval European church in history, it can help to crack open a copy of the Good Book to see what people are talking about.
In some cases, these bills actually require teaching the Bible, adding it to the core curricula that all schools would be expected to provide…
Check out this article: https://truthout.org/articles/trump-supports-bible-literacy-classes-in-public-schools/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=mashshare&utm_campaign=mashshare
and here is Randy Rainbow explaining… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRQNtWLCSh0&index=12&list=PLjmvOW2mDb4AZlMC7Ly6ymENLFsP57WN9
Thanks Susan,
The video’s been viewed almost 300,000 times. Randy distills Betsy to her essence which is less than a leaf of iceberg lettuce.