Betsy DeVos Confirmation Hearing Highlights
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, and Al Franken
President-elect Donald J. Trump's nominee for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos needs to be educated on all aspects of education. She has spent almost 30 years, as an activist, philanthropist, and Republican fund-raiser. Her major push has been to give families vouchers to attend private, and parochial schools pushed to expand privately run charter schools that are publicly funded and has continuously attempted to strip teacher unions of their influence. Ms. DeVos’s efforts to expand educational opportunity across the country have not focused on existing public schools, and but instead almost entirely on establishing newer, more entrepreneurial models to compete with traditional schools for students and money. Her endowments and activism mostly directed toward groups seeking to move students and money away from what Mr. Trump calls “failing government schools.”
I truly have a problem when money can buy you a seat at the table to make major decisions as it relates to a profession I love. Especially when your only experience with education has been through a very narrow lens of privilege and exclusion. As an educator, I have seen this story play out time and time again. People with little to no experience in schools of all types and levels making decisions and enforcing laws and policies that are counterproductive, unfair and harmful to schools and their surrounding communities. We have got to put a stop to allowing people that lack a passion for ALL children and who are underqualified to gain positions of power in education.
Its amazing that a position so vital to the well-being of our schools requires no teaching experience, and no experience in educational leadership. It really makes me wonder why no qualifications are needed to take on this difficult task. Her entire plan seems to be vouchers, or private schools. Even if you agree with the idea of vouchers (which is not an uncommon position to take), is there really no one who is both familiar with the use of vouchers, and has experience working in and with public schools that can fill this position? I've just been scratching my head for the past couple of days.
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