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Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos calls for abolishing department

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  vic-eldred  •  2 years ago  •  44 comments

By:   Julia Shapero (Axios)

Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos calls for abolishing department
"I personally think the Department of Education should not exist," DeVos said at a conservative education summit.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said at a conservative education summit Saturday that she believes the Department of Education should be abolished, according to the Florida Phoenix.

Driving the news: DeVos' rejection of the department she once led was well-received at the Moms for Liberty summit, which provided training on how to develop conservative majorities on local school boards, the Phoenix reported.

  • "I personally think the Department of Education should not exist," DeVos told the crowd in Tampa, Florida, per the Phoenix.

The big picture: The summit is part of the so-called parental rights movement, which arose in response to efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in schools, particularly mask and vaccination mandates.

  • Florida has been ground zero for many of the efforts to increase parental involvement in, and reduce teachers' autonomy over, classroom decisions.
  • Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also issued an executive order in August 2021 banning mask mandates in schools.
  • The state's so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, which went into effect on July 1, bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade. It also allows parents to sue schools and teachers who discuss these topics.
  • The state's Board of Education banned schools from teaching critical race theory — a legal theory about how racial discrimination influenced America's foundations — last June. Critical race theory is not taught in public schools. The ban led to the rejection of dozens of math textbooks that "contained prohibited topics."

Background: DeVos is not the only Republican to suggest abolishing the Department of Education.

  • Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a bill in 2021 to abolish the department, claiming that "Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., should not be in charge of our children's intellectual and moral development."
  • The bill's co-signers included many of the House's most conservative members, such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

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Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
1  seeder  Vic Eldred    2 years ago

The Department of Education began as we know it on May 4, 1980. It was created by the well educated and always incompetent Jimmy Carter after the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was split up.

So what happened to the Department in the years that followed?

Simple answer: It became infested with progressives who wanted their ideology taught to America's students.

We cannot trust unelected bureaucrats with our children's wellbeing.

Put it at the top of the DeSantis agenda.

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
1.1  Greg Jones  replied to  Vic Eldred @1    2 years ago
"We cannot trust unelected bureaucrats with our children's well being."

DeSantis wisdom is spreading to other states.  He's going to make an excellent president

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
1.1.1  seeder  Vic Eldred  replied to  Greg Jones @1.1    2 years ago

That's a plus for DeSantis. Trump did most things right but he never took on the ideologues in education.

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
1.2  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  Vic Eldred @1    2 years ago
It became infested with progressives who wanted their ideology taught to America's students.

That's just a bunch of horse shit rhetoric only espoused by the bitter religious conservatives who have seen their power in public schools wane as schools began to be further integrated to improve diversity and fight financial segregation as well as focus more on secular education and less on celebrating all the seasonal Christian holidays or leading impressionable youth in group prayer.

When the civil rights act was passed we saw a phenomenon called 'white flight' where whites fled previously segregated affordable housing communities where black families were moving to get their children into the better schools. The whites who were wealthy enough and who could get loans that many black families still couldn't qualify for moved to higher priced areas they knew few black families could afford and the racist segregation that had become illegal turned into financial segregation with virtually an identical result. Since then education departments across the nation have tried all sorts of things to reduce the gap between the wealthy majority white schools and the financially poor schools which were often majority minority. This vestige of systemic racism continued to keep minorities in poor high dropout rate low performance schools.

The department of education has tried to make all public schools equal but white religious conservatives see that as bringing their nearly all white high performing wealthy schools down in order to level the playing field while poor and minority families aren't seeing enough lift in their school outcomes so both parties are aggrieved.

I've no doubt many of the right wing religious conservatives today would love to end the Department of Education and re-segregate schools and society so they can go back to the 1950's they look on so fondly, the time when they felt they were so "Great", the 'Leave it To Beaver' era where the only black person in their orbit was a maid.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
1.2.1  Texan1211  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @1.2    2 years ago

Can you explain the decline of American education since the inception of the Dept. of Education?

Shouldn't have education improved????

Wasn't THAT its goal?

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
1.2.2  seeder  Vic Eldred  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @1.2    2 years ago

Do you have kids?

Do you send them to public schools?

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
1.2.3  seeder  Vic Eldred  replied to  Texan1211 @1.2.1    2 years ago

Well, I can tell you where we are at:

"Professors are objecting to identifying ancient human remains by biological gender because they cannot gauge how a person identified at that the time. Others are objecting to identifying race as a practice because it fuels white supremacy.".....Jonathan Turley

That from America's professors!

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
1.2.4  Texan1211  replied to  Vic Eldred @1.2.3    2 years ago

Shit like that there makes me wonder why these people are allowed to roam around unsupervised.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
1.2.5  seeder  Vic Eldred  replied to  Texan1211 @1.2.4    2 years ago

The beginning of the end of it may come in 2024.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
2  Texan1211    2 years ago

Proof of government 'competence':

Since the beginnings of the Dept. of Education, America has experienced a downturn in education. Our test scores and standing in the world have slipped.

Despite the amount of money we have thrown at education, our results remain disappointing.

And Democrats' solutions are almost always the same---throw more money at it.

 
 
 
SteevieGee
Professor Silent
3  SteevieGee    2 years ago

Great!  Without that pesky DOE interfering anymore they'll be able to funnel billions of dollars to their christofacist 'alternative' schools.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.1  seeder  Vic Eldred  replied to  SteevieGee @3    2 years ago

Now there is a thought!

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.2  Texan1211  replied to  SteevieGee @3    2 years ago

Would you rather just keep an ineffective govt. agency that has failed at its mission?

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
3.3  Tessylo  replied to  SteevieGee @3    2 years ago

They're already sending money to those schools, private schools and private religious schools, their parents should be paying the bill.  Not us.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.3.1  seeder  Vic Eldred  replied to  Tessylo @3.3    2 years ago

They do.

Parents who send their kids to religious schools pay twice. Once for the failing public schools and again for their own children's education.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
3.3.2  Jasper2529  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.3.1    2 years ago

Many folks don't realize this.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
3.3.3  Tessylo  replied to  Jasper2529 @3.3.2    2 years ago

We don't acknowledge the lies spread regarding public education by 'conservatives'/republicans/gqp.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
3.3.4  Jasper2529  replied to  Tessylo @3.3.3    2 years ago
We don't acknowledge ...

Not sure who "we" are, but I'm glad all of you did whatever.

gqp

I had to look this up and found it in the Urban Dictionary. Grand QAnon Party. Seems like a Marxist, far left, derogatory description of Republicans and Conservatives. Classy!

 
 
 
Jeremy Retired in NC
Professor Expert
3.3.5  Jeremy Retired in NC  replied to  Jasper2529 @3.3.4    2 years ago
derogatory description of Republicans and Conservatives. Classy!

That's what we've come to expect from the left.  Not surprising.

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Junior Expert
3.3.6  Drinker of the Wry  replied to  Tessylo @3.3.3    2 years ago
We don't acknowledge the lies spread regarding public education

Is that why you didn't list any?

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
3.3.7  Tessylo  replied to  Jasper2529 @3.3.4    2 years ago

Truthful description of republicans and 'conservatives' and today's gop.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
3.3.8  Jasper2529  replied to  Jeremy Retired in NC @3.3.5    2 years ago

From what I've read, Ilhan Omar was among the first to use it, so it's no surprise that radical Marxist media like Crooks and Ladders (and others) and their obedient sheep start using it, too.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
4  Jasper2529    2 years ago
Critical race theory is not taught in public schools. 

Yes, it is. After tremendous backlash, progressive/Marxist teacher union heads changed the name to DEI ... Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
4.1  Texan1211  replied to  Jasper2529 @4    2 years ago

The name change is just like putting lipstick on a pig.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
4.1.1  Jasper2529  replied to  Texan1211 @4.1    2 years ago

Yes, but what they don't understand is that Americans aren't as stupid as they think we are.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
4.1.2  Texan1211  replied to  Jasper2529 @4.1.1    2 years ago
Yes, but what they don't understand is that Americans aren't as stupid as they think we are.

Well, Democrats do have the majority, so that may be in doubt for some of us!

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
4.1.3  Jasper2529  replied to  Texan1211 @4.1.2    2 years ago
Well, Democrats do have the majority, so that may be in doubt for some of us!

Nothing lasts forever!

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
4.1.4  Texan1211  replied to  Jasper2529 @4.1.3    2 years ago
Nothing lasts forever!

Hallelujah!!!!

November doesn't seem all that far off.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
4.2  Tessylo  replied to  Jasper2529 @4    2 years ago

It was never taught in public schools K-12

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
5  JohnRussell    2 years ago

DeVos' rejection of the department she once led was well-received at the Moms for Liberty summit

According to  The Daily Beast , a spreadsheet accompanying the Williamson County letter of complaint contained several other stated concerns about the county's curriculum. An article about police brutality against civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s was criticized for its "negative view of Firemen and police." A fictional account of the American Civil War used with fifth-graders was deemed unsuitable because of its depictions of "out of marriage families between white men and black women".  A book about Galileo Galilei, an astronomer persecuted by the Catholic Church for theorizing the Earth revolves around the Sun, should, according to the spreadsheet, not be read without some counterbalancing praise of the church: "Where is the HERO of the church?", asks the spreadsheet notation, "to contrast with their mistakes? ... Both good and bad should be represented".  A picture book about seahorses was condemned for depicting "mating seahorses with pictures of positions and discussion of the male carrying the eggs." The Williamson County Moms for Liberty chapter told  The Daily Beast  in an e-mail: "Some books should be removed entirely. Some books are objectionable only because of how they are presented via the accompanying teacher's manual. And yes, some books would be better suited to a higher grade level due to their age inappropriate content."

Moms for Liberty - Wikipedia
 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
5.1  Texan1211  replied to  JohnRussell @5    2 years ago

Can you credibly explain why education in America has declined since the Dept. of Education's inception, without referencing Trump?

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
5.2  Tessylo  replied to  JohnRussell @5    2 years ago

They want to whitewash history like so many 'conservatives'/republicans/gqp

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
6  Hallux    2 years ago

Melissa Bosch rocks! /S

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Junior Expert
7  Drinker of the Wry    2 years ago

Abolish the Department of Education?

In 2018, we were 5th out of 37 OECD countries in per primary student spending but mediocre in reading and science and well below average in math,  

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
7.1  Texan1211  replied to  Drinker of the Wry @7    2 years ago

Democrats like to blame the results on a lack of spending.

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Junior Expert
7.1.1  Drinker of the Wry  replied to  Texan1211 @7.1    2 years ago

DC and Baltimore school system spending is among the highest in the nation and their student performance among the worst. If you don't include charter school students, DC might fall to the bottom of the list.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
7.1.2  Texan1211  replied to  Drinker of the Wry @7.1.1    2 years ago

Yeah, but some here will claim those facts are disinformation. Some can't even distinguish between ending the ineffective Dept. and ending public education, which says a whole lot about how well they have been educated.

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
7.2  Hallux  replied to  Drinker of the Wry @7    2 years ago

... but you were 1st in sports.

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Junior Expert
8  Drinker of the Wry    2 years ago

Well, maybe basketball and football.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
9  Tessylo    2 years ago

Rich Bitch Betsy DeVos knows absolutely nothing about public education which is why she wants to abolish it.  They think education should only be for those who can afford it and their own whitewashed version of it.  

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Junior Expert
10  Drinker of the Wry    2 years ago

My wife is a public school teacher in a wealthy county. 

Over the last 40 years, school support staffs have grown by exponentially, far outpacing  student growth. The numbers of guidance counselors, principals, assistant principals, administrators and instruction coordinators have more than doubled.  The cost of this growth is one reason why teachers are underpaid.  The amount of bureaucratic paper work impacts teacher preparation time.

It's now hard to remember that one of the reasons for establishing the  Dept of Ed was to improve administrative streamlining.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
10.1  Texan1211  replied to  Drinker of the Wry @10    2 years ago
improve administrative streamlining.

I don't think that could be argued for any government agency ever.

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Junior Expert
10.1.1  Drinker of the Wry  replied to  Texan1211 @10.1    2 years ago

Two big lies:

Feds, We are here to help,

Locals, We are happy to have you.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
11  seeder  Vic Eldred    2 years ago

The latest from the city by the bay:

FYAQsHbXgAEn_5J?format=jpg&name=large
Somebody tell the SF school board that Hispanic Americans don't want to be called "Latinx!"

 
 

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