Betsy DeVos to Public Education: Drop Dead
Does my headline about Trump’s pick to be the next education secretary sound exaggerated, even hyperbolic? If so you’re not paying attention, a cardinal sin in the Age of Trump. For starters, here’s a December 12, New York Times headline “Education nominee bent Detroit to her will on charter schools.” Betsy DeVos is a true believer in a totally free-market approach to education reform.
And here’s a quote from the article about how DeVos would apply a free-market approach to the Detroit Public Schools, a system that she has had great impact on.
“Detroit Public Schools, she argued, should simply be shut down and the system turned over to charters, or the tax dollars given to parents in the form of vouchers to attend private schools.”
When we talk about Betsy DeVos, we’re not talking about the non-educator corporate reformers that Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama appointed. Rod Paige and Arne Duncan did their share of damage to children, teachers, and education. But as misguided as they were at least they were committed to improving public education. DeVos is even more committed to public education, to its destruction.
The experimental weapons being used in the ongoing national education war during the last 20 years were radical but seem almost tame compared to what DeVos proposes to do.
The experimental weapons being used in the ongoing national education war during the last 20 years were radical but seem almost tame compared to what DeVos proposes to do.
The experimental weapons being used in the ongoing national education war during the last 20 years were radical but seem almost tame compared to what DeVos proposes to do. The ineffective and damaging corporate reform weapons still in place include the Common Core-aligned high stakes standardized testing, Common Core State Standards, charter schools, zero-tolerance discipline, and the value added method (VAM) for evaluating teachers and Betsy DeVos to Public Education: Drop Dead - LA Progressive: