Thursday, October 4, 2018

Mitchell Robinson: Betsy DeVos doesn't know what she doesn't know about education | Eclectablog

Betsy DeVos doesn't know what she doesn't know about education | Eclectablog

Betsy DeVos doesn’t know what she doesn’t know about education


“Parents, by their very nature, should decide what, when, where and how their children learn,” DeVos said.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is at it again. Currently on her second “Rethink Schools” tour, “DeVos will swing by four states: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.”
Two tours of public schools in two years on the job–the poor woman must be exhausted.
And while Ms. DeVos has a few ideas for how we could “improve” education in this country (i.e., school choice, vouchers, charter schools, arming teachers, grizzly bear security guards…), most of her ideas have more to do with dismantling our public schools, lowering or eliminating standards for entry to the teaching profession, busting the unions that protect those demoralized and attacked teachers, and removing the regulations that protect victims of sexual assault on college campuses.
But even amidst the barren, dystopian landscape of Ms. DeVos’ vision of American education, the quote above somehow caught my eye. You have to give it to her: Betsy has a real knack for distilling complicated, complex problems down into a single ignorant, nonsensical nugget of edu-drivel.
And she’s just clever enough to remember who her audience is here–and it’s not teachers, or teacher educators, or the 75+% of parents who are happy with their kids’ schools. No, her audience is the conservative base who believe that nothing public is better than anything private, who refer Continue reading: Betsy DeVos doesn't know what she doesn't know about education | Eclectablog