Betsy DeVos opened her mouth-hole today and a load of crap fell out.
And somehow that’s news!
Our federal Education Secretary said Wednesday, “I’m not sure how [U.S. public schools] could get a lot worse on a nationwide basis than they are today.”
Let’s add that to the list of things she’s already admitted she’s not sure of:
-Whether charter and voucher schools should be held to the same standards as traditional public schools.
-Whether guns belong on school campuses in reach of children.
-Whether the Department of Education should protect students with special needs.
-Whether the Individuals With Disabilities Act is a federal law (Spoiler Alert: It IS!).
-Oh! And what the heck’s the difference between proficiency and growth?
This woman is an idiot. Worse – she’s a rich idiot.
She only holds this office because she bought off the entire Republican Party and she still needed a historic tie breaking vote by the vice-president to get confirmed!
Why are we publishing a thing she says as anything other than standup comedy?
She knows nothing about public schools. She never went to them as a student. She never sent her own children to them. In fact, she only started visiting them in her official role as Secretary of Education!
Yet she has spent her entire life bribing policymakers to replace public schools with charter and voucher schools.
She is a saleswoman for privatization and she thinks public schools suck.
Well whoop-de-do!
They say opinions are like assholes. Everyone’s got one.
What makes DeVos’ opinion worth anything more than yours or mine?
Nothing.
But since you asked, there is a heck of a lot that makes our opinion better than hers.
Ninety percent of Americans have actually attended public schools. Ninety percent send their own children to public schools. And though popular opinion of public schools nationwide has suffered after an endless barrage of corporate propaganda against them, most people have a very high view of their own neighborhood school.
So if the media wants to publish a valuable opinion about public schools, they should publish what almost anyone ELSE has to say other than Betsy DeVos.
What does a Flat Earther have to say about constructing a globe? WHO CARES?
What does a skeptic about the moon landing have to say about NASA? WHO GIVES A CRAP?
What does Betsy DeVos have to say about public schools?
NO ONE CARES.
But fine. I’ll bite. Why does the billionaire heiress think our public schools stink?
She trots out the usual nonsense about international test scores:
“I mean, the fact that our PISA scores have continued to deteriorate as compared to the rest of the world and that we’ve seen stagnant at best results with the NAEP scores over the years. I’m not sure we can deteriorate a whole lot.”
First of all, she’s wrong about the facts.
PISA scores did not deteriorate. Like NAEP scores, they’ve remained pretty much the same for all the decades we’ve been making these comparisons.
Internationally, our test scores have always been in the middle of the pack. And that shouldn’t be surprising.
We provide every child with an education. Many of the countries we’re compared with internationally don’t. That means we’re going to have lower test scores. You’re comparing ALL of our kids with only the best academic achievers in Asia, Scandinavia and other countries.
Add to that the overwhelming child poverty rate in the United States – something completely absent in most of these other nations we’re being measured against. Obviously our poorer kids who get fewer resources than your richer kids won’t do as well on standardized tests. You’re not comparing apples-to-apples. And whenever you make the adjustment for poverty, our students score at the top of the scale!
I’m not saying we can’t improve. There’s plenty we could be doing such as providing more resources for our poor and minority students. But opportunists like DeVos have always tried to use this test score myth to justify destroying the public school system and giving it away to private interests.
Betsy, please just stop. The blatant ignorance coming out of your mouth hurts. It’s embarrassing.
But perhaps there is a silver lining here. We’re used to hearing these lies from more credible sources. Before becoming Education Secretary, Arne Duncan and John King had advanced degrees. They ran major metropolitan school systems. DeVos is just rich.
And having such an obvious fool repeat these same lies pulls back the curtain.
There is no longer any question about their veracity.
Good luck trying to fool people with this same snake oil anymore. Just by opening her mouth, DeVos has poisoned the entire corporate school reform narrative.
Thanks, Betsy!
Thanks a great piece on DeVos, Steven. Thank you for your insight.
-Todd
Todd Finley, PhD
Associate Professor of English Education
Dept. of Literacy Studies, English Ed, and History Education
East Carolina University
Email: finleyt@ecu.edu or toddfinley@gmail.com
p: 252.717.9286
http://www.todd-finley.com
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on John Oliver Mason.
LikeLike
I can’t write the four words that I’m thinking, but two of the words have front rhymes.
LikeLike
Just a small addition, Steven. Betsy didn’t get her job just because she donated so much moola to the Republicans. She also got her job because her brother Erik Prince, founder of the mercenary corporation Blackwater, is one of Trump’s advisors.
LikeLike
[…] I’m sure she’ll do that soon. There’s no way she’d sneak in someone who doesn’t believe in civil rights whose main job is to protect civil rights! That would be like hiring a Secretary of Education who doesn’t believe in the mission of public education tasked with protecting public schools! […]
LikeLike
[…] I’m sure she’ll do that soon. There’s no way she’d sneak in someone who doesn’t believe in civil rights whose main job is to protect civil rights! That would be like hiring a Secretary of Education who doesn’t believe in the mission of public education tasked with protecting public schools! […]
LikeLike
[…] Duncan/Emanuel policy is something you might expect from a certified moron like current Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. (She wants teachers armed against grizzly bear […]
LikeLike
[…] Betsy DeVos isn’t sure the department should be in the business of protecting special education students. Nor is she […]
LikeLike
[…] is a self-inflicted cancer on the system, a know-nothing religious zealot who spouts more factually challenged whoopers than Sean Spicer and Donald Trump […]
LikeLike
[…] DeVos seems to be confused about her […]
LikeLike
[…] These are two issues that desperately need resolution, and we’re putting them on the desk of the one Education Secretary in our nation’s history least equipped to deal with them – Betsy DeV…. […]
LikeLike
[…] the issue is brought up these days – whenever ANY educational issue is brought up – the Trump administration almost always pivots to school […]
LikeLike
[…] the issue is brought up these days – whenever ANY educational issue is brought up – the Trump administration almost always pivots to school […]
LikeLike
[…] This may be the most preposterous thing she has ever said. And she’s infamous for saying preposterous things. […]
LikeLike
[…] She turned complete ignorance and animosity toward public schools into the highest federal government job overseeing education! Her only qualification? CA-CHING! […]
LikeLike
[…] To come up with these figures they used data from Betsy Devos’ Department of Education. […]
LikeLike
[…] To come up with these figures they used data from Betsy Devos’ Department of Education. […]
LikeLike
[…] She wants to destroy the entire system of public schools which enroll 90% of America’s […]
LikeLike
[…] She wants to destroy the entire system of public schools which enroll 90% of America’s […]
LikeLike
[…] 4) She wants to destroy the entire system of public schools which enroll 90% of America’s children. […]
LikeLike
[…] It’s no wonder that this is the kind of solution we get from an administration that thinks Betsy Devos should head the Department of Education. […]
LikeLike