DeVos Confirmed

[Iceweasel]

To get rid of indoctrination, start by eliminating the pledge of allegiance...the biggest form of indoctrination. I have a hard time pledging allegiance to a country....I pledge allegiance to my lord and savior. Then cut back on all history classes as that will not get a kid a job that pays six figures.

The country enables dumb assholes like you to have a pretty good standard of living with freedoms seen no where else. History is very important, those that don't know it are doomed to repeat it. Liberals are living proof.

 

[BlackFlag]

Just saw this and that it was pretty spot on

 

[initforme]

Is that the best you have Icy? Cmon surely you can do better. Can't you come up with better names than that? The country doesn't enable me, I enabled myself. I worked and saved. Why I am the assho!e you want to be. I worked, saved, had a family, and retired. I did it...not my country. My allegiance is to god above all else, then my family. Country is on the list, just not near the top.

 

[Iceweasel]

Is that the best you have Icy? Cmon surely you can do better. Can't you come up with better names than that? The country doesn't enable me, I enabled myself. I worked and saved. Why I am the assho!e you want to be. I worked, saved, had a family, and retired. I did it...not my country. My allegiance is to god above all else, then my family. Country is on the list, just not near the top.

Can I come up with a better name than dumb asshole for you? Nope. Many a good man and woman has died for your freedoms. Thank God most religious folks don't have your disdain for country.

 

[saveliberty]

I hope sheltered private schools are ready to take on the most violent disruptive kids as now they will get to influx the snooty elitist rich kids schools. With no possibility of expulsion. And if we want top flight teachers to clean up inner city schools then we will have to offer them a six figure salary to get it done. Americans are cheapskates by nature. Their biggest interest is keeping costs low. Every adult should have to teach for one year....and accept the pittance pay as well. I will make a billion selling anti anxiety meds. The general public is ignorant of how today's kids function.

What makes you think the government should involve itself with private schools? I can assure you we were not rich when our kids attended a private school. It was a choice of where money was spent. Pardon me, but it is moronic to assume every adult can teach, just as it is equally stupid to suggest the public is ignorant of how kids function today. Where do you think those kids came from?

 

[saveliberty]

Finnish schools have no mandatory testing, a very strong union, and are looked up to respectfully. In america, even the best teachers are hated passionately.

Simply untrue. I have two currently that are held in high esteem by students, administration and parents.

 

[LogikAndReazon]

Our schools need to get back to focusing on diversity, inclusiveness, bullying, safe spaces, tolerance, gender studies, gay rights, misogyny, white privelege, intersectional feminism, structural racism, marxism, globalism and Americas colonialist, militarist, adventurism....

For the kiddies !!!!!!! Lmfao

 

[saveliberty]

Ironically, imparting education to the masses, is and was an attempt to give us a common understanding of how the world works and give useful tools in dealing with that world. Now some think we need to teach to each individual.

 

[PredFan]

A loss of hope for the progressives and new hope for our children.

 

[buckeye45_73]

The DeVos Family rained $1 million in "donations" to Republican senators prior to her confirmation. Marco Rubio got the biggest chunk - nearly $100,000

The US Senate sold your childrens' future down the river for a mere $1 million. Wonder how much Exxon paid for Tillerson's confirmation. It should be chump change compared to the money that can be made off Putin's oil.

Yeah the democrats use their own.money like Trump .....oh wait its a billion plus of special interest money.

 

[buckeye45_73]

This woman is not only unqualified, she's uneducated, and can't form a proper sentence.

She donated quite a lot of to Trump's campaign and donated money to a lot of other republican senators.

It doesnt get any better than this folks, roflmao.

Hahah yeah Trunp didnt take big money donations...unlike hillary. The ignorance.of the left is breath taking.

 

[buckeye45_73]

As a teacher I am extremely disappointed. The fact that she is a republican or basically brought her position doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that she has 0% experience in education and never taught a day in her life.

In the end our children will suffer.

As a university professor, I will welcome an influx of students capable and willing to meet our requirements. By-the-way, what are the requirements for DeVos's job? I am still looking for a definitive list of those requirements.

Being a carpet munching womens studies professor I guess, since there is no requirements

 

[Windship]

Thank you Mike Pence and good to see they Republicans who need to be defeated, without losing a confirmation!


Another stinging loss for the democrats.

Tillerson.....confirmed
Devoss..confirmed


Maybe one day democrats will get their heads out of their asses, but keep protesting and blocking everything........er Trying to block everything. Lolololololololol

The democrats?!! Fuck the democrats. What about a stinging loss for The American People...The REAL American People?

 

[Windship]

Ok...health care for profit=failure. Now we will do the same with education. The wealthy spit on the poor.

 

[Flash]

The US Government screws up almost everything it touches. The US Government has really screwed up education. Most money spent in the world with the least to show for it. Time for a little good ole competition.

 

[Windship]

As we tear down the institutions that made Us great, you cheer. Man!

 

[Windship]

The US Government screws up almost everything it touches. The US Government has really screwed up education. Most money spent in the world with the least to show for it. Time for a little good ole competition.

That is a crock of shit and you know it. Whenever you put profit in front of quality, it always fails. Look at the quality of goods coming out of china....same thing.

 

[Windship]

The US Government screws up almost everything it touches. The US Government has really screwed up education. Most money spent in the world with the least to show for it. Time for a little good ole competition.

Yeah, competition...lets see who can build the cheapest goods and profit the most. Its all about the wealthy getting more tax payer dollars and fuck education.

 

[Windship]

You people with you right wing propaganda...Ive been watching this bull shit for 50 years. I remember when schools GOT the funding they needed. I remember. The ones that believe your right wing propaganda have no basis for comparison and believe your bull shit. They ignore history. This is nothing more than the furthering of the transfer of more wealth, isnt it. Just tell the truth.

 

[Windship]

THE BLOG
The Defunding of Public Education and the Creation of a Permanent Underclass
03/18/2014 06:40 pm ET | Updated May 18, 2014
520

Julia Meszaros Post Doctoral Fellow University of South Florida



Since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001, the state of public education has become abysmal in many urban areas. As mentioned in my other blog about private prisons and the creation of a permanent underclass, a school-to-prison pipeline has been created in many areas. I argue that the concurrent defunding of public education through the No Child Left Behind Act and the privatization of juvenile detention facilities creates a permanent underclass that is meant to fill prison beds. My last blog examined the prison side of the pipeline, while this one will examine the educational side.

NCLB was supposed to close the educational achievement gap by introducing high stakes testing and federal mandates as a precursor of public funding for education. Public schools are expected to reach a proficiency level of 100 percent in this year in order for their funds to remain intact. Schools with large ESL and special education students are held to the same test score standards as their native English-speaking, non special education students. By the last count, nearly half of all American public schools are now considered failing. Once a school has not reached its benchmark test scores for two years, teachers are fired, the administration is fired, and the school closes and then is taken over by the state or replaced by a private or charter school, which themselves are controversial and are not required to meet the same standards as regular public schools.

Instead of abolishing NCLB, the Obama administration has instituted even more punitive measures in its Race to the Top program, as it moves the accountability for tests scores down from the state to the individual teachers. This encourages teachers to focus on ‘teaching to the test’ and many schools now exclusively focus on teaching English and Math skills and barely teach Social Studies, the Sciences, Music, Art and Physical Education due to focus of the standardized tests required by NCLB. In addition to increased scrutiny, teachers have been increasingly subject to vilification for the entire nation’s educational woes. Teacher’s only benefits, such as collective bargaining rights and tenure have disappeared in states like Wisconsin and Tennessee. While many people have issues with unions, the abysmally low salaries of our teachers provide most educators with little incentive to teach.

Every politician in the U.S. argues that they want to improve our educational standards, but none of them move towards repealing NCLB or paying teachers higher salaries. As more urban ‘failing’ schools close down, more students will end up utilizing school voucher programs to attend private or charter schools, if they do not end up in juvenile facilities. Voucher programs are also extremely problematic, as they divert tons of public tax payer money earmarked for education and give them to private or charter schools. People have supported the voucher program, as it is named ‘school choice,’ and this discourse allows parents to feel empowered, through giving them a neoliberalized model of choice: have your child attend a failing public school or an unregulated charter school or a parochial private school. These are not in fact real ‘choices,’ since attending a successful public school is often no longer even a possibility for many students.

I argue that the goal of NCLB is not to close the achievement gap, but instead is aimed at widening that gap and destroying public education at the same time. I wonder, once public education is destroyed in this country, will we revert back to the days where only wealthy students were guaranteed an education? Will poor students need to find a wealthy benefactor, like Mozart did, in order to attain an education? Will we no longer provide a guaranteed education to every citizen? This is why I argue that we are creating a permanent underclass with the defunding and destruction of public education. And once again, this permanent underclass is often composed of African American and Latino male youth. Since NCLB’s passing, schools have officially become more segregated than they were forty years ago.

As an academic, we are often told to be critical but are rarely encouraged to offer solutions. However, in this case I would like to propose a solution. My solution is to work to convince our local congressmen to repeal the No Child Left Behind Act, as well as Race to the Top, and work with teachers to write a new educational bill that does not measure success based entirely upon test scores. We also need to pay teachers higher salaries and restore some of the basic incentives for teaching, such as collective bargaining and tenure. Another important step in this process is to petition local government representatives to end private incarceration and redirect money from incarceration towards education. Education is the key to lowering crime, but the U.S. spends $40,000 on each prisoner and spends $8,000 on each student. This number needs to be reversed. Elections are coming up soon and we need to make this issue a major priority in every campaign.