Stewardship
I posted a petition on Facebook. I urged others to sign it to oppose Betsy DeVos's nomination for secretary of education.
I received blowback. It was not unexpected - I know people who still think highly of Sarah Palin.
But this commenter blamed the Dems, and the unions, and took a shot at our dem governor Grandholm being a Canadian. And he mentioned the mayor of Detroit. And what did he blame them for? Detroit.
Nothing specific. Just, "Detroit".
I have to ask: what?
This is typical of the toxicity of the political climate that's attached to the candidacy and election of Donald Trump. The pushback lacks specifics, uses a shotgun approach, and puts forth nothing in support of DeVos.
For clarity's sake: The DeVos nomination is a serious threat to public education throughout the country. Her agenda is to fund private schools with public money. Betsy knows nothing about education, and she's never been in a leadership position. Her nomination represents a desire to completely privatize schooling in America.
If my commenter meant to indict the poor performance of Detroit schools, there is no argument there. Detroit is not alone, by a long stretch, in not serving its students well relative to academics. There are a very few school systems helping significant proportions of students living in poverty succeed academically. Detroit is not one of those.
The grand experiment that Betsy and her collaborators built, Michigan's charter schools? Dismal failure. They serve well the same populations traditional public schools serve well, and they (charters) fail the same students who struggle in traditional settings. Broadly, it's a problem of income inequality. Poverty.
And the only reason the term "traditional public schools" exists is, in fact, due to the unions my commenter apparently wants to blame. The unions (and others) battled to require charters to admit any student applying when the legislation was being drafted. Furthermore, existing private schools wishing to "turn charter" (receive public funding) had to show 25% "new" student population to qualify.
Betsy DeVos is not of a mind to "fix" poverty or schools. She wants her religious agenda pushed forward, her own vision of "the Kingdom" supported by public funds, and to hell with anyone else.
The great equalizer in our society, a free and equal education for all, is at peril. Ms. DeVos has no intention of helping anyone less fortunate than herself, nor anyone not in her Calvinistic circle. She knows hardball politics: she knows nothing of teaching and learning.
We can do much better than to leave all children behind, except Betsy's.
I received blowback. It was not unexpected - I know people who still think highly of Sarah Palin.
But this commenter blamed the Dems, and the unions, and took a shot at our dem governor Grandholm being a Canadian. And he mentioned the mayor of Detroit. And what did he blame them for? Detroit.
Nothing specific. Just, "Detroit".
I have to ask: what?
This is typical of the toxicity of the political climate that's attached to the candidacy and election of Donald Trump. The pushback lacks specifics, uses a shotgun approach, and puts forth nothing in support of DeVos.
For clarity's sake: The DeVos nomination is a serious threat to public education throughout the country. Her agenda is to fund private schools with public money. Betsy knows nothing about education, and she's never been in a leadership position. Her nomination represents a desire to completely privatize schooling in America.
If my commenter meant to indict the poor performance of Detroit schools, there is no argument there. Detroit is not alone, by a long stretch, in not serving its students well relative to academics. There are a very few school systems helping significant proportions of students living in poverty succeed academically. Detroit is not one of those.
The grand experiment that Betsy and her collaborators built, Michigan's charter schools? Dismal failure. They serve well the same populations traditional public schools serve well, and they (charters) fail the same students who struggle in traditional settings. Broadly, it's a problem of income inequality. Poverty.
And the only reason the term "traditional public schools" exists is, in fact, due to the unions my commenter apparently wants to blame. The unions (and others) battled to require charters to admit any student applying when the legislation was being drafted. Furthermore, existing private schools wishing to "turn charter" (receive public funding) had to show 25% "new" student population to qualify.
Betsy DeVos is not of a mind to "fix" poverty or schools. She wants her religious agenda pushed forward, her own vision of "the Kingdom" supported by public funds, and to hell with anyone else.
The great equalizer in our society, a free and equal education for all, is at peril. Ms. DeVos has no intention of helping anyone less fortunate than herself, nor anyone not in her Calvinistic circle. She knows hardball politics: she knows nothing of teaching and learning.
We can do much better than to leave all children behind, except Betsy's.
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