Slate is posting a series of farewell to the odious cast of characters in the Trump administration. Dan Kois wrote this goodbye to Betsy DeVos.
He writes:
So long, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos! It wasn’t just that you were unqualified to lead America’s educational system, as someone who never worked at a public school, attended a public school, or took out a school loan. It was that you were the opposite of qualified, an early example of the Trump administration’s elitist disregard for the very role of government agencies themselves. You sailed into the Department of Education as if sailing into port on one of your yachts, buoyed by your belief that public schools are a “dead end,” your declaration that government “sucks,” and your family’s hundreds of millions of dollars donated to Republican causes.
And yeah, you made the most of the opportunity. You promoted charter and religious schools while ignoring public schools. You reduced protections for victims of sexual assault, for minority students, for gay and trans students. You gleefully ignored a court order and continued to collect loan payments from students at a defunct, fraudulent for-profit university—16,000 times, including wage garnishments and tax seizures.
As chair of the Trump administration’s “school safety commission,” formed after the Parkland shootings, you declined to recommend any gun control measures, but you did rescind an Obama-era guideline instructing schools not to punish minority students more harshly than white ones. Thank goodness!
But it was in 2020, as American schools faced arguably their biggest crisis since the civil rights era, that you really made your contempt for teachers and children plain. As schools across the country sought aid and advice to reopen safely in the fall, you holed up in your Michigan compound, protected by around-the-clock U.S. Marshals that have cost taxpayers as much as $25 million over four years. (You’re the first Cabinet secretary ever to insist on such protection.) From your mansion, you joined Donald Trump’s demands that schools reopen NOW—but offered no support or assistance. The end result: politicizing school reopening as an issue, making it more difficult for schools to open safely. You’ve overseen a slow-motion education disaster that will have lasting effects on an entire generation of children.
Please open the link and read it all.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It was that you were the opposite of qualified, an early example of the Trump administration’s elitist disregard for the very role of government agencies themselves. ”
That was the whole point — in order to undermine the agencies themselves and public faith therein — and it was not elitist in the least. In fact, just the opposite is true. It was a middle finger to elites.
“You’ve overseen a slow-motion education disaster that will have lasting effects on an entire generation of children.”
No, it was not a disaster. On the contrary. It was a wild success from DeVos/Trump perspective.
“while ignoring public schools”
She didn’t ignore public schools. She bashed both public schools and public school students in every speech or interview.
DeVos really took ed reform to a new level. She didn’t just attack all public schools- she tried to portray all public school students as failing, or violent, or drug-addicted – a really nasty smear campaign intended to drive people away from public schools and boost the schools she prefers ideologically- charter and private schools.
No one in ed reform defended public schools or public school students against these unfair and inaccurate smears because DeVos was delivering everything they wanted on charters and vouchers.
Once again public schools and public school students were the last priority. Sacrificed to achieve ed reform’s “reinvention” goals.
Here’s just one example of DeVos campaigning against public schools and public school students in a speech, but one can pick any speech and see the same:
https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/prepared-remarks-secretary-devos-american-legislative-exchange-councils-2019-states-nation-policy-summit
She contributed not one practical or positive effort towards any public school student in the country over four years. It was one long (and publicly funded) attack on public schools and promotion and marketing of charter and private schools.
Public school students and families won’t notice that she’s gone. She didn’t serve us anyway.
Good riddance to Betsy’s smug billionaire smirk and her evasive answers at public hearings. Good riddance to her diverting public money to private schools while telling lies about public schools. Good riddance to her refusal to follow court rulings and her willingness to cheat young people trying to get an education. Good riddance to her support for inequality for anyone that is different from her.narrow world view. We will not miss her one iota.
I fully agree with you. Well said.
As Juliet said : Good riddance, good riddance, Betsy is such an a**, that I shall say good riddance, til gas is passed.
What is the axiom? Brevity is the soul of wit? Brevity is now also the soul of the justified political takedown piece. These are good–I read a bunch of them; thanks Diane.
Betsy will be missed”
She will be missed
By Mr. Grizz
Whose only wish
Was Betsy fish
https://sites.google.com/site/sydneyhillbrownbear/feeding-habits/image.jpg?attredirects=0
We may have seen the last of her in government, but we haven’t seen the last of her money manipulating government. At least Democrats with any sense now know whose side she’s on. Apparently, that wasn’t clear to some before she became Secretary of Destroying Education.
Goodbye Betty❗✔️
I’m sad. It’s always nice to have someone atrocious running things and doing inestimable damage with conviction. They make no pretense about where they stand in discharging their offices. Even better when they know nothing. Too many cabinet members are more likeable and able to disguise their objectives, practiced in the art of double talk.
But seriously, I’m so glad the witch is dead.
Reading Diane’s latest post, we have a LOT of work to do so we don’t get a cross between Betsy & Arne, & RT3 on steroids. Just as we could not survive another 4 years of it45, our kids, educators, parents, communities & public schools cannot–& most certainly–will not survive any more years of a rotten, corporatist DFER Secretary of Education.