#devos hearing

Video: Difference between proficiency and growth (a longstanding debate in the educational community that DeVos appears unaware of)

DeVos also apparently refused to commit to enforcing protections against sexual assault on college campuses.

This woman is not fit to be Secretary of Education. Please, contact your local Senator or Representative and implore them not to allow her to ruin our public educational facilities, many of which are already struggling. Public education is fundamental to our country’s development - economically, socially, and politically. DeVos is a champion of private and for-profit charter schools, both of which may exclude low-income students and students with learning disabilities. She has also been associated with anti-LGBT groups. 

Mother Jones reports that the “Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation ... contributed $8.6 million to private religious schools”. She will cause serious damage to our public education system if she is nominated.

The GOP gave her a hearing late in the day with minimal questioning allowed, limiting Democratic Senators’ ability to force her to respond to difficult questions such as whether she would be in favor of allowing guns in schools, to which she was “non-responsive” and said she would side with Trump on the issue.

Please, please, take action in your local community to help public schools and contact your elected officials and tell them to prevent her appointment.

- Not support the federal disabilities act supporting students with disabilities, saying it should be up to the states - Refused to give a straight answer on whether she would privatize public schools - Refused to give a straight answer on whether she would support guns in schools and eliminating gun-free zones around schools, saying she would side with Trump on the issue - Admitted she would not hold charter/private schools to the same standards as public schools (meaning that they could exclude children with disabilities, low income students, minority students, etc) - Refused to give a straight answer on if she would uphold current regulations about preventing campus sexual assault - Did not know the difference between growth and proficiency, which are part of a longstanding educational debate about how public schools work

This is a woman who had donated over 8 million dollars to religious private schools. She admitted that she did not attend any public schools, nor did her children. She has never taken out a student loan. She is unfit to run our public education system.

By the way, props to Senate Democrats who have all but forced these answers out of her as the GOP only allowed them a brief hearing with their nominee and limited questions. Props especially to Maggie Hassan (D-NH) who questioned her about students with disabilities and Tim Kaine(D-VA) who pushed her to answer his question about charter schools after she spent the whole evening dodging their more difficult questions.

From the report by Valerie Strauss, posted Wed Jan 18th 2017

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

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

DeVos said she would review gainful employment regulations without committing to enforce them.

The gainful employment regulations are meant to protect students and taxpayers by withholding federal student aid to career training programs that leave students buried in debt with few opportunities to repay. Asked by Warren if she would enforce the regulations, DeVos said: “We will certainly review that rule, and see if it is actually achieving what the intentions are.”

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

DeVos did not answer Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) when he asked her what she had learned about the failures of the Detroit traditional public and public charter schools that would inform her decision-making as the secretary of education.