So Rob Portman voted to confirm Betsy DeVos

[BoomerFan]

Thoughts? I've heard she was like his 4th largest donor during his last campaign for re-election. Between personal and SuperPac donations, Portman's campaign got something like $58,500 from DeVos. Of course, he likely still would have voted for her. Personally, even if you are religious I think this should concern most people, especially if you have kids.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

No matter who they picked for education, they would have sucked. Regardless of which party, they would have chosen someone rich who either doesn't have kids, or whose kids will never see the insides of a public school in their life.

[Aquapod770]

(02-07-2017, 09:57 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: No matter who they picked for education, they would have sucked. Regardless of which party, they would have chosen someone rich who either doesn't have kids, or whose kids will never see the insides of a public school in their life.

No way!!! Only the other party does that!!! When mine does it was clearly a great choice 

[*bfine32*]

(02-07-2017, 09:51 PM)BoomerFan Wrote: Thoughts? I've heard she was like his 4th largest donor during his last campaign for re-election. Between personal and SuperPac donations, Portman's campaign got something like $58,500 from DeVos. Of course, he likely still would have voted for her. Personally, even if you are religious I think this should concern most people, especially if you have kids.

I think our current worldwide rankings in elementary education should concern people more than who this lady donated money to. 

[GMDino]

(02-07-2017, 09:57 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: No matter who they picked for education, they would have sucked. Regardless of which party, they would have chosen someone rich who either doesn't have kids, or whose kids will never see the insides of a public school in their life.

What would someone have to be like to be LESS qualified than Devos?

I have all the same qualifications as her...except being a billionaire as a result of a pyramid scheme and using that money to make donation to people who will push my ideas.

Oh, and my kids went to both private and public schools.

So I actually know more about the workings of the schools than she does.

[Benton]

(02-07-2017, 10:02 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I think our current worldwide rankings in elementary education should concern people more than who this lady donated money to. 

I think that is the concern.

education woes in this country largely go back to funding. Public pay for private schools stretches those resources(tax dollars) even thinner. And, mostly, without any improved results.

personally, this doesn't bother me. My kids  are fortunate enough to go to school in a small rural district that has insanely high property values for Kentucky. So they get the benefit of small classes and lots of resources. But I can see where other people are concerned about moving their tax dollars to make it cheaper for an upper income family to segregate their kids from the poverty riddled riff raff*.


no idea if "riff raff" is spelled correctly, I went to a public school where they glued the textbooks shut if they disagreed with them.

[GMDino]

(02-07-2017, 11:14 PM)Benton Wrote: I think that is the concern.

education woes in this country largely go back to funding. Public pay for private schools stretches those resources(tax dollars) even thinner. And, mostly, without any improved results.

personally, this doesn't bother me. My kids  are fortunate enough to go to school in a small rural district that has insanely high property values for Kentucky. So they get the benefit of small classes and lots of resources. But I can see where other people are concerned about moving their tax dollars to make it cheaper for an upper income family to segregate their kids from the poverty riddled riff raff*.


no idea if "riff raff" is spelled correctly, I went to a public school where they glued the textbooks shut if they disagreed with them.

And add to that that Devos has no plan to make our education system better.  Just to move money to schools that will only accept the better students and have better results.  Maybe.  There seems to be little oversight on those schools.

But I suppose if they just disband the entire department it won't matter?  

[HarleyDog]

Hoping one day everyone will realize politics, as we have let it become, SUCKS! Democratic and Republican parties need to be dismantled and ran on individual belief's. It would make politicians do what's right for the people and not what's right for the party or special interest groups or whatever the hell else influences a vote. It wont happen but its nice to dream "We The People" again. And yes, I know the politicians have been around forever.

[mallorian69]

(02-07-2017, 11:14 PM)Benton Wrote: I think that is the concern.

education woes in this country largely go back to funding. Public pay for private schools stretches those resources(tax dollars) even thinner. And, mostly, without any improved results.

personally, this doesn't bother me. My kids  are fortunate enough to go to school in a small rural district that has insanely high property values for Kentucky. So they get the benefit of small classes and lots of resources. But I can see where other people are concerned about moving their tax dollars to make it cheaper for an upper income family to segregate their kids from the poverty riddled riff raff*.


no idea if "riff raff" is spelled correctly, I went to a public school where they glued the textbooks shut if they disagreed with them.

Money isn't the problem. According to a recent study the US spends more per child than any other country and both new and experienced teachers make more than their counterparts in almost every other country. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-global-list-study-shows/

[*bfine32*]

(02-07-2017, 11:31 PM)mallorian69 Wrote: Money isn't the problem. According to a recent study the US spends more per child than any other country and both new and experienced teachers make more than their counterparts in almost every other country. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-global-list-study-shows/

The problem is parental apathy. I have always said that parents that receive government subsidies should have their child's performance in school tied to those.

No one knows if this lady will improve or impair education in the US. but apparently like every other Trump nominee. she hates poor people and is the most unqualified person ever nominated for her position. 

[GMDino]

(02-07-2017, 11:45 PM)bfine32 Wrote: The problem is parental apathy. I have always said that parents that receive government subsidies should have their child's performance in school tied to those.

No one knows if this lady will improve or impair education in the US. but apparently like every other Trump nominee. she hates poor people and is the most unqualified person ever nominated for her position. 

  

I agree parental involvement is a big part of education.  But having good schools can help overcome that too.

But explain how she is qualified. Because even some of the conservatives who voted for he can't explain it.

[GMDino]

Even a search of FOX News and Breitbart gave me no "qualifications" for her other than "she's an outsider".

So I went to her wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_DeVos

Quote:Education activism


Christian motivation

DeVos, a Calvinist Christian, in 2001 has listed education activism and reform efforts as a means to "advance God’s Kingdom".[4][5] In an interview that year, she also said that "changing the way we approach ... the system of education in the country...really may have greater Kingdom gain in the long run".[4]


School choice

DeVos believes education in the United States should be opened up to for-profit charter schools, and she has stated that education is "a closed system, a closed industry, a closed market. It's a monopoly, a dead end."[112] DeVos believes that opening up the education market will offer parents increased choice, a view that critics call a drive to privatize the American public education system.[112]

School vouchers

DeVos is known as a "a fierce proponent of school vouchers" that would allow students to attend private schools with public funding.[113] According to The New York Times, it "is hard to find anyone more passionate about the idea of steering public dollars away from traditional public schools than Betsy DeVos".[55]

DeVos served as chairwoman of the board of Alliance for School Choice.[114] Until November 2016,[115] she headed the All Children Matter PAC which she and her husband founded in 2003 to promote school vouchers, tax credits to businesses that give private school scholarships, and candidates who support these causes.[116] Over the years, DeVos and her husband have provided millions in funding for the organization. In 2008, All Children Matter was fined $5.2 million in Ohio for illegally laundering money into political campaign funds.[117][118] DeVos was not named in the case.[119] The fine remained unpaid as of 2017, prompting calls by Democratic Party lawmakers for DeVos to settle the debt.[120][121]

Her other activities on behalf of public-school reform have included membership on the boards of directors of the Advocates for School Choice, the American Education Reform Council, and the Education Freedom Fund.[122] She has chaired the boards of Choices for Children, and Great Lakes
Education Project (GLEP).[123]

DeVos is Chair of the American Federation for Children (AFC). Affiliated with the Alliance for School Choice, the AFC describes itself as "a leading national advocacy organization promoting school choice, with a specific focus on advocating for school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs".[124] Former GOP Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen serves as one of the group’s lobbyists and senior advisers.[125][126]

During the 1990s, she served on the boards of Children First America and the American Education Reform Council, which sought to expand school choice through vouchers and tax credits. She and her husband worked for the successful passage of Michigan's first charter-school bill in 1993,[20] and for the unsuccessful effort in 2000 to amend Michigan's constitution to allow tax-credit scholarships or vouchers. In response to that defeat, DeVos started a PAC, the Great Lakes Education Project, which championed charter schools. DeVos's husband and John Walton then founded All Children Matter, a political organization, which she chaired.[127]

Detroit charter school system

DeVos has been an advocate for the Detroit charter school system. Douglas N. Harris, professor of Economics at Tulane University, wrote in a 2016 New York Times op-ed that DeVos was partly responsible for "what even charter advocates acknowledge is the biggest school reform disaster in the country". In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Detroit had the lowest reading and mathematics scores "by far" over any city participating in the evaluation. She designed a system with no oversight, said Harris, and where schools that do poorly can continue to enroll students.[128]

Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review said that "some 47 percent of charter schools in Detroit significantly outperform[ed] traditional public schools in reading".[129] Defending DeVos' record in Michigan, Jay P. Greene, professor of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas argued Harris's New York Times article misled readers on the evidence and "falsely claimed that Detroit has failed to close failing charter schools", noting that Detroit has closed more charters than Louisiana, a state Harris cites as a model for charter school legislation.[130]

In a written response to a question about charter school performance posed during DeVos’ confirmation hearing by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), asking “why do you think their performance is so poor?", DeVos defended the charter school system using graduation rates that were significantly higher than those used for state and federal accountability purposes. DeVos provided examples of several charter schools that she said had 4-year graduation exceeding 90%. These examples were contested by Columbia University professor Aaron Pallas and Education Week reporter Ben Herold on the basis that the actual graduation rates were roughly only half as large as DeVos had stated.[131][132]


Grading system

DeVos and Joel Klein said in a May 2013 op-ed that residents of Maine "are now given information on school performance using easy-to-understand report cards with the same A, B, C, D and F designations used in student grades". This system, they argued, "truly motivates parents and the community to get involved by simply taking information that education officials have had for years and presenting it in a way that is more easily understood."[133]

Betsy and Dick DeVos Scholars for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Scholarship

The DeVoses have also established an annual scholarship, called the Betsy and Dick DeVos Scholars for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Scholarship, which is awarded to students earning a BBA or combined BBA/MBA at Northwood University.[134]

Foundation for Excellence in Education

DeVos is a member of the board of the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd),[135] a think tank founded by Jeb Bush whose stated goal is to "build an American education system that equips every child to achieve his or her God-given potential".[136]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_DeVos#cite_note-Mission-136][/url]

[*bfine32*]

(02-07-2017, 11:51 PM)GMDino Wrote:   

I agree parental involvement is a big part of education.  But having good schools can help overcome that too.

But explain how she is qualified. Because even some of the conservatives who voted for he can't explain it.

First we must list the unbiased qualifications required to be the Secretary of Education. I'll let you (or anybody else speaking of not qualified do that)

Secondly she is well educated and the Chairman of this:
http://www.federationforchildren.org/about-us/

Quote:The American Federation for Children and the American Federation for Children Growth Fund seek to improve our nation’s K-12 education by advancing systemic and sustainable public policy that empowers parents, particularly those in low-income families, to choose the education they determine is best for their children.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-07-2017, 11:45 PM)bfine32 Wrote: The problem is parental apathy. I have always said that parents that receive government subsidies should have their child's performance in school tied to those.

No one knows if this lady will improve or impair education in the US. but apparently like every other Trump nominee. she hates poor people and is the most unqualified person ever nominated for her position. 

Which would lead to parents killing their mentally challenged, or just a little slow children, because they couldn't afford to keep them alive.

Sound plan, bfine.

That's almost as good of a plan as teachers having their pay based off their students results. That worked out terribly, with teachers falsifying test scores to make up for their stupid students.



That kind of idea only works if you're operating under the assumption that all children have the exact same potential, which simply isn't true. There are dumb kids. There are smart kids. Not a popular thing to say out loud, but it's true. Some kids no matter how much you try and spend time, will just never be smart. Some kids no matter how little you try and spend time, will be smart. Life isn't fair that way, but pretending otherwise is how you get things like No Child Left Behind, and mass standardized testing that teachers have to then teach to the test.

- - - - - - - - - - -

That's not even touching the fact that once they become middle schoolers+, they might actually become aware that they can control their parents/teachers income by behaving like little shits.

How would you feel about having your income tied to how much or how little a 13-year-old wants to rebel?

[*bfine32*]

(02-08-2017, 12:10 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Which would lead to parents killing their mentally challenged, or just a little slow children, because they couldn't afford to keep them alive.

Sound plan, bfine.

That's almost as good of a plan as teachers having their pay based off their students results. That worked out terribly, with teachers falsifying test scores to make up for their stupid students.



That kind of idea only works if you're operating under the assumption that all children have the exact same potential, which simply isn't true. There are dumb kids. There are smart kids. Not a popular thing to say out loud, but it's true. Some kids no matter how much you try and spend time, will just never be smart. Some kids no matter how little you try and spend time, will be smart. Life isn't fair that way, but pretending otherwise is how you get things like No Child Left Behind, and mass standardized testing that teachers have to then teach to the test.

- - - - - - - - - - -

That's not even touching the fact that once they become middle schoolers+, they might actually become aware that they can control their parents/teachers income by behaving like little shits.

How would you feel about having your income tied to how much or how little a 13-year-old wants to rebel?

Mentally challenged or "a little slow" kids would compete against their own population; as would all kids' as they currently do. But you do solidify the special interest over the common interest mentality that many feel is handicapping us as a society. You don't have to be "smart" to earn good grades. 

As to the kids controlling their parents stance: You reap what you sow.

I would be totally fine with my income being tied to my child's behavior; as it makes me responsible for his or her results.

[GMDino]

(02-08-2017, 12:09 AM)bfine32 Wrote: First we must list the unbiased qualifications required to be the Secretary of Education. I'll let you (or anybody else speaking of not qualified do that)

Secondly she is well educated and the Chairman of this:
http://www.federationforchildren.org/about-us/

I'd say having some idea of the difference between growth and proficiency? Just as a start.

Secondly, I too am seeking to improve education.  For everyone.  Not just for those who want o skip to other schools.

Nonetheless:  Does ANYONE have any qualifications for her to hold this position?

[*bfine32*]

(02-08-2017, 12:19 AM)GMDino Wrote: Nonetheless:  Does ANYONE have any qualifications for her to hold this position?

Besides the ones I listed? 

Hell, I'll add American Citizen

All you have to do is list the qualifications and then we'll determine if she has them

[GMDino]

(02-08-2017, 12:21 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Besides the ones I listed? 

Hell, I'll add American Citizen

All you have to do is list the qualifications and then we'll determine if she has them

So well educated and belongs to a foundation.

That's it?

Wow.

I have a college degree and want schools to be better too!  Maybe someday I can donated thousands of dollars and be nominated for a cabinet position. 

But then we have Rick Perry who didn't even know what the job is so I guess maybe it's a step up?

[Vas Deferens]

(02-08-2017, 12:21 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Besides the ones I listed? 

Hell, I'll add American Citizen

All you have to do is list the qualifications and then we'll determine if she has them

I'm not sure if you saw her testimony, but it was embarrassing. I can understand if you are for public funding of private schools like she is, but to claim she is qualified outside of her agenda and campaign contributions is a stretch.

On another note. This same tactic created our current dumb **** public when $ was stripped from public education in the reagan years. If you were pulling the wool over the public eyes, you'd want them dumb as possible too.

[*bfine32*]

(02-08-2017, 12:29 AM)GMDino Wrote: So well educated and belongs to a foundation.

That's it?

Wow.

I have a college degree and want schools to be better too!  Maybe someday I can donated thousands of dollars and be nominated for a cabinet position. 

But then we have Rick Perry who didn't even know what the job is so I guess maybe it's a step up?

bfine32 Wrote:All you have to do is list the qualifications and then we'll determine if she has them