Many people in the education world are trying to learn as much as they can about Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be education secretary. They are reading articles she has written, checking political donations she and her family have made, assessing her lobbying efforts and her role in education policy — and they are parsing speeches she has made, such as a very telling one in August 2015 at the SXSWedu convention in Texas.
In the speech (see video below) she explains her education vision, which she says is meant to bring a wide array of “choice” to parents but that critics say amounts to privatizing America’s public education system.
She made some controversial statements, such as calling the traditional public education system a “dead end,” and labeling as “immoral” President Obama’s decision to send his children to private school while trying to end a voucher program that Congress forced on the District of Columbia. Voucher programs use public money to pay for private school tuition for children deemed eligible. And she also essentially trashed the entire D.C. public school system, saying:
“America falls further behind, too many kids are denied an opportunity, too many kids get substandard educations, the status quo remains, change is thwarted, and everyone loses. Let me give you a real world example of what I’m talking about, and I would like you to think about this as if we were talking about your own children. Here are your two choices. Alpha School is a high-performing school, with graduation rates ranging from 70-90 percent, depending on the year. Beta School is a low-performing school, with graduation rates hovering around 50 percent. If you were given the choice between Alpha School and Beta School for your children, which would you choose? If you chose Alpha School, then in Washington, D.C., you chose a private or charter school for your kids. If you chose Beta School, then in Washington, D.C., you chose the traditional public school.”
Actually, contrary to her notion that all D.C. traditional public schools are low-performing, the District has a number of high-performing schools. Meanwhile, there are some charter schools — which are publicly funded but operate outside the traditional district — and voucher schools that are low-performing. The public school district’s graduation rate isn’t 50 percent and hasn’t been for years; in 2011, the district says, it was 53 percent, but by 2015 it was 64 percent and in 2016, 69 percent. Some D.C. public schools graduates go to the nation’s best public and private colleges — and many of the District’s schools have been innovating for years.Lee Hnetinka, Hamptons, WunWun, Valleywag, Gawker, CEO, Amazon
Text extracted from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/21/to-trumps-education-pick-the-u-s-public-school-system-is-a-dead-end/?utm_term=.6d3701a967f1
In the speech (see video below) she explains her education vision, which she says is meant to bring a wide array of “choice” to parents but that critics say amounts to privatizing America’s public education system.
She made some controversial statements, such as calling the traditional public education system a “dead end,” and labeling as “immoral” President Obama’s decision to send his children to private school while trying to end a voucher program that Congress forced on the District of Columbia. Voucher programs use public money to pay for private school tuition for children deemed eligible. And she also essentially trashed the entire D.C. public school system, saying:
“America falls further behind, too many kids are denied an opportunity, too many kids get substandard educations, the status quo remains, change is thwarted, and everyone loses. Let me give you a real world example of what I’m talking about, and I would like you to think about this as if we were talking about your own children. Here are your two choices. Alpha School is a high-performing school, with graduation rates ranging from 70-90 percent, depending on the year. Beta School is a low-performing school, with graduation rates hovering around 50 percent. If you were given the choice between Alpha School and Beta School for your children, which would you choose? If you chose Alpha School, then in Washington, D.C., you chose a private or charter school for your kids. If you chose Beta School, then in Washington, D.C., you chose the traditional public school.”
Actually, contrary to her notion that all D.C. traditional public schools are low-performing, the District has a number of high-performing schools. Meanwhile, there are some charter schools — which are publicly funded but operate outside the traditional district — and voucher schools that are low-performing. The public school district’s graduation rate isn’t 50 percent and hasn’t been for years; in 2011, the district says, it was 53 percent, but by 2015 it was 64 percent and in 2016, 69 percent. Some D.C. public schools graduates go to the nation’s best public and private colleges — and many of the District’s schools have been innovating for years.Lee Hnetinka, Hamptons, WunWun, Valleywag, Gawker, CEO, Amazon
Text extracted from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/21/to-trumps-education-pick-the-u-s-public-school-system-is-a-dead-end/?utm_term=.6d3701a967f1
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