All it took to make American education “great again” was two-and-a-half years of Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos.
So saith Betsy DeVos to the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference in Michigan.
DeVos vigorously defended charter schools, especially in Detroit, even though most Detroit charters underperform Detroit public schools and are run as profit-making businesses.
DeVos opened Saturday’s program at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference by celebrating her mission to spread education freedom across the country. The Michigan native slammed teacher unions and Democratic primary candidates for offering a vision for the education system that will produce worse outcomes for students and cost taxpayers trillions of dollars.
DeVos said she is solely focused on doing what’s best for students, though she has been a frequent target of Democrats running to oppose President Donald Trump in 2020. She said Democrats who criticize the proliferation of charter schools ignores their results and falsely claim they are the “enemy of the people.”
“You’ll hear repeatedly that public charter schools are bad,” DeVos told Republicans Saturday. “The truth is they are the best thing to ever happen to Detroit students.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Like Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans?
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There’s a word for this…what is it again? Oh yes: delusion.
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Demagogues have typically held out this notion of some former golden age of greatness to which the people would return. This was, of course, precisely what Hitler did, and he was a true believer in his own hype. He would resurrect the Ayran nation and secure for it “living space,” or Lebensraum.
In this case, the Trump Whiter House is all about returning to an era of unquestioned white, male, Northern European hegemony.
So, we know where this make it great again language comes from. It’s one of the few things that the absolutely amoral Donald Trump actually believes. The world is divided into superior persons (“winners”) with “great genes” and inferior ones (“losers”) from sthe places. Thus his “good people on both sides.” Thus his “go back to where they came from.” Thus his weeping over removal of monuments to slaveholders and genocidal maniacs.
And is it surprising that the guy who have you Trump University would choose the person who married into the Amway pyramid scheme fortune to finish the job of turning the Department of Education (the USDE) into the Department for the Privatization of Public Schools (call it what it now is, the US-DPPS)?
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Great job pointing out the hypocrisy of this narrow minded, wealthy demonic duo!
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I can’t get on at the link, so maybe BdeV actually harked back to some previous ed-era she approved of– would that be the pre-Industrial Age, when all we had besides privschs for the wealthy were a few yrs of instruction for farm kids raised by local communities? As far as I can tell, BdeV never approved of public ed at all. I conclude that from one of her paltry few visits to current tradl pubschs, where she ranted about ‘sage-on-a-stage’ and assembly-line public ed, as tho all she knew of 21st-C public ed was a few early-20th-C photos online.
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“You’ll hear repeatedly that public charter schools are bad,” DeVos told Republicans Saturday. “The truth is they are the best thing to ever happen to Detroit students.”
Trump has lied over 12,000 times. Someone should be keeping track of how often DeVos lies.
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Often attributed to Vladimir Lenin. William James said something similar: “There’s nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.”
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One more lie. He can’t get over Obama.
………………………………………….
President Donald Trump asserted on Monday that the Nobel Peace Prize process is unfair because he should get one “for a lot of things.”
While appearing at the UN, Trump speculated on why he had not been awarded a Nobel Prize.
“I would get a Nobel prize for a lot of things, if they give it out fairly, which they don’t,” Trump said. “They gave one to Obama immediately upon his assent to the presidency and he had no idea why he got it.”
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More like the Verge Of Making Idiocracy Total (VOMIT)
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perfect
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The Republicans campaign and promote privatization/charters vigorously, unashamedly, and with big checks following their words of looting. The Democrats say nothing about this private war on public education; they take hedge fund donations and stay silent on the multi-decade decimation of public schools. Only Bernie Sanders, actually not a Democrat, has come out with a pro-public policy statement which the other candidates and the corporate media diligently ignore, writing off Bernie to make room for the easier to swallow Warren. The big news in all of this is not the DeVos/Trump war on everything public but rather the Democrats’ abandonment of the public sphere. It’s obvious where this will lead.
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“It’s obvious where this will lead.”. Correction: has already led, after nearly 2 decades of neoliberalism/ privatization of the public good.
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‘has already led” — yes, we are truly there
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Well that’s exactly what Eva Moskowitz said DeVos would do. That’s why Eva Moskowitz spent so much time and effort devoting herself to making sure the Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos! Moskowitz worked so very hard to make sure DeVos was confirmed — giving press statements, writing op eds and doing tv interviews endorsing DeVos and demanding the Senate confirm her when DeVos’ nomination was in danger. And that is clearly because Moskowitz knew it was of vital importance that DeVos be confirmed as Sec. of Education. That’s why so many parents want Moskowitz to teach those values that she and Betsy DeVos share to their children!
Whenever I see something else “great” that Betsy Devos does, I say “thank you, Eva Moskowitz!” And so do the billionaire education reformers who seem incredibly pleased with Eva Moskowitz’ hard work to get DeVos in power.
Sometimes two people share so many values that it is not at all difficult to understand why one — Eva Moskowitz — would work so hard to empower the other — Betsy DeVos.
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Charters and vouchers. All day, every day.
If you arrived from Mars and heard exclusively ed reformers you would not know public school students and families exist in this country.
They have completely excluded nearly 90% of students. They’re either actively harmful to them or irrelevant.
People should stop hiring them. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to hire and pay people who support 10% of students when you could hire people who support 100% of students.
DeVos returns no value to public school families and students. Given her absolute worship of the private sector that’s a criticism she should be able to understand. She’s wildly expensive too- billionaires require elaborate security and the public is picking up the tab for hers. We could get an ordinary non-billionaire who would actually do the work and cost us a lot less.
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“They masquerade with words about putting students first, but their actions tell a different story,” DeVos said of unions and Democratic primary candidates.
Several Democrats are pledging to offer tuition-free college and eliminate student loan debt, paid for through taxes on Wall Street speculation and an increase in federal funds. DeVos said the proposal is ridiculous on its face, though said the Education Department is working on ways to educate students so they don’t ake out burdensome loans.”
Is there anything more appalling than people who Betsy DeVos’ age fighting against affordable college?
Entire generations have benefited from public subsidies for college education, yet they REFUSE to pay for it for the next generation. Young people should demand all of these people pay it back. Every single American who got “free” college (and there are tens of millions of them) yet oppose the next generation getting it should have to pay it back.
Do you know the ratio has flipped? When I went to a public college 75% of it was covered with a public subsidy. Now it’s 25%. I left college with 1500 in student loans. I paid it back in a year. Students today will RETIRE and still have student loan debt. The older generations just dumped the entire cost on them. It’s appalling.
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“Federal spending on children falls to lowest level in a decade
Budgets are in some ways “how we, as a society, define our priorities. It’s clear that kids are not our priority in the budget,” says one of the report’s authors.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/federal-spending-children-falls-lowest-level-decade-n1055136
Ed reformers are lousy advocates for children. There are tens of thousands of them, they’re all paid, yet US children do worse every year in these budget battles.
Kids lose and lose and lose, and the ranks of adult, paid ed reformers just grows and grows and grows. They’re bad advocates. They get rolled every budget session.
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Betsy DeVos cultivates hate for her.
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If Betsy is on the verge of Making Education Great Again, doesn’t that make her a MEGAlomaniac?
Of course, the MAGAlomaniac job is already taken.
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Betsy the Brainless DeVos is a MAGAlomaniac in training because she hasn’t been evil enough yet to earn her horns.
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Betsy DeVos is a charlatan, and a Trump acolyte.
Which basically means she is a traitor to the Republic.
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The only thing that’s going to make America great again is banning billionaires and Republicans from further harming the country.
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Callisto: Paul Krugman says, “What an impeachment process would do now is get the truth about who really cares about defending America and its values — and who doesn’t — out into the open.”
Impeachment would bring out all of this administration’s hidden lies and coverups. How much money has Trump made from his hotels and golf clubs that host foreigners and people eager to speak their ideas to a president who lacks any clue about how to govern? How much have Trump’s policies been influenced by money from foreign governments?
What exactly did Mueller mean when he stated that, “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”?
Trump now considers himself above the law. What is he hiding in his tax returns? Why does he defend Putin over our intelligence agencies and not want an investigation into Russian meddling in our 2016 election? What is the extent of his personal involvement with Russia?
An impeachment process would let the people know the extent of his misdeeds. Make him testify since even his lawyers are afraid he will incriminate himself. We must learn just how far Trump has strayed from fulfilling the immense responsibilities of the office of president.
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