I recently had the pleasure of reading Kevin Welner’s terrific new Onion-like book, “Potential Grizzlies: Making the Nonsense Bearable.” In tweets, I described Kevin as the Stephen Colbert and Groucho Marx of American education. Kevin and I had fun discussing the book on a Zoom sponsored by the Network for Public Education. (WATCH: Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Kevin Welner). Kevin has pledged all royalties he earns to the Network for Public Education. I hope you will watch, then buy the book, which makes a great holiday gift! To give you a feel for the book, here’s a new piece Kevin just wrote.
Perilous De-DeVos-ing Cleanup Is Underway
The Biden education transition team today assured a worried public that it is carefully following established procedures for the clean-up of the U.S. Department of Education. “The de-DeVos-ing process is indeed grueling, but all necessary precautions are being taken to assure a safe and complete mission,” said spokesperson Darcy Wiggins.
Four years of policy contaminants are reported to have been strewn throughout the Department at a level that sources insist must have been either intentional or extraordinarily reckless. “In the Title IX area alone, we found a spill of transphobia and a release of toxic masculinity all over the sexual assault regulations. That latter one may take years to fully mop up.”
There are also said to be large vats of voucher policies piled up in storage closets, but they haven’t yet broken containment.
Additional dangers, however, remain. According to a member of the transition team we spoke with, an unknown amount of policy contaminants may have been transported a mile northeast, to the chambers of several Supreme Court justices who seem determined to release the policies on the general public at the earliest opportunity.
Here is a photograph of the Biden transition team in the midst of De-Vos-ing contents of the U.S. Department of Education.
lol! I went to the link of the photo of the Biden transition team, because I was curious who was on it.
If they want to take all proper precautions to eradicate the DeVos pandemic virus that hit the Department of Education, they MUST seal Betsy DeVos in a 45-gallon oil drum filled with sulfuric acid and leave her there for three days. When they open the drum, she will have vanished and never be found again.
Murder isn’t the answer and she isn’t worth going to jail for. ☹️
There is a lot of messy clean up from the damage DeVos has accomplished when it comes to public education but there is still clean up from what Arne Duncan did during his time as Secretary of Education.
The President-Elect Biden and his Secretary of Education need to start with a clean slate and lay out a clear vision of where public education in the United States needs to go. The COVID-19 is going to make it hard to have that clear vision but it must happen before the quality of education in our public schools meets the needs of our children and this country.
YES!
It’s a great mistake to imagine that there are just the Ditzy DeVoid toxic spills to clean up. Much of the structure itself, of the Department, is built of edu-toxic Duncanic and Bushite materials with long half-lives–standardized tests and unaccountable accountability systems built on those. No solution there but to send in the folks with the Hazmat suits to dismantle it, cart it up, and bury it deep.
I recommend not burying DeVos and Duncan’s toxic waste in the ground. Our soils are contaminated enough. Burning the waste in a very hot huge incinerator with exhaust filters that do not let any of the gases escape would be the best solution. We do not need our soil, water, or air contaminated with anymore of their educational destruction.
Now Betsy will have more time to attend to her 10 yachts and play at being Supreme Admiral of the ocean-seas.
I hope you are right. I hope she doesn’t spend her time pushing charters and vouchers everywhere
“Four years of policy contaminants are reported to have been strewn throughout the Department”
Make that 12 years (at least).
DeVos is DeLatest
And maybe DeWorst
But sure can’t debate this:
DeArne was first
De-Vos-ing is not just a federal issue, its malignant tendrils have metastasized deep into state policy here in Ohio. Today the Gannett-owned Akron Beacon Journal reprinted an op-ed from the Gannett-owned Columbus Dispatch drawing all the false conclusions about the voucher mess here and prescribing the worst medicine possible. The Beacon Journal used to actually engage in journalism and report fairly on education issues. Now they tow the corporate line.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/editorials/2020/11/24/editorial-proposed-voucher-fix-necessary-first-step/6389040002/
[…] have read quite a bit about reversing the horrible policies of Mrs. DeVos, or as someone put it, de-DeVosing the DOE, but we must look further back to the past 20-30 years of failed policies in education.Mrs. DeVos […]