Unions are the big problem with the department of education and education themselves. We need to rid this nation of unions in education.
1
DeVos is a Christian Extremist, whose policies appear to be very much in line with Christian Dominionists, who wish to turn the US into a theocracy by taking over the "seven mountains" of society, including education, government, family, church and the media. She seeks to destroy public education in this country, and replace our schools with the extremist christian equivalent of madrassas.
She is duplicitous and dishonest, a dangerous dilletante, and her secretive actions in the service of an extremist theocratic movement should be fully investigated by congress.
28
Remove her.
Simple.
Along with being incompetent and completely disinterested in any agenda besides her pointless one, she is now a proven sneak and liar.
20
Her wealth was her qualification for the office and now she seeks to essentially kill the Dept of Ed.
21
Why is it Times reporters have adopted the rhetoric of the Charter school lobby?
"School choice" is at best a misnomer -- Charter schools offer no such thing -- and is better understanding as a euphemism for the mechanism by which public school money goes to profiteers like Betsy DeVos, without oversight or demands of value.
And the Times goes merrily along with the swindle....
21
The woman is incompetence personified.
19
Perhaps it is "conscientious stupidity" (h/t Joe Madison) on her part so she can advance her Dominionist philosophy.
8
Like many “Christians” who support Donald Trump and his inept agenda, Betsy DeVos is among the lowest of the low, cruelest of the cruel, and more, betraying our youth, betraying their education, betraying their futures, all in the name of being a Donald Trump appointee.
I repeat - and NYTimes, I have no idea why you do not emphasize this -
Betsy DeVos has NO education or experience in education! Yet she heads the Department of Education for this country! This is insulting to every single teacher, administrator, school superintendent - anyone who has been determined to get a degree in education, an advanced degree, teaching experience, desire to teach, with passion and compassion, to provide a learning experience for others....not for the sake of parochial or religion, but for the betterment of the individual.
She is evil. Republicans, supporting Christians, Trump supporters, are allowing this rich evil woman to determine the lives and failure of American students.
And for what?
38
Cut duplication and inefficiently my my my,Ms DeVoss too many civil rights
Places for you?in the education system,your still ignorant about and eager to change?
Union time available for 40 years ,you want them to get their supervisors ok? And use their own time? Sound# like that B grade Actor everyone in the GOP
called the great communicator,( as long as someone else wrote his lines).
Have you read anything about Jim Crow Times,after slavery was abolished,
In fact have you read anything at all?
8
DeVos' "Let them eat cake" attitude re. her own people will ultimately work out about as well as it did for Marie Antoinette.
She is a real monster.
13
Does anyone else feel the end result of Betsy DeVos and every cabinet member appointed by Trump is to return us to a serf - overlord society?
15
Having a person like Devos in the cabinet characterizes this administration. Not only is she unqualified but she is vehemently trying to bring down public education.
17
What is it with this administration’s propensity for lies, lies, lies? And what amounts to making government employees sign gag orders? They, all of them, work for us. Perhaps they didn’t get the memo!
9
DeVos lacks knowledge about education of even any interest in obtaining it. (Sound familiar ?). She is a mouthpiece for a political point of view that is based on bigotry, very poor judgment about information and its causes and effects, and catering to the extreme right wing with a smile and a wave of her hand. If the nation's problems in educating our kids were not so serious, we would laugh that a person as stupid as DeVos could be in the Cabinet. But then we look at Trump . . .
11
This woman has evidenced she can’t possibly know the impact of all the regulations she is cutting. She is clueless and dangerous. Get Her Out.
13
Making America safe and fashionable for ignorance again, leading by example of ignorance. That is what this administration is doing.
6
"The agreement... limits the issues that can be brought up as a grievance and eliminates a guarantee against retaliation for filing one."
The level of hostility and bad faith on display here is breathtaking. The fact that DeVos and her team mistreat their own department employees like this certainly adds a splash of irony to the horror of their proposed takeover of Department of Labor programs. Redirecting unemployment funding to Pell Grants is such a fantastically nonsensical idea, it's clearly the brain child of someone who has no familiarity with these programs or the people who utilize them. Countless people with bachelor's degrees need to collect an unemployment check at some point or another. Education and employment are related concepts, but they're hardly interchangeable.
4
Seriously, is anyone in this administration both competent and honest?
Is anyone competent?
Is anyone honest?
11
No wonder so many cabinet members require security details. She has an impressive detail for an alleged Sec Ed.
2
DeVos learned this strategy from the rantings of conservative economist James Buchanan, a 1950's nutcase who, when he discovered that normal people rejected his ideas as ridiculous, decided to adopt a "stealth" approach by concealing their true intent. As reported in the Post, his ideas "conflict with basic democratic norms." Such as public schools for all.
8
DeVos was appointed to do exactly what she is doing: dismantle public education. She is promoting "school choice" as if she cares about the brown and black kids in poor public schools when, in fact, her goal is simply to abandon tax support of public schools so they become the last resort, serving only kids who are kicked out from private schools or whose parents lack the resources to get them into private schools. It's the Chicago model. Starve and hamstring public schools so dissatisfied parents with other options will transfer their kids (and their support) to private (especially religious) schools. Before long, only the most troubled and/or poor kids get public education, and public schools are formally repurposed as juvenile detention centers. DeVos is doing a heck-of-a-job.
6
DeVos' epic fail should be laid at the feet of Mike Pence who broke the tie in the Senate on the vote to confirm her. It would appear that no Republican in Congress has children in public schools or who are attending college and have student loans. If they did, they wouldn't have chosen this misinformed and ill-prepared idealogue.
9
Destroying public nonsectarian education in America, while funneling taxpayer dollars to cronies and like minded ideologues via skimming policies is hard work and there is so little time.
5
Honestly, I think you could walk into any public school in this country, pick out a 25 year old teacher, and have someone VASTLY more experienced and capable than the current Secretary of Education....
11
Don't worry campers! She'll smile that idiot smile, then say something dumb. A perfect cipher.
3
Betsy De Vos is an unqualified buffoon. Albeit a rich one.
Would you want a car mechanic to perform heart surgery on your kid.
It's like appointing a Brain Surgeon to head HUD.
Oh, ....wait....
13
Of all the egregiously malicious appointees in the Trump era, DeVos may be the most incompetent, and immoral of all. Republicans at heart hate public education. It might, heaven forbid, create informed future voters, and we can't have that, can we? They need only well trained Orwellian clogs in the corporate machine, with a few privately educated affluent, white, masters at the helm.
10
You must be talking about Arne again
The practice is a old as large business organizations. If there is a product line or organization that you don't like, appoint a ninny to lead it - off of a cliff....
2
Well, if you voted for DJT, what did think you'd get? Professionals? Mobsters surround themselves with sycophants who are loyal. Intelligence, experience, and professionalism not required. And what we see is what we got.
5
Maybe DeVos’s next job will be head of the Trump Presidential library.
4
The Department of Education should exist just to dole out money to those who need it but not to dictate education standards like the disastrous No Child Left Behind. If DeVos can stop that, then she wins.
1
This explains why education is so undervalued and therefore underfunded in the south. Teachers are decried as overpaid leeches. If future generations are not well educated how do you expect our Republic to survive?
3
VP Pence was the deciding vote to get this incompetent Republican donor in charge of our nation’s school system. He must be very proud. She has never attended a public school or flown on a commercial air liner. Pathetic.
5
Queen of Trump's Kakistocrats.
1
Oh my gosh, the light bulb just went on! I see what she's doing.
She's giving the money to charter and privilege schools so that the kids who are as dumb as a 2 x 4, and or trust fund babies, can leave and run this nation. Just like the dumb school boy we have now.
Got it!
7
Betsy, proving daily that some women can be just as dumb and evil as some men. Go, girl !!!!!
4
Betsy DeVos:
The American people (all of us) demand that you produce ALL of your own school transcripts. Elementary, secondary & college. It should be MANDATORY for anyone who holds the position of Secretary of Education. There is no way that YOU are educated in any serious sense of the word. Your sentences are deliberately redundant & duplicitous. You deceive in the identical manner as your leader: Trump. The day will come when both of you are forced to resign in disgrace for your un American words & actions. Your legacy will be that of lies, grifting, and cowardice.
The students of Parkland, Florida are far superior in their education and humanity than you. Your verbal twisting & turning of the truth is 110% apparent to one & all.
Time's UP, Betsy DeVos. America has had enough of your mean spirited nonsense. Kindly resign.
March for Our Lives March 24, 2018 #neveragain
83
Arne Duncan and bloated government almost ruined our education system.
The liberals and unions are still trying. For the good of our children and America
Ms. DeVos reform the Education Department.
Yet another ignorant Trump hack who got her job based on her checkbook, that abhors the mission of the department she runs....into the ground. Just so much stupid oozing from these rich idiots it is hard to keep up.
7
Oh dear, yawn, she's such a victim, yawn.
History will not treat this administration kindly, and it should not. If only enough Trump supporters would start seeing that, but too many of them are still blinded to what they were blinded to during the campaign and election, see themselves as victims with Trump (some are or will be victims because of Trump but they won't see that). I'm not optimistinc about many epiphanies.
3
Your article makes clear that Secretary Devos manages by intimidation, hates unions and seeks to keep Congress in the dark but leaves important questions without answers.
What is the legal basis, if such exists, for her "imposing" a collective bargaining agreement? Does AFGE have legal recourse to nullify the imposition?
How can the Federal Government permit individual agencies to negotiate with the Department's union pay increases, set by law government wide for the Civil Service, with unions, as stated here? If that were true there would be no Civil Service pay schedule.
While grievance procedures are subject to agency negotiation, I thought Congress had prohibited retaliation against federal employees for filing grievances. The Times should tell us if Secretary Devos deliberately broke the law with respect to grievances.
3
Thomas Jefferson conceived of education as “the ideal of offering all children the opportunity to succeed, regardless of who their parents happen to be” . Sure doesn't seem like in this Trump/DeVos administration.
4
C'mon. Betsy is not that smart.
Someone who is behind her also likes chaos and is creating a mess trying to not let America's parents, teachers, and school boards a hint in what she is doing.
Every other Tuesday at my School Board meeting, I remind our community how the antics in Washington DC affect us all and our local schools.
When Ms. DeVos unregulates public education and throw millions of dollars in vouchers to her base who are already paying for a private education; will you scream for our children?
It seems the Trump administration has a WAR on CHILDREN.
62
Agreed. Mrs. DeVos has shed not dozen but hundreds of regulations, and hundreds of staff through attrition and buyouts. She is a wrecking ball, privatizing education and making sure her pet projects and the businesses she's invested in are able to feed at the public trough, unimpeded. Congress, do your constitutional duty and shut her down. (Or at minimum, apply the checks required to halt her destructive reign.)
5
"official time" for union activities? Really? Must be nice to have a government job instead of the zero pay raise private sector job, I can see why they are upset, might have to exist the way the peeps they regulate exist.
The metric to use for COLA in your pay, is the Federal Civil Service COLA pay raise rate. If your pay raise in private sector is less than the Fed COLA raise, you are actually getting a pay cut (except for the few year that POTUS zeroed the COLA rate). Note that COLA is not merit, Fed civil service also gets merit on top of COLA (plus step, but I won't go into that here).
I'd like to be sympathetic to the union there, but the vast majority of Americans have no idea how far below the line private sector is compared to Federal civil service...
"“Budget offices, because they have so much power and institutional knowledge, can be seen as obstacles by reform-minded government leaders."
So says Mr. Smarick of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Please note that the "power" to which Mr. Smarick refers is a result of its "institutional knowledge." Like her colleagues in charge of the Department of Energy and the EPA, DeVos's agenda is inherently threatened by knowledgeable personnel.
This should not surprise anyone who recalls the instances in which Trump appointees have clearly demonstrated they are unfit for the duties of their respective offices. DeVos's confirmation hearing belonged on SNL. Further, her own admitted mission to "advance God's kingdom" through our purportedly secular school system is illegitimate on its face. Pruitt was remarkably honest about his desire to destroy the EPA. His biggest obstacles are "deep state" traitors leaking job-killing scientific data. Rick Perry similarly declared his wish to destroy the Department of Energy of which he is now head. His confirmation made it abundantly clear that he knows little about the department's responsibilities (such as nuclear weapons) and makes one wonder if Perry's business knowledge is as valuable to his department as the knowledge of the award-winning physicists who used to run it. Ben Carson has plenty of knowledge, of course, but none relevant to HUD. He too, gets tripped up by budget offices (as did Tom Price).
4
What baffles me is that many public school educators I know in PA voted for Trump and for his mission of privatizing public institutions/schools.
Why do educators vote against their own best interests and against public education? I suppose the Republicans did a remarkable job of demonizing Hillary and people bought into it.
3
“Our concern is about a breakdown in communication, a culture of secrecy and a fear of retaliatory action that has prevented Budget Service from providing House and Senate appropriators and staff, and for that matter, the public, with key information about the department’s plans for fiscal year 2019,” the email said.”
The general public knows little, if anything, about the Department of Education. Before we start criticizing DeVos for trying to reshape her Department or the Department's employees for trying to retain their jobs, we need a primer on what the Department does and how it allocates its resources.
As disturbing as Ms DeVos is, I'm glad she's being exposed nationally. She has made an absolute mess of education in Michigan, giving birth to the charter/for profit school movement. She and her husband have purchased a cadre of Republican legislators over the past decade not just to destroy the public schools system but destroy unions, public and private. Michigan was at the bottom of the middle when she stepped in. Now we're the middle of the bottom nationally, across all demographics, factoring for poverty and race.
Ms. DeVos created the Great Lakes Education Project where she and her staff spent their time on twitter, attacking teachers. Because of her wealth and influence though, she was a force to be reckoned with. I believe Ms. DeVos will return to Michigan much diminished and that's a good thing for Michigan. We have suffered enough. All of the protestations and complaints by teachers, parents, and Dem lawmakers here of Ms. DeVos have been proven 100% accurate. Money can't buy competence, empathy, integrity or intelligence but it can buy legislators.
7
If DeVos has plans to overhaul the Department of Education, then that's good. In fact, I believe that it needs to be phased out eventually. Public education should be the responsibility of the states, local communities, families, and the church. The Federal government cannot provide the fundamentals of citizenship as those entities. Thank you.
2
Hello Southern Boy,
Public education will only degrade further in the south if DeVos does what you suggest. Public education is the responsibility of the government. Our tax dollars should fund quality public education. If you want your children to have a private or religious education then you pay for it, just as my parents did for mine. Any redirecting of tax dollars to private religious education violates the separation of church and state. You are entitled to your religion as long as I am free from it.
7
Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States.
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html
Of course the US wants to limit junk food warning labels. This position is in keeping with the Administration’s efforts to reduce worker safety, lower environmental protections, limit corporate liabilities for product failures, eliminate universal healthcare, and to place all Americans in greater jeopardy. Trump is dismantling one key role of federal oversight, which is to protect us all from corporate exploitation and manipulation.
2
Trump, DeVos, Mnuchin — each and every one of these entitled, monied people seem to feel they know best and that the government is not about serving the citizens as much as it is about making over the government to their whims. Service is what they demand not something they recognize they need to provide. Let’s really get to a discussion of an entitlement mentality.
4
In a booming economy, where corporate profits and the fortunes of billionaires are soaring in value, why do the wealthy oligarchy like DeVos, Trump, Mnuchin, Mercer and Koch so abhor giving working people a raise? Why are they so determined to strip the middle and working classes of health and retirement benefits that they have been paying for all their lives? Why do the conservative rich strive so mightily to undercut the quality of education at public schools? There is a class war, and it is being waged by the conservative billionaire donor class against the working classes. Just listen to some of those oligarchs talk sometimes, they despise democracy, because they want to rule over the rest of us with their money, which they think makes them superior beings.
8
The answer can be found in the first four words of your comment. The only people feeling the "boom" are huddled right at the top. The more things stagnate down here, the more the booming intensifies way up there. This class war is a holdover from the 1930s, when FDR imposed a litany of federal protections for workers. Not being able to exploit people really cuts into corporate profits, though, and the wealthy have been trying to get around that ever since. They succeeded by simply allowing entropy to do the work for them. As long as wages failed to increase, inflation and the steadily rising cost of living would inevitably rot the system from the inside out. We've arrived at that point.
It's exactly what it looks like. They really do want to foster a vulnerable, disenfranchised working class they can exploit for maximum profit. Imagine the convenience of operating your sweat shops right here on U.S. soil! No reason to exploit people in third world countries when there are so many people who want "jobs" right here at home.
4
While she has no credentials or experience to hold this job, we shouldn't discredit the idea of making our government agencies more efficient, including education.
As a prior educator in a public college system, the administrative bloat is astounding, where for every tuition dollar, at least 40% goes towards administration salaries and costs at the local and state level (the other 60% goes towards teaching students and maintaining classrooms). No private business could ever operate at those levels, and especially if those businesses had to pay pensions for years to comes for all those administrators, their staff, and the bloated salaries they have reaped in the past two decades.
3
Streamlining, increasing efficiency, eliminating wasteful spending--these are all worthy goals. Carrying them out is predicated on knowledge of the organization, what it does, how it works, what has been tried before. DeVos knows nothing about any of this, she is a one-note ideologue on the side of for-profit education businesses. She is not on the side of students, teachers, or taxpayers.
5
The USA has a public school (El-Hi) problem based on the annual comparisons of students of other countries. For me , the problem starts with the evangelical & home schooling. How can an advanced nation have a population in which 46% Americans Believe In Creationism According To Latest Gallup Poll http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism
46% of American adults believe in creationism, 32% believe in theistic evolution and 15% believe in evolution without any divine intervention. The data shows that the percent of Americans who believe in creationism has increased slightly by 2 percent over the last 30 years.
Most educated people today see the natural world through the lens of science rather than the Bible. That shift in perspective is largely complete outside the US. The Gallup poll indicates that more than 100 million Americans are not ready to abandon the biblical understanding of the natural world, insisting that the Earth is but a few thousand years old and that humans were created in their present forms and now you have Trump & his abettors running the gov`t. DeVos is just another character in this US nightmare.
7
I’m shocked. I had a Catholic school education through grade eight. (Not in TN) I was taught evolution in science class. The lower grades consisted of typical mainstream religious education. However years six through eight were not. If I remember correctly we were taught by Jesuits. They had us dissect the Bible. They taught that the story of creation was just that, a story. A story to explain something too complex for the masses to understand. It was never meant to be taken literally. By the time we were finished we had something akin to the Jefferson Bible. In short, I was taught religion and science are compatible.
5
She is a disaster. The fact is that we have Trump as president because we had so many ignorant voters--ignorant of everything from how our branches of government work, the meaning of the 2nd amendment, the reality of global warming, even a basic understanding of how taxes work and what they pay for. We need a lot MORE education, not less.
40
DeVos is a very dangerous Dominionist. Baggage includes inability to separate church and state.
46
It seems Ms. DeVos, in addition to being hostile to the very idea of public education, is a liar as well.
God, I hate this administration. They could not be doing more damage to this country if they were agents of a hostile foreign power.
Oh, wait.
59
Required reading: 'Dark Money' by Jane Mayer and 'Democracy in Chains' by Nancy MacLean. Upon reading both, you'll have a much clearer understanding of DeVos, her ilk, and their strategy to gain increased wealth and power at the expense of... well... the rest of us. All will become clear.
22
If you don't believe in government then you don't need to know anything about any aspect of government in order to govern. Thus, Ms DeVos before the Senate during her confirmation hearings; Ms. DeVos on Sixty Minutes; Ms. DeVos not dismantling so much as wrecking the department she was appointed to head.
Kate McKinnon for Secretary of Education!!
15
Inarticulate, uninformed Betsy DeVos will give us another show of her lack of qualifications to be the Secretary of Education. Meanwhile, Chris Wray's law firm investigated her brother, Erik Prince - and found him to be strongly suspect - of illegal arms sales?
19
Oh come on ... he just wanted to help teachers protect themselves from bears! You know his heart was in the right place!
2
Since we are on the topic of education, here is a simple equation...
Less money for public schools plus more money for private, charter, religious schools equals lower education standards and a new generation of indoctrinated Republican voters
198
Not to mention a new generation of prisoners straight from failed public schools.
2
I think students such as those from Parland's MSD High School, show that they are far better educated and capable than is Betsy DeVos, who can't think her way out of a paper bag. She has no business "fixing" education.
144
And think -- she wants to give government money to the kind of schools that "educated" her.
4
DeVos doesn't know what she's doing, nor the long-term effects.
But as a social democrat, I'm shocked to find recognition in, of all things, the American Enterprise Institute quote about budget offices. Having worked for a few agencies in the State of CA, I found them to be power-tripping fiefdoms, hindering our ability to do our jobs and move forward with programs.
1
Great coverage, Erica. Also, I appreciated your recent article on the school shootings and attempts to rollback Obama discipline polices. Keep up the good work!!
6
Not protecting people who file grievances. Just another example of Trump indulging in his love of vendettas against anyone who opposes him.
11
Teachers unions are a political arm of the Democratic party. By promoting seniority over quality or expertise they often harm education. Is it really so bad that school employees are expected to teach instead of doing politics?
5
Since when do certain Americans have less rights than others? In today's world it is reprehensible if not downright traitorous to think that Americans be apolitical and not exercise their God given rights. Stop the bigotry,every person has the right to organize. If you take away the right to organize, you are giving the rich "elites" such as the Mercers,Kochs & Adelsons even more political power. This would give more power to a President ,which a majority of Americans did not vote for.
3
Rather than House committee member, let Leslie Stahl pose the questions to DeVos. That will virtually ensure her proposal doesn't become enacted. The school patrols know more about public education than she does.
6
The House panel is in for quite a show if DeVos' 60 Minutes interview is anything to go by. Serious doubt about her ability to answer any question with knowledge.
She is just another Trump cabinet member who has been given the mandate to dismantle and harm public school education in America. That she is also a greedy billionaire trying to direct federal tax dollars to her school choice company is just icing on the cake as far as Trump could care.
16
Along with Environmental Pillage Agency head Scott pruitt, DeVos has to be one of the more scandalously inappropriate of Trump's appointees. I wonder if he wanted to surround himself with such incompetents so he would not be the only one in the room. Hopefully those three, and a few others (ideally the whole lot) will head out the door in unison in the very near future.
14
I applaud her newfound sympathy for American taxpayers. And before we rush to criticize, I'll wager Ms. DeVos knows a lot more about not paying taxes than she knows about our public schools.
14
Reducing the number of political appointees and bureaucracy is aways a good idea. But trying to explain why you withhold complete information from Congress is not. It's that simple. What looks bad is usually because it wasn't a decision made in good faith. If it can't withstand the light of day, figure something's up.
5
How do all of these cuts add to the protection of our children from mass shootings? Every single step that DuVoss taxes ensures that this problem will only get worse.
7
We have an EPA administrator committed to the destruction of the environment and "protecting" only fossil fuel magnates, and a Secretary of Education who knows absolutely nothing about the public schools--which she is committed to destroying. Unlike Pruitt, however, DeVos has very publicly displayed both her ignorance and her private/Christian/Charter school bias. No wonder her office hides and cheats and misdirects. She will no doubt enjoy working with the President's new economic adviser, best known for being consistently and spectacularly wrong on tv, and perhaps she will also feel a kinship with the new lawyer, also a tv creature who promotes fanstastical conspiracy theories. Very important to gain a majority in the House in the November elections and move to impeachment.
14
The Trump Administration is full of people who are used to gaming the system to benefit themselves. We can only hope that the other two branches of government will step in to restore our democracy before it is defiled and corrupted beyond recognition by Trump and his hand-picked ideologues and sycophants.
9
I have no idea whether the proposed changes are good or bad things for the American people. Clearly they're "bad" from the perspective of the workers in the Education Dept. That doesn't mean they're bad for the country, and we shouldn't jump to that conclusion. It's natural that the workers feel threatened - what they've taken for granted is being challenged.
I don't think you'll find many private employers who give their workers paid time away from their job to work on union matters. Another example of how governmental workers are in an environment which is quite different from the rest of the economy.
10
Many private employers grant paid time to work on union matters. Not all private employers hate unions. Many realize the value of unions and that is why these clauses and work rules are negotiated into legal contracts.
2
Just because private employers have learned how to treat their employees badly and deny them collective bargaining does not make their choices right.
3
Teacher's Union leadership often have a part of their day to deal with "union business" That might include sitting in on a personnel matter of being included in interviews for new positions.
1
Draining the swamp was a good idea. Filling it with clueless piranha fish was not.
88
Dumbing down the American population will most certainly not make America great, but will help to cement a permanent underclass to serve the 1%.
68
The Trump administration is a septic tank. I am counting the days until we are rid of them all and can begin to repair the incessant damage they have done to our nation and our institutions.
66
Two years, nine months exactly.
1
Agreed. Unfortunately it will take far more time to repair the damage than it has taken to inflict it.
4
I felt the same about Obama.
Oh for crying out loud....where is the "big surprise"....EVERYONE KNEW WHAT SHE WAS AND WHAT SHE STOOD FOR....and now comes the crying and hand-wringing.
...
Our Russian elected representatives gave her the OK and Trump gave her the job. And America voted Trump into office....SO LIVE WITH IT
4
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
It is our American Consitutional right to speak out and fight this dark secretive force destroying the great public school system that powered the Space and Information Ages...SO YOU LIVE WITH IT.
Yup,let's spread the blame. For all of you who voted for Bernie in the primaries yet did not support his endorsed candidate for President ,this one is on you. You believed the narrative of the Republican Party. Please ask yourself,was it worth it? Were you duped?
2
This allows more federal money to support private schools, many of which develop obedient little Christian/Republican children.
56
We are in the hands of dark forces who pretend to be creatures of the light.
It boggles the mind that so many are blind to this.
When this is over, we will remember those who are willfully blind and and treat them with the appropriate contempt and disregard. Reap what you sow.
29
The most corrupt administration in history. None of what is going on here will create a world-class education system like we used to have.
42
After seeing her on 60 Minutes with that goofy grin and glazed eyes, spouting complete gibberish, let's hope the whole spectacle is televised. What a completely incompetent Cabinet secretary. A first among equals.
50
When do we acknowledge that there is a domestic terrorist in the White House and in power who terrorizes millions of Americans daily. What will protect us from this domestic terrorism that the GOP is placing on every institution that we have.
38
This is what happens when a minority of voters care about nothing but reducing their own tax bill and are so afraid they might spend a few dollars on people who don't deserve it that they will bankrupt this country. They don't care if the 1% gets nearly the whole pie, as long as a person of color does not get anything when they are deemed undeserving. This is a spite that will allow our country to fall apart rather than help other people if they happen to have brown or black skin and I wonder how these people see our country in the future? Most people of color in prison (and they would gladly pay for that), old people starving on the streets, homeless and sick, children being indoctrinated in capitalist christianism in church sponsored schools (and would they gladly pay for that?) This country is being destroyed by a handful of selfish, money-grabbing Republican congresspeople and the brain-washed NRA supporters and pseudo-Christians who enable them. It's sickening.
109
You completely nailed it.
DeVos is a joke in every interview she gives. She can't answer basic questions about education. She only got the job by one vote in the senate. Her goal is to shut down public education and replace schools with awful charter schools. She also want federal money to go to private religious school which I believe is illegal? I hope the pressure on her stays strong until she resigns or is fired by the haircut that occupies the White House. She is highly unqualified!
279
I am ALL for the Unions. But, look what the Unions have done to Detroit, Steel Mills, the Railroads and others. The decline of the Unions is self-inflicted. In the 1950s onwards Unions got so strong that they extorted agreements that killed the Golden Goose, their Employers.
Why is the "Official Time" justified for Union work? The Unions will fight tooth and nail to preserve the obnoxious gains they extorted from pliant politicians. I am gald that Secretary DeVoss is taking them on and giving us, the taxpayers, a fair shake.
2
Unions didn't kill employers, greed did. Just look at the difference in quality between American cars 20 to 30 years ago, and their Japanese equivalents. Lack of quality kills products and that's on management, not the worker.
3
Obnoxious gains extorted from pliant politicians? Sounds like a perfect description of the wealthy, powerful donor class to me. That's where the extortion has been going on. You've got it totally backwards. One only needs look at who has gained in the past 35 years and who has lost. The wealthy and powerful - huge gains. Unions and the American worker - huge slaps in the face.
Unions haven't killed themselves. They've been killed by a deliberate campaign to destroy them that has been going on since Reagan took office. It has been lead by greedy business people (like the DeVos family) and their corrupt lapdogs in Washington.
If you're in a union, you have some protections and a voice in your workplace. If you're not, you have something close to zero. And that's the way the union busters like it. Apparently so do you. But some people just don't get that a strong nation is one in which The People have a voice and a good standard of living and where we take care of each and not just ourselves.
7
Unions are required to represent all members of the bargaining unit and not just union members.
3
So we have an incompetent Secretary with zero knowledge of how schools operate advocating for a 5% decrease in education funding! Is this going to make America Great Again?
42
"Fair to the American taxpayers." Since when has anybody in the Trump white house given a hoot about the American taxpayer outside of making it so the DeVos's and Trumps of the world don't have to pay any. What they want to do is crush the union.
38
Undoubtedly her staff have given her a carefully crafted answer for every possible question lawmakers could ask. Now all she has to do when she sits down at the hearings is to figure out which answer belongs to which question.
Of course - if she gets stuck - all she has to say is that she deliberately didn't think about whatever it is they want to know!
18
DeVos is totally unqualified. What is needed is simple, fix the Public School System - all public schools. Charter schools and private schools can take care of themselves.
31
All budgeting issues aside, she has no right to be the head of the Education
Department in the first place.
19
But doesn’t that just fit in with the rest of this administration? Trump certainly isn’t qualified to be president; Ben Carson has no right to be in charge of housing; Jeff Sessions has no right to head up the Justice Department (think “civil rights”); Scott Pruitt has no right to head up EPA, etc. They’re all of a piece.
6
Just another bullet point on the plutocracy's wish list: divert public money, our money, into the hands of private enterprise. DeVos' sole mission is to remake education as something only available to the wealthy. Her ineptitude, lack of empathy and ignorance will single-handedly destroy this country's ability to innovate and prosperous.
26
The only conspiracy theory I believe in is the GOP's systematic destruction of our public schools in order to make people so uneducated and lacking in critical thinking skills that they will continue to vote for Republican candidates.
38
Betsy,Betsy, Betsy there is no defense ! No defense for your actions, no defense for your inactions, no defense for your ignorance, no defense for your greed. Less education - yeah that's the ticket. We'll give them less, pretending all the time we want to give more , do better. She I find amongst the most reprehensible. I expect more from a woman, a mother , a grandmother. But you see , she never did struggle. And neither will hers. She doesn't know how people with less instill in their children the importance of a good education. And from all outward appearance doesn't care. I always agonized over having the responsibilities of educating children, giving them the right tools for life. And then we have Betsy?! She is a shame to our gender. And to the Dept. of Education.
34
DeVos is another choice foisted on a president-elect wholly ignorant of the needs to select qualified people to head government departments. There is no nearby century or planet where Devos's views on education are appropriate. With completely warped visions of the public's need to learn, she is completely unfit for her office. Hopefully, the Appropriations Committee will tell her what she must do with the Department's programs, and legislate if necessary to keep the programs in place.
9
DeVos is a serious, right-wing ideologue with a long dedication to weakening public education and, especially, supporting religious schooling at taxpayer expense; her hostility to unions is nothing new. She is not just a rich donor who got this job instead of an ambassadorship to some country in central Europe. Attacking her for her lack of experience and knowledge misses the point: behind Trump's ineptitude and Stormy Daniels, the far right is working effectively at the EPA, at the NLRB, at Labor, Education, and Justice.
25
DeVos, her short-fingered vulgarian boss, and the rest of his venal administration represent the triumph of money in country. Reason, competency, meritocracy, democracy even—all subjugated to money. It’s no longer about unbridled capitalism, but unfettered power of money: money is free speech, money buys politicians and votes (NRA, anyone?) money subverts democracy and meritocracy (see Trump, DeVos, Koch, and Mercer families as exhibit A), money reduces human interaction to transactions, money trumps morality. Coupling money as free speech to corporations as having the same rights as citizens erodes and degrades all of as human beings—an increasingly quaint concept, but one worthy of fighting for.
At least many teenagers recognize this on some level: that it’s adults’ last and most basic responsibility: protect children. I’d wager DeVos’s response would be yes, and how can we make money doing it.
16
We have a host of current and former state school superintendents. We have a host of current and former superintendents for huge urban school districts. We have a host of deans of schools and colleges of education at world class universities. All were passed over for voucher queen and billionaire donor Betsy DeVos, who may well be the most unqualified cabinet secretary ever hired in D.C., bar none. Her selection screams this administration's profound disrespect for this nation's public schools, the essential foundation of our system of government and our society. Fortunately, she's so ignorant and incompetent that we may be able to boot this administration out of office before she can accomplish much of anything. In the mean time, we must rely on the trained and knowledgeable professionals who stubbornly continue to carry on the mission of the Department of Education despite their increasingly hostile work environment. Hold on, we're coming to polling places nation wide this November to deliver some help and we'll return in 2020 to take back our government from this criminal oligarchy that's stolen it.
21
This is just what we need, to shrink the Department of Education!
If you haven't watched the movie "Idiocracy", now's the times.
Seems like we're going to get there about 300 years earlier than the movie predicted. All that needs to happen is for some trains to de-rail, some buildings to collapse, some data breaches so we'll all need to get our IDs tattooed on our wrists, and maybe some bridges to fall down.
Wait ... we're already there! Except for maybe the ID tattoos, unless we've already had the RFID chips subcutaneously implanted.
11
This sounds like career bureaucrats unhappy with their budget being cut trying to spin normal plan development processes into something sinister.
1
DeVos is the sister of Eric Prince, founder of the disgraced mercenary firm, Blackwater. It looks like she is using a page out of the family playbook. Her family used the pyramid scheme, Amway to amass its fortune. And now they are deploying a dismantling of the education system, which will drive more money into their for profit, but not accountable to anyone schools.
75
Not a one from this administration has credibility. I think I will need to invent a new surgery to reattach eyebrows back to the forehead.
23
The question should be who or what organization drafted this plan. Betsy Devos doesn't seem to have a firm enough grasp on either educational issues or her departments operations to direct a organizational overhaul of this scope.
It's this obvious lack of transparency that we expect the NYT to identify and investigate instead of enabling.
25
One strong possibility is the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
1
It is interesting that most of the posters who support DeVos' efforts to dismantle the Department of Education are from the South. The South has the reputation of only having decent schools if you are white and have money.
274
Add "Asian" to that and you are describing De Vos's home state of Michigan as well.
4
As a teacher who taught in the inner city schools of Memphis for thirty years, I believe I can answer this. This is a movement to re-segregate our public schools. This began in the 70's when religious schools began to crop up due to white flight from our public schools, but I never would have believed that this nonsense would be funded by our government and promoted by the Secretary of Education. Our public schools have been under attack for the last twenty years, and the public has been silent. Our public schools have been the envy of the world. I had a Japanese professor tell me many years ago that the creativity of the American student could not be found in Japan. That creativity is being stifled by the take over by standardized test emphasis and the charter schools that drain money from the real public schools. Real public schools have licensed teachers and take all students. Charter schools choose who they accept. It is a travesty and Betsy Devos is the wicked face of this movement.
7
Just perused all the comments posted here. Except for Southern Boy, and one other rebel, all the posters here, including those who identity as Southerners, Do Not support the actions of De Vos! Your comment is fake news and unsubstantiated!!!
1
An apparatchik driving to destroy our democracy by destroying our educational system.
23
#neveragain
That goes for you twice, Betsey DeVos Your deliberate willful ignorance is a pox on our school children. Your hidden agenda is hardly "hidden." Your most un-Christian views and plots against our public schools are immoral, and exceptionally cruel. America will obstruct your agenda in November of 2018. That is merely the beginning.
#neveragain
33
Betsy DeVos is a liar and a cheat. She bought her job for cash, knows zero about education and could care less about our kids. She should quit before she is jailed for her criminality. She deserves jail time.
33
You just described the qualifications for all White House jobs.
5
She's vicious and, at the same time, stupid. That's a particularly heinous combination.
40
The same attributes owned by her boss. Birds of a feather.
6
When selecting an officials for a very important position, the selected individual should have at least 60 or 70 % of the votes of the Senate.
6
She can barely form a coherent sentence, and her "ideas" are self-serving. She certainly cannot justify anything she does. She should be canned. Schools districts should refuse to cooperate with her. She, and her family, are criminals, causing great harm to our country.
29
If you voted for Trump and you know someone who works for the public school system, YOU have threatened their jobs, and the middle class, as a whole. If you benefited from your public education then you have an obligation to leave it in place for future generations. Simple as that.
34
Will the public schools have a special discount for buying supplies from Amway or just the charters ?
11
Follow the money. Talk about proposed deception, secrecy, and subterfuge in dismantling the department's budget office and in extending its power to take over parts of the labor department. “Budget offices, because they have so much power and institutional knowledge, can be seen as obstacles by reform-minded government leaders,” said Andy Smarick, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Many new government officials think they’ll only have to fight policy battles, when in fact there are lots of ways, including in the budget process, for their efforts to get scuttled.” Will the Republicans stand up to this or will they continue to adopt MConnell's and Ryan's deliberate "see no evil, hear no evil" stance towards this administration's abuse of power?
13
Like all of Trump administration appointees, the goal is to transform public agencies (which are tax funded) into monetary transfer mechanisms of government programs to the private sector (read “business interests).
Mimics the corruption endemic of all authoritarian governments which “nationalize” public assets and then give them to newly minted oligarchs who have political connections to the regime.
33
The definition of bloat seems to be in the eye of the beholder. I wonder how many new employees Mrs. DeVos envisions hiring for the new, cadillac, charter schools department. It seems the not-so-hidden agenda of the privatizing wealthy around the country is to stick it to teachers' unions.
16
It would be refreshing if Ms. DeVos would put her "cards on the table" and admit that she and the hard-right supporters of Mr. Trump are attempting to eliminate the entire free public school system in the United States. In their eyes, education should be provided the way God intended it, which is of course through religious organizations and for-profit businesses.
22
Republicans ALWAYS find a way to increase the underclass. Education for the better off will, among other things this odious administration has implemented and still plans will do just that.
Betsy and Erik are a team that will add to the decline and chaos of America under the "watchful" eye of the so-called president.
7
An authoritarian move. Plain and simple.
8
It's quite obvious, given DeVos's complete absence of qualification for this or any other position, that these policies are being dictated by someone else. The same goes for almost anyone Trump hires for his cabinet. Does anyone think Trump knew who Ryan Zinke, Scott Pruitt, or Betsy Devos was, more than five minutes prior to their nominations?
10
I hope Dems are paying close attention to all these destructive cuts etc., so that when they get back the House they can immediately reverse them.
7
So she's against the teacher's union, and against improving public schools~ It's easy to conclude that this billionaire is against good-quality teachers and good-quality public education of our American youth. That fits into Trump's and other dictators' historical pattern of creating an ignorant populace who will not disturb their swamp of corruption. She should never have been assigned this job.
10
The Republican-led "War on Unions" has been ongoing for decades.
7
We should not be surprised. This administration told us exactly what they were going to do... destroy the federal government as it is and remake it in their image. Apparently, a new poll out today suggests that more than 70% of those surveyed believed that a “deep state” controlled the government. Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Donald Trump (and Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, etc...) are slowly destroying the idea of America and have succeeded in turning “us” on ourselves - remaking the culture in their own nativist-strong man leader image. We probably have one election cycle remaining to fix this mess or we risk losing it all. Sad, but true.
16
isn't this a lack of candor and grounds for termination?
7
If the Government requires higher IQ Scores, thus higher levels of Education Achievement for Government Jobs: then, there would not be the problem of the class dunces running The School. DeVos still has a lot of homework to do to become well-educated. So does Trump. So does Pence. Requirements clearly need to change.
4
When First Lady Hillary Clinton held private meetings to attempt to formulate a universal healthcare plan the GOP went nuts condemning her for 'secret meetings'.
Now with Trump-Pence officials everything is secretive and this approach is acceptable to GOP.
Hypocrisy or just arrogance? Either way, in a liberal democratic government such is unacceptable and unhealthy.
7
Sessions: I don't recall.
DeVos: I don't know.
10
Ben Carson: It's too hard. Also. ot's not cushy enough.
This is not a "overhaul " it is a tipping point in an attempt to eliminate all public unions, privatize/ profitize all education and eliminate any curriculum from education that does not support the political/profit goals of a utopian free enterprise system of governing. It is the Koch Franchise coup of the Republican Party. No Child Left Behind was the first step, piloted by the Bush Bros when they were governors and taken National under Pres Bush. Much of the system has been tweaked and perfected at the State Level under the Koch Owned Republican State Houses. Kansas, Oklahoma, Wi. , MI. ........ DeVos has been a Kochie Girl for yrs. with big investments in privatized schools and curriculums. The chaos, segregation and destruction of standards in our education system under Republican Rule has created the generation of young people who will be marching on Washington March 24.
8
Secretary Betsy DeVos testifying before a House panel will at least provide some award-winning incompetence, malfeasance and biblical ignorance for 320 millions to watch in absolute horror.
Register, vote and regain control over the Trump Insane Asylum Swamp, America.
https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote
48
If her performance remains consistent, we need to rename her Ditsy DeVos.
3
Her answer to Congress will be that she told the servants to take care of everything and she doesn't understand what the problem is?
33
She's part of the GOP's Gleichschaltung campaign to create a totalitarian state -- it starts first by dismantling public education.
85
She’s only following orders.
2
This article doesn't begin to explain what DeVos is attempting to do to the union members in "her" department.
She presented a "collective bargaining agreement", with the union seal on the front page, which was entirely her own creation. No "collective" and no "bargaining". The union had never seen it before.
Of course, we all concede, a trustee fund billionaire *would* find a labor union vexatious.
52
Some of these reforms/consolidations might be good; who can tell? Because DeVos seems so incompetent, any sweeping changes she makes will be met with deserved skepticism. An awful situation for a department vital to our national well-being. It would be good to see some reporting on how these proposals would play out, and why they are/are not useful. More info please.
8
Trump has been a good mentor for Betsy. Lie, obfuscate, distort are the trademark skills of POTUS. There are no police to prosecute infractions, congress is so beholden to their corporate masters they couldn't care less about this issue. Betsy will get a pass.
31
DeVos is the best secretary of education in the history of the department of education. Trump made an excelleny pick. Her reforms are needed.
3
@Southern Boy, Please see "Steve" comment below regarding the damage she did to the Michigan school system - even DeVos admits to that! What can anyone possibly like about her policies, I just cannot see.
9
@Grace Thorsen,
Thank you. I read the "Steve" comment. I appreciate his opinion. But I do not believe that Ms. DeVos is entirely responsible. Americans, especially those without significant wealth, must have choice in where to send their children to school. Most public schools do not provide adequate education. Moreover they are plagued by discipline problems that prevent learning from taking place. Also DeVos is not linked to the teachers unions which care only about their own self preservation and the needs of children. Who else in America can drive reforms?
1
and this person has, perhaps. visited every public school in America, grade, middle, and high schools and surveyed their disciplinary problems and how their students are doing. Or perhaps, he just listens to Fox news. Its apparent that the private school De Vos attended didn't prepare her for anything but Republican fundraisers.
3
SNL, get Kate ready, this is going to be epic!
18
The arrogance of people who feel entitled to jobs for which they KNOW they are wholly unqualified is stunning. Not one iota of integrity.
Dear GOP, beyond Trump, you are responsible for this. You will all be voted out. And I hope we can overturn lifelong pensions and healthcare for the people who are gleefully dismantling this country.
55
The Republican Party: "Government can't do anything right! Elect us and we'll show you!"
34
Isn’t it enough that DeVos is threatening my academically gifted autistic son’s future? Does she have to also engage in dismantling our nation’s labor support? Where does this venom come from?
44
So in addition to being wildly ignorant and unabashedly disinterested in the under-performing schools she wants to destroy, she's complicit in a cover-up and lying to Congress?
Wow. The jaw-dropping nightmare of the Trump administration never fails to astound.
482
What can we expect, she is Erik Prince's sister.
1
Betsy Devos' privatization of schools in Michigan has been a monumental failure. Her plan for a billion dollar school choice proposal is just to enrich her own pockets. This woman needs to be terminated for the know nothing self serving person that she is.
55
Hard to imagine a worse pick for this job. But if she ever disses Hair Boy there will be a worse one waiting in the wings.
15
DeVos is doing her best to gut the Deprtment of Education, and is trying to outsource its functions, including giving all possible support to privately run charter schools, an industry in which she has investments.
Who woudda thunk it from the sister of Blackwater founder Eric Prince and daughter-in-law of Amway founder Richard DeVos?
35
The agencies lovey to state "a career department official" like that somehow means they aren't following the directives of the political appointees but studiously carrying out the agency's mission. At the same time these are the same "career officials" the trump administration has basically likened to "mindless drones" doing Obama's bidding without concern for the country. You can't have it both ways. Either they blindly follow the political leadership or they do their jobs for the betterment of the country regardless of political pressure.
3
Her performance at her confirmation hearing should have been enough proof for Republicans to deny her the appointment. But that really is true for most of the Cabinet positions which have not only embarrassed Trump, but those who voted for these appointments. Let’s hope they can pull the reigns in on Betsy. But I doubt it. Her money is too important to them.
28
In every one of DeVos's television interviews she has shown that is incompetent for her job. So how is this woman going to explain to congress why she wants to reorganize the Department of Education when she can't explain what her job is.
This administration has some of the worst people working in some of the most important jobs, which is why this country is going down hill fast.
87
"...can be seen as obstacles by reform-minded government leaders..."
I'm sorry, I can't imagine the words "Betsy DeVos" and "reform-minded" used together in the same sentence.
29
It would appear that Ms. DeVos is attempting to destroy the Dept. of Education because it would not bow down to her. She has made it a mission to destroy the public educational system and the teachers unions for some pie in the sky idea that school choice will improve education. This has been shown to not be the case. She can afford a choice she is wealthy. But to promise that low income people will be able to place their children in private or parochial schools is simply not true. There is not enough money in the department’s budget to do that and these parents just could not afford it. The corner stone of our educational system has been a free public educational system. And this system worked when teachers had our support. Teachers unions are not the enemy, they are the backbone of our schools. Talk to them not at them, use their expertise. This Secretay has no expertise about education and was the wrong person from the start. The congressional committee should ask her to explain how she plans to save our educational system. We will see another 60 Minute type performance.
58
Here is why I am against charter schools from receiving tax dollars from the state or federal government. Primarily, they discriminate. They do not take all comers, including children with emotional issues and special needs. This alone should bar them from getting any tax payer support. There are many more issues, but that one thing alone cements the case against public funding. Would anyone reading agree to give tax dollars for a private club?
102
Instead of fight school choice in return for tax dollars charter schools must take children with emotional issues, special needs and Free and Reduced Price students first.
More signs that trump's vindictive, hard-right authoritarian personality is filtering down to punish the Average Joe that falls out of the Party line.
"The agreement ... limits the issues that can be brought up as a grievance and eliminates a guarantee against retaliation for filing one."
But resistance grows:
“And at this point, employees are willing to accept whatever fallout comes with exercising a right to make sure Congress gets information it needs."
Besty is unwittingly working hard to increase the size of the middle-class Blue Tsunami. Rich and clueless.
20
A model of Republican governance.
Appoint to the head of an agency someone who is both profoundly ignorant of that agency’s function and mission. Someone who then goes on to sabotage her agency’s mission, in secret, in defiance of the law and without the authorization of the legislative body that wrote the law.
And then speculate on the reasons for why the public has become so cynical about their government and their politicians.
28
Correction to first comment: "Scott Pruitt is a well-known example."
2
It's worse than that. With the likely exception of Rick Perry, Trump's department heads are each well aware of their agency's mission, and are hell-bent on subverting it. Scott Pruitt is Betsy DeVos, like her brother Erik Prince, is a Christian dominionist. [Wikipedia: Dominion theology (also known as dominionism) is a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians based on their personal understandings of biblical law]. The DOE is the perfect vehicle in which to in her words "advance God's kingdom", through the privatization (Christianizing) of public schools.
10
Department decisions made in secret. No oversight. Republicans burying their heads turning away.
We can stop this if we Organize and Vote to retake the House and Senate. The thing trump and his minions fear is the bright light of day.
31
Oh... that's just great!
An Education Secretary wholly unqualified for the job who is now playing hide-and-go-seek with money and reorg plans.
Did she learn to play star chamber games as a parochial school student?
18
What de Vos is doing is happening across the Executive Branch, that is, the systematic dismantling of Departments - State, HUD, etc.- by attacking the employees. People are being forced out because of hostile work environments, and if that doesn't work, why then, President Trump will tweet about them and get them fired one day before their pension kicks in.
It's disgusting and dirty, but unless it's illegal, it is apparently okay.
18
Illegality is no barrier to them. Who would enforce it? The perjuror Atty General? The hobbled FBI, whose Director would be fired if he crossed the Administration? The thoroughly unscrupulous President? The utterly complicit House and Senate oversight committees? The illegally stacked Supreme Court?
3
DeVos wants to do to the education department what’s she’s done for education in Michigan, as much damage as possible, I don’t know if this lady is clueless or malevolent but either way the results are disastrous for everyone involved. Only the for profit charter schools, Christianize education zealots and the student loan scammers are her constituents. The consequences of unearned inherited wealth is dilettantes like DeVos & Mercer. Sad!
39
If DeVos proposed it, I don't need to read it to be suspicious of the plan.
16
From the beginning of her bought-and-paid-for tenure, it has been very clear that Betsy DeVos knows almost nothing about public education and that she does not care and is not embarrassed by her ignorance. She wants to dismantle much of the Department of Education and shape what remains to suit her ultra-conservative point of view. Anyone who aids her in this endeavor is being tarred with the same brush. If Betsy DeVos prevails the Know Nothings will have set education back many, many years.
22
Well, this should be fun and "enlightening".
8
"I love the uneducated."
Donald Trump, Reality Star and Candidate campaign 2016.
Yes. He said that. He really did. (they are easier to con)
Like most employees DeVos is just trying to please her boss.
28
We can never get a straight up honest deal from republicans. Never.
17
Though it is unkind, DeVos herself has established that she doesn't much about education nor about running a bureaucracy.
These changes have all the fingerprints of the "minders," Trump loyalists planted in every department to ensure fealty to the mission to destroy each department in the federal government.
All under the guise of "efficiency." A transparent (and stupid) ploy.
16
DeVos has no business running the Department of Education. She is the wife of a successful businessman who made his wealth from Amway. Nothing more nothing less. Her success is based on this, not her career record in education. I'm tired of seeing wealthy people who have no real experience heading up various Government Departments. She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Economics, never has been a teacher, or a school administrator. That's like hiring a beautician to do the job of a cardiologist! When is the public going to stop supporting politicians just because they have a wad of money? Get involved in politics at any level and you will find that many politicians do not operate under the fundamental premise of "serving your constituents." Rather they believe that they are elected to office based on their personal philosophy and ideas and somehow this aligns with public desire and opinion. They get into office and they stop (if they ever were) listening to their constituents as a whole and only are influenced by those who have the money and influence to drive their agenda and keep them in office.
42
DeVos is the personification of incompetence.
She is in the position solely because she is one of Trump's billionaire mates.
She is totally unqualified and out of her depth.
103
Most of us would be embarrassed if we were as incompetent, unqualified, and out of our depth as Betsy DeVos is and try to learn something about our presumed area of expertise. But, because she is so very, very rich, so far, she has gotten away with being very, very ignorant. So much for meritocracy.
325
"When you're rich they think you really know"--Tevye the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof.
8
I've been a school board member for over a decade and I can tell you, she would not make it a day as one of our principals. We require our leaders to be concerned about children, good communicators, bright and problem solvers.
14
David Cay Johnston stated it best in his new book, "It's Even Worse Than You Think" where he describes Trump unleashing the termites to destroy or hobble virtually every facet of the federal government.
Time for a strong dose Termite Powder.
21
Make her bring her own pens and kleenex, just like everybody else in education please. And bring enough for everybody there, Betsy!
38
This is why it is essential that Democrats retake at least one house. Then committee chairs will be Democrats, and the administration will see real investigations and oversight. If this administration is allowed to continue unchecked, decent employees will be purged and the graft will escalate.
330
Yes, we are all hoping for a "blue wave" in November... but Democrats must begin taking charge NOW. The complacency of Congressional Democrats astounds me. Boldness and strength commands respect, and respect gets votes.
5
" union activities, a benefit Congress extended 40 years ago, and instead requires that representatives take unpaid leave for such activities"
I worked for a union for 32 years. When a union official was required to check out on union business, the union paid his wages, not the company, so I see nothing wrong with the above statement.
16
Will we ever wake up from this alternative reality ? When will the majority of reasonable citizens take our institutions and processes back from the abyss these wealthy reactionaries that have conspired to create ? The future is dark indeed when the next generation (education) and the disadvantaged (justice) are being marginalized into a scary future run by fanatics without knowledge, compassion or respect for others outside their narrow perches at the top of the financial heap !
Our #1 goal is generating a historically overwhelming turnout in November and beyond to deliver the message that we have awakened and are taking our country and our civilization back from these thieves...
172
Budget offices are an obstacle to reform. So we are told by someone, who, I would guess, has never so much as visited a federal budget office. On the contrary, like every other part of the civil service, federal budget offices do the people's business. If you asked program staff, they would tell you that, if anything, budget offices are all too ready to enact the Secretary's and the President's agenda. Of course, there is always some organizational inertia, but eliminating a departmental budget office is akin to performing a frontal lobotomy on the organization. Or if you prefer a military analogy, it is akin to shooting all your general staff officers before launching a campaign.
Mrs. Devos once again is demonstrating that she was out of her depth as soon as she moved beyond chairing a committee for the Grand Rapids garden club
96
I worked with an Air Force budget office. The budget office exists only to make the budget grow slightly above inflation. Anything that does not grow the budget risks jobs and promotions in the budget office.
School choice means what ... white kids get to use tax dollars to go to all Christian white schools. Thanks Betsy; privatizing education is as smart as, say, running the country like a business...
354
The closest charter school in my area is in Albany, NY, nearly an hour ride from my home. School choice (in my very rural area of Upstate NY), would mean that instead of being a school bus for 10 minutes and in a classroom of 15-18 kids (in a total grade size of 52) in my little rural public school, I would instead have the honor of ME driving my child 1/2 hour to much larger parochial school which may or may not afford her a better education (she ended up graduating CSU in the top 10 in her class).
1
She is one of the really big gators in the pond that keeps getting bigger.
50
It should come as no surprise that collective bargaining agreements are not honored by someone as inexperienced and ideological as DeVos who believes that so-called "school choice" and charter schools provide superior education compared to public schools. Just look at the challenges faced by teachers working in non-unionized charter schools and the rate of turnover. There's an assumption that there will always be a supply of young, inexperienced teachers to replace those who have left because of burnout and poor working conditions.
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DeVos's job is very simple: Take the Tax Payer Dollars away from the Public Schools, and give it to the wealthy Republican donors.
Bob Jones University, Liberty University, all the "Charter Schools" that are owned by Republican donors.
Wealthy Republican donors do not need, and have never needed, a Tax Payer supported Public School System.
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The Education Department is bloated but I don't think they are concerned about that. Basically they are in the first stages of dismantling the whole fandango.
12
Another Cabinet member acting as if they have a mandate for imposing radical change given a landslide election victory. Not.
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Betsy may know little about education, but she does understand consolidation of authority and removal of all opposition, including ideas.
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Does anyone really believe that De Vos could implement any form of sweeping change to any large organization--the only thing she can rearrange is her sock draw, if that.
8
Evidently she was assigned some staff who have administrative experience, probably republican lobbying & campaign flacks but maybe a lawyer or two to assist in the heist .
2
Well, I hope that she's better prepared this time than she was for "60 Minutes" - or her confirmation hearing.
Prep Team Leader: "Ms. Devos, DO NOT talk about grizzly bears."
43
Of all the cabinet positions that have or will be fired, why can't this one be next?
85
DeVos right after Zinke and Conway.
11
Provisionally, I agree, but I am not sure our Fake President and his enablers couldn't find someone even worse than DeVos.
2
"...a $1 billion school choice proposal."
Translation: $1 billion gift to charter school operators. Follow the money, as always.
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Poor Betsy who has never run anything of significance before in her life has jumped the shark. The evidence of her abject ignorance was in her 60 Minutes interview and follow-up interview on the Today Show the following day. As they say down South to describe people of low intellect, "Bless her heart."
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Same old story-a bunch of overpaid, underworked bureaucrats get angry when their comfortable perches are disturbed. These people demand to be paid by the taxpayer for doing union work? I don’t care how long that’s been going on. It’s wrong and it’s wasteful. If the Education Dept. were to be shut down tomorrow, few would notice any difference.
4
Katie--Not all of us received so little from public education as you did. You should not project as public policy, the results of your own failed experience.
23
Only the people training to be your Doctor, Nurse, engineer, welder, etc. They recive loans to pay for their education Please stop this cliche narrative.
19
???? Really? How low we have sunk as a society when we no longer care about public education? It's one thing to manage a department more effectively; almost every committee or department or company in the world can be improved on an ongoing basis; it's another thing to argue based on its imperfection that it serves no purpose and should be dismantled. Why have we gotten to the point where we no longer want to put the work into improving important institutions, but rather just want to lazily, petulantly throw them out?
21
Just what educational goal is Betsy deVos trying to achieve? I can't understand it.
I'm not an educator, but, I am able to recognize a vapid, although wiley manipulator when I see one. What is her endgame? Jesus? Running the schools like Blackwater? Is this another case of a practitioner of "muscular Christianity" trying to break the Constitution and insinuate it's hideous beliefs in our schools?
135
Get your public tax money into her and her cronie friends' private business hands - thats what she's been trying to do all along.
8
How does one stay optimistic about our institutions, while tying not to indulge in conspiracy theories when the people at the top, none of whom seem to have backgrounds in the agencies they are determined to ruin seem to be linked?? Pull the string ever so gently and watch it turn red as all of the players, Eric Prince, the Kushners, the Mercers, now Sheryl Sandberg and Mr. Facebook himself seem to be knotted together in this umbilicus to Russia.
40
If nothing else, I thank the Dept of Ed official who brought this to light for giving us another chance to hear Secretary DeVos speak in public before the Appropriations Committee and answer some unscripted questions.
And, what a surprise, she's shrinking the Office for Civil Rights.
214
Yes, deep heart-felt appreciations to the Department of Education professionals trying to do their jobs and uphold the values for which the Department has historically supported. You are holding American kids' lives and educational aspirations in your hands. Thanks for exposing DeVos. Please continue.
Gross incompetence linked to a criminal-like duplicity. Perfect qualifications for a Cabinet position in the Fake President's Administration. Thank you, D.O.E. staff, for unmasking the hidden plans of your corrupt boss. May you continue to do so when necessary to preserve the mission of this important federal department. You are the patriots!
241
Excuse me?
You HID plans to overhaul an Entire Cabinet Department?
This person has Zero business being in charge of anything.
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