Billionaire Betsy DeVos was the target of Democratic senators, as her confirmation hearing as Secretary of the Department of Education got underway. Whether she will be a good secretary or not has yet to be seen, and isn’t the point. What is the point is that education in America has serious problems and that the “American Dream” of getting a college degree and being assured of a stable comfortable middle class future is no longer true.
Yet, the myth persists, much to the detriment of those who follow it, do everything right, end up with insurmountable debt, no decent job and no expectation of improvement.
The Democrats held the office for the past eight years. The problems have not been fixed. So Democratic senators went after DeVos.
When Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent, asked if she would support making public colleges and universities free, she called it “a really interesting idea” but was noncommittal.
This was one of Bernie’s hallmark issues as he ran for president. He lost. It’s a fond socialist ideal, beloved by people who would financially benefit from his scheme. Less so by the people who would pay for it. Go figure.
When Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey asked her whether she would uphold 2011 federal Title IX guidance on campus sexual assaults, DeVos said she knew there were many conflicting views about that guidance. She added that she would “look forward to working together to find some resolution.” Asked again if she would commit to backing the Dear Colleague Letter, she said, “It would be premature to commit to that today.”
Casey twitted afterward the he was disappointed that DeVos refused to commit to “enforcing current law on campus sexual assault.” The problem being that “guidance” is not “law.” A senator should know that. He may have missed that day at school.
But why would DeVos “commit” to guidance that Congress has rejected? Why would DeVos commit to please Casey? Casey is a Democrat. The Democrats lost the Senate, lost the presidency. DeVos is the appointee of a Republican. Her response to Casey was noncommittal, which is how nominees deflect the opposition. She could have responded, “Senator, there is nothing you support to which I will commit. Your party lost the Senate, lost the White House. You don’t get to run the government anymore.”
And Casey is the senator who chose to condemn DeVos for contributing to The FIRE. He chose poorly.
DeVos was subject to perhaps the toughest confirmation hearing yet for one of Trump’s cabinet nominees. Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, in one exchange over the growth of student debt, questioned the Michigan school-choice activist’s policy acumen. Franken pointed out that DeVos had said student debt had grown 1,000 percent in recent years. The actual figure was closer to 124 percent between 2008 and 2016.
DeVos overstated the growth of student debt. She should know the accurate number.
The increase of 124% in student debt, however, between 2008 and 2016, is a problem notwithstanding Senator Franken’s defense of the status quo.
“We want to know this person we are trusting — may trust — to be secretary of education, if she has the depth and breadth of knowledge that we would expect from someone that has that important job,” Franken said.
And that’s a very good question.
DeVos has a long history as an advocate for K-12 school choice in her home state and at the national level. She has used her personal wealth to support efforts to expand charter schools and to back school-choice policies like vouchers.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, in a letter earlier this month, said she was concerned with the nominee’s “paper-thin record on higher education.”
The main fear is that DeVos supports charter schools, to be paid by vouchers, which means the funds to pay for private schools will be lost to public schools. This presents a quandary: if public schools are failing students and society by costing too much and providing an inadequate education, will the problems be exacerbated by reducing funding and brain-draining students from public to private education? Will this cause the American public school system to collapse?
One Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, expressed concern about Ms. DeVos’s enthusiasm for school choice — a moot point for many of her constituents, given the vastness of her state.
“When there is no way to get to an alternative option for your child, the best parent is left relying on a public school system that they demand to be there for their kids,” she said, asking Ms. DeVos to ensure that her commitment to traditional public education was as “strong and robust” as her passion for school choice.
Words like “strong and robust” are a politician’s stock in trade. Schools, however, run on money to pay for teachers, desks, books, the repair of the hole in the roof. Public sector teacher unions don’t help things, but they do contribute to political campaigns. They contribute a lot.
What is unspoken by senators of either party is that the system, as it currently exists, is a disaster. It costs too much. It produces too little. It’s too bound in politics. It destroys the lives of students who believed that if they studied hard they could achieve the American dream.
The Democrats held the office of Secretary of Education for the past eight years, first with Arne Duncan and then John King, Jr. These are probably not familiar names, as there was no controversy with President Obama’s appointments. But they failed us. They didn’t fix the mess.
Does that mean that a shift toward school choice will be better? Some thinks so. The problem is that draining money and brains from public education could cause the public education system to crash. If this isn’t the answer either, then we’re left worse off then we are now.
The current system isn’t working. People want change, but make a false assumption that change is for the better. The alternative to bad isn’t necessarily good, but can be worse. Neither of the warring sides recognize this, or if they do, are willing to openly acknowledge it. There will be children, with only one chance to get an education, used as lab rats for experiments by petulant politicians. Taxpayers will pay the cost of education. Children will pay the price of getting it wrong.
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Perhaps 100,000 voters across Michigan and Wisconsin are not as good at making local education decisions as 30,000 people in your own town.
Yet, the elusive goal of winning the reins of power will prevent anyone from contemplating a paradigm shift.
Kids be damned. We have politics to do.
Should there be a federal Department of Education? Should it be left entirely to local control? Questions that should be asked, without partisan rancor, but won’t be. Not that it’s necessarily the right answer either, but everything should be on the table if we’re to have a serious discussion. But the orthodoxy precludes questioning articles of faith.
The DoE is a fairly young department having been established in the Carter administration. It does not operate or manage schools. When it was founded, it took over a mishmash of programs from other departments, especially HEW. It was probably a sensible re-organization, so I guess I favor the existence of DoE for that reason.
Responsibility for public education lies with the states. The Supreme Court has made this clear in decisions about segregation (busing) and school financing. The DoE doesn’t really have much power to influence how schools are run.
Thank you for explaining how DoE was carved out of HEW, since I’m old and probably can’t remember such things. Are you subbing for Jim Tyre today?
As for “DoE doesn’t really have that much power,” very few schools in America don’t survive on federal funding, and it comes with a great many conditions. Some have even been discussed here before.
I see what you did.
He doesn’t have your mad skillz. There is no sub for you.
The DoE doesn’t really have much power to influence how schools are run.
AYFKM? Sit in a budget meeting at your next school board presentation and focus on the line for “Federal Funding”. Then, when they have good and welfare and the public can ask questions, ask them what unfunded mandates are and how they’d be able to cope with a lack of Federal accounting.
Good grief. Are people really this clueless on how Education works in our Country?
And yet, PV not only felt the need to say so, but said so with the imprimatur of authority on the subject. I love SJ comments.
I know about unfunded mandates, and Special Education requirements, and special arrangements for kids with special needs, and managing diversity, and kids who don’t speak English, etc. I know that most Boards of Education are composed of unpaid volunteers (elected or appointed) who face hard choices and put in a lot of time. I don’t think the DoE is the tail that wags the dog.
In my local school district this year, funding is 87.4% local, 9.2% state, and 3.4% federal or other.
When your school committee is desperate for every penny, and DoE conditions receipt of however much, you roll over. I know, I saw it up close & personal – my wife served on the city school committee until she couldn’t stand it any more.
Experiences differ from district to district. State money is similarly dependent on federal money. There are funded mandates and unfunded mandates. The upshot is no one can escape federal clutches, and to suggest it’s of little impact is just silly and wrong.
Ironically, if it was true, then who would give a shit about DoE secretary?
The Department of Education was established as a separate Cabinet department as a reward from President Carter and Congress to the teacher’s unions who supported him.
Maybe the answer to your question is contained in the answer to another question: Has education in this country improved or worsened in the last 40 years?
That’s an unfair question, because we all know the answer. But DoE isn’t the only influence on education, and as we also know, correlation does not prove causation.
Her voucher stance is bold,
And she helped fund ArtPrize
To liberals she won’t fold,
She got Betsy DeVos eyes,
She’ll turn the spotlight on them,
Unions won’t think she’s nice,
But they’ll soon come to know,
She got Betsy DeVos eyes.
She’ll privatize them, and right-size them,
With a speed that will surprise them,
What a send-off, pink slips penned off,
And she’ll piss all of the Dems off,
She’d give Ronald Reagan quite a rise, she’s got Betsy DeVos eyes
Alright Scott, what have you done with Fubar?
I know, right? I miss Fubar. BM’s not bad at all, but he’s no Fubar.
If I can carry my artillery to class, to help fend off the Wapiti grizzly, that’s all I care about. How can I have a quality educational experience if that damned grizzly keeps interrupting the teachers? (For female students, I should think Title IX requires the grizzly be kept at bay through any and all means necessary).
And then there’s the grizzly problem.
Fortunately, we have Title IX, the federal law that governs grizzly attacks on campuses.
Kids are already being “used as lab rats” and have been for a few decades. Vouchers give parents of all income levels the opportunity to send their kids to a school that more closely aligns with their view of what education should be, rather than one that thrusts strange math and happy feelz concepts at them.
Thank you for presenting the stupid and simplistic point of view. We can never get enough of stupid and simplistic when it comes to important matters.
One problem we have with education, or at least with higher education, is that we have parallel narratives that we conflate with wild abandon. For instance, we need to provide a college education to everybody because everybody needs special knowledge and skills to succeed in the new, high-tech, digital economy. At the same time, we need to eliminate Algebra II from High School (or Abstract Reasoning from the LSAT, etc.) because it acts as a gatekeeper, keeping too many students out of the college programs they need to succeed in the new , high-tech, digital economy. We are not allowed to question the logic of requiring everybody to have a credential that’s been diluted until everybody can attain it.
The “remember the rubric, forget the rationale” notion remains in force.
Knowing that the plane in the sky appeared smaller because it was far away was easy for my kid to understand. So was knowing that as you add sides to an object it approaches a circle. At 6 years old, calculating solid angles and reiman sums is, to put it mildly, a challenge. Eliminating gatekeepers like Algebra II and the ability to attain special knowledge to succeed are both worth fighting for. You just have to know what the hell you’re talking about.
How is your childs ability with these concepts at a young age relevant to the validity of a high school math course? Am I missing something in this statement?
Am I missing something in this statement?
Yes
I’m not sure our esteemed host is interested in hearing about it. But suffice it to say that the ability to learn concepts (as opposed to what they currently do in classes) can turn that high school class from a gatekeeper to something worthwhile for all students.
Unfortunately, knowing what the hell you’re talking about might require that you maintain some sort of logical consistency, which is much less versatile, politically, than simply switching back and forth between rationales as it suits you.
The DOE coordinates federal money and grants (Title I, RTT), enforces federal education law, and collects data (NAEP). Conservatives opposed it for the threat of federal interference in what was traditionally the jurisdiction of the states. By the beginning of the 1990s, state governors from both parties, guided first by the Bush White House and then by the Clinton White House, began instituting “education reform,” the market-based use of standards and testing for measurement and charter schools. The latter took the wind out of the sails of the voucher movement.
Aside from Title IX and civil rights, there has been very little difference between Democratic and Republican education policy. Charter schools have been supported by both Democrats (in spite of teacher unions) and Republicans. In Massachusetts, large, urban school systems lose millions to charter schools. Smaller systems–a budget of $15 million–can lose between $500,000 to $1 million a year. The money goes to charter schools, but because there are fixed costs in school systems, the losses do more damage. Added to the fact that education funding hasn’t kept up with educational costs, most school systems are suffering fiscally. Obama and Arne Duncan did nothing to improve these situations.
DeVos, as Franken’s video shows, knows nothing about education or education policy. (Why should she be different than many other Trump supporters)? She could loosen regulations for Title I, allowing money to spent on things other than helping students to read better. She could pursue vouchers–the preference of the religious right–but there’s a lot of legal water gone under the bridge and the Feds don’t have that much money to give away.
My head hurts from the facepalms today. Must stop facepalming.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences!
Blue lives matter!
Kansas City should be in Kansas!
I had to drive from the airport to a hotel in Kansas City late at night. Went onto the road leading to the bridge to Kansas. Shouted an epithet, took a hard left immediately after the bridge, jumped the median and headed back into Missouri. My son asked me, “does this mean we’re not in Kansas anymore?”
Is “to to Kansas” your little ode to Toto?
No.
The very source of Betsy DeVos’ power and influence sprang from her father’s loins like so much conservative whitewash on her farcical lack of qualifications for the position she seeks. Perhaps she will find a way to turn education into a legal pyramid scheme? One can only guess.
That could be said of a great many politicians, from JFK to FDR. Some worked out okay. Some not. Would Hillary have been in a position to run for any office if she hadn’t been married to Bill? One can only guess.