What’s the worst that could happen with Betsy DeVos as education secretary? Two scenarios
President-elect Donald Trump’s decision last week to nominate Betsy DeVos, a Michigan billionaire and conservative activist, as his education secretary has caused great consternation in parts of the education world — those parts that are deeply concerned about the future of public education.
Kary Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, explained the anxiety many have about DeVos as education secretary in a statement that said in part:
We strongly urge Congress to scrutinize the record of Betsy DeVos, who has been a staunch proponent of school vouchers, a misguided idea that diverts taxpayer dollars into private and parochial schools and perverts the bedrock American value of separation of church and state. She and her husband served as the primary fundraisers and engine for a Michigan ballot initiative — Kids First! Yes! Coalition that voters soundly rejected in 2000.She has ardently supported the unlimited, unregulated growth of charter schools in Michigan, elevating for-profit schools with no consideration of the severe harm done to traditional public schools. She’s done this despite overwhelming evidence that proves that charters do no better at educating children than traditional public schools and serve only to exacerbate funding problems for cash-strapped public districts. We believe that all children have a right to a quality public education, and we fear that Betsy DeVos’ relentless advocacy of charter schools and vouchers betrays these principles.
So what could happen to public education if DeVos is confirmed by Congress as education secretary?
Here is a post with two scenarios by Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He has also taught at Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University and Northwestern University, and served as a statistician at the National Center for Education Statistics in the Education Department. This post was published first on the Hechinger Report, an independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
By Aaron Pallas
I’ve been joking that neurosurgeon Ben Carson‘s — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be secretary of Housing and Urban Development — primary qualification is that he grew up in a house. But Betsy DeVos, his choice as education secretary, attended private schools and sent her children to them. So as far as personal interaction with public education, she doesn’t even have that going for her.
So what’s the worst that could happen? This question has two distinct connotations. On the one hand, asking “What’s the worst that could happen?” may be a way of sidestepping catastrophic thinking, a common feature of psychological anxiety in which people systematically and What’s the worst that could happen with Betsy DeVos as education secretary? Two scenarios. - The Washington Post:
