Betsy DeVos's Senate hearing & education in the US

Anyone see this? CNN put this on their Canadian channel (though I think it's the same one as the American feed...) and it was painful. Didn't feel bad for her, though. Even Ben Carson looks more fit to lead his agency. Some highlights:

DeVos refused to agree with a Democrat that schools are no place for guns, citing one school that needs one to protect against grizzly bears. (She really said this.)

DeVos seemed to have no understanding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA, which requires public schools to provide free and appropriate education to all students with disabilities.

DeVos refused to agree with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that all schools that receive public federal funds — traditional public, public charter or private schools that receive voucher money — should be held to the same standards of accountability.

DeVos appeared to have no idea what Franken was talking about when he referred to the accountability debate about whether to use test scores to measure student proficiency or student growth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/18/six-astonishing-things-betsy-devos-said-and-refused-to-say-at-her-confirmation-hearing/?utm_term=.229dbf9a2d4c&tid=ptv_rellink

Why are all the picks for these cabinets positions, or department heads, people who have previously stated that they would like to defund, eliminate, and actively fought their core tenets in the past?

I mean come on, Rick Perry wanted to eliminate the department he's picked to run.

There are no grizzly bears in Virginia.

@HoolaHoopMan: Because Trump is trolling you all monstrously. I feel sad for you.

Is that what he is then? A real life troll?

Sacrifice the department of education for "lol trolling".

Sure, I can believe that. I also think you need at least 3 extra pairs of chromosomes to believe that this is somehow a good idea.

I don't see what the big deal is. For profit schools are working wonderfully in secondary education. expanding them into primary education seems like a no-brainer.

@mattbbpl: no, I've worked in charter schools before. Their "wonderful performance" is a complete illusion. They obsess over state performance tests like you wouldn't believe. Their entire existence circulates around state exams and literally nothing else.

Their performance also gets artificially inflated because they have the capacity to drop low performing students and ditch them from their building-wide averages; something that public schools cannot do.

Trump is not trolling us. He is trying to destroy the country while profiting.

Trolling implies there is, at some end, some sort of harmless amusement; that at the end or at at any time one or any party can stand up, wring their hands, and say "I'm done with this shit" and walk away. Trolling would imply there is a joke, or a non-serious penalty, or that nothing of great harm will happen...that the worst that will happen is hurt feelings.

No one has that choice any more. So don't feel sorry for us, it's kind of pointless, and we did it to ourselves. We are all screwed.

Plus the fact they shut down left and right. What is a kid and their parents supposed to do when the school shuts down with 3 months left to go in the school year?

Yeah, I was being sarcastic. The point you outline above became obvious to me during my own high school years as a private prep school in our conference recruited athletes and students from the local public schools through a selective application process.

I think he was being sarcastic

All I saw was a bunch of Democrat windbags grandstanding. It's kind of a disservice when they are supposed to be learning about the candidates positions. Democrats give zero fucks about serving the American people.

It's like they could take advantage of public funds via 'vouchers' like they do student aid. That would be preposterous!

Asking the potential secretary of education why she does not know how much education spending has increased, and why she inflated the numbers by nearly 550% is grandstanding? huh???? I knew GW Bush did not do nuance, but goddamn, are the details not important at all?

@hillelslovak: I saw a 7 minute clip where Al Fraken spoke for over 6 minutes and DeVos only had about 40 seconds (mostly asking for clarification since he was conflating). There is a similar clip with Sen Warren. My guess is if they allowed an actual dialog they couldn't control the narrative and perhaps have the tables turned. Either way it's disingenuous. Unless you are one to root for a political party as if it is a sports team then I cannot see how that type of behavior can be condoned.

Have you seen intelligence hearings on Defense or Education in the last 8 years????

so, what you are saying, is that you feel the people that lead this country should not be able to respond to a basic, but long-winded, question from a smarmy senator?

OK, good, thanks for clarifying.

I'd like to assume that a nation's leaders would have the attention span to listen to someone for a few minutes--especially about a topic that is near and dear to their heart, i.e. education--and then have the intellect to construct a solid response without having to spend a minute rephrasing the question to sound like you don't know what you are talking about, but that might be expecting too much.

DeVos barely spoke because she seemed clueless on everything that was asked to her, especially that segment with Tim Kaine.

#potentialgrizzlies

The only thing that can be said about education in the US is that it has been in decline since the Department of Education was instituted in 1977.

I've never seen so many cringe worthy moments. It was incredible how clueless she was.

Welcome to the new regime. From president on down....clueless and out of touch with reality.

Proof?

I personally see it as a strategy that has been employed by republicans for a while, and Trump is taking it up to 11. If you can put people who are antithetical to the office that they hold in charge then they can later make a case for how bad the office is, and the people who are generally in favor of the office will have to agree that it currently sucks. From there you can get support from the left to get rid of the office because it's lack of effectiveness, and support from the right because you are reducing government.

While it was funny to watch her fall so flat, it was also terrifying that she could know so little about the department she was picked to run. People act like trump is going to harm this country but it is the people he appointed that are going to do the real damage. Long live the oligarchy!

It's JimB, you wont get any proof lol.

I think JimB is certainly proof that older ways of educating our youth were worse (and that work currently needs to be done).

Was Trump's whole thing not "I may know nothing, but I'm going to get the best people!" Now we are hearing the same line from the people he has hired, who know nothing.

@hillelslovak: His definition of best, indeed the republican definition of best, doesn't match up with yours or mine. If republicans don't approve of government involvement that a certain agency imposes "the best" will mean "the worst".

I was unaware that many American school children were mauled to death by Grizzly bears in the classroom.

All of Trump's picks will probably get through on party line votes, but I think they will have to feel pretty embarrassed when they vote "Yay" on this one.

Yea it's like a real life hunger games. Only 12 kids in my class made it out of grade school alive. Great character building exercise.

I'm still going with most elaborate April Fools prank in history.

I only hope you are able to accomplish just a small amount of that I have accomplished during my life time. Have you ever hired anyone for a Job I have and I can tell you that folks coming out of our education system are lacking in education and ability. I have presented papers at national and international conferences. Have you? I have worked with government agencies on many occasions. Above all else I can think for myself. When you can't come up with an argument to what I say you resort to personal attacks which shows how intelligent you really are.

Yes I've accomplished more. I mean dude....that's nothing.

Jim, you are essentially the poster child of uninformed. I'm not here to get into a pissing match concerning credentials, and what I'm assuming are a fair amount of fabricated anecdotes and stories on your part.

I'm judging this all based on the amount of misinformation you continually post, coupled with the writing style of an eight grader. There's little else that can be done with someone who continually calls climate change a hoax and doesn't even understand junior high level chemistry. It would be different if you approached these scenarios with an open mind, however, you continuously espouse ignorance and no willingness to have an open conversation.

Take you original post for example: Ripping on the newer generation by implying their education standards are sub par and that we need to reform our 'failing' education system, implying a return to the past.

You continually use biased personal anecdotes, almost as if a hue of nostalgia is all you have left to go on. Normally someone would present you with statistics of proficiency, higher education diplomas, and comparable curriculum between pre 1977 and today, ultimately showing that your statement is in fact false (incredibly so). But we all know you wouldn't acknowledge it. Statistics and objective observations don't mean anything to you. You run on 'feelings' and nothing more.

You are 'truthiness' in human form.