Betsy DeVos: “Government Sucks” and “We Don’t Fire Teachers Enough”
In March 2015, US secretary of education nominee gave this 9-page speech at the SxSW conference in Texas in 2015.
The title of DeVos’ speech is “Competition, Creativity and Choice in the Classroom.”
Below are some excerpts:
As a kid I grew up middle class, but my father was a great innovator with an entrepreneurial spirit, and it wasn’t long before my family became part of the infamous 1%.My husband’s family has a similar story, and together my husband and I have also been successful in innovative and entrepreneurial ventures.So, I am not only a Republican, even worse, I’m a well off Republican. …I won’t waste your time with lofty rhetoric. I’ll be blunt, and since I got out of politics, I have the freedom to be politically incorrect too.Let’s start by being brutally honest about the status of K-12 education in America today. Not what we wish the status was, not what we want it to be, but what it really is.I’m going to throw six “inconvenient truths” at you.The reason for this approach is because we will never solve a problem if we refuse to admit it. …Inconvenient Truth # 4. Government really sucks. And it doesn’t matter which party is in power. Having been around politics and government my entire adult life, I have five observations about government for you:
- Government tends to believe in top down solutions and government fears of bottom up solutions.
- Government tends to stifle innovation and it abhors improvisation. Any
Betsy DeVos: “Government Sucks” and “We Don’t Fire Teachers Enough” | deutsch29:
