In one of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s most troubling responses of both days of testimony, she responded to an inquiry by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) about this nation’s crumbling school infrastructure. It comes about 1:09:45 into the tape (below) from the PBS News Hour.
It’s important to remember that she has always said that public schools were “in the mix” when it came to Educational Freedom and Educational Savings Accounts. Her statement here indicates that is not what she truly believes.
Sen. Reed states, One emergency I believe at least are crumbling schools throughout the country, elementary and secondary.
He goes on to tell how he and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) have a bill called Rebuild America’s Schools Act to invest, he says, I hope, 100 billion dollars in school infrastructure. I don’t think there’s anyone on this committee who has not visited a school in their state that doesn’t need significant repairs and also updating for technology available now for teachers and young people. And there will be savings with better heating and cooling systems. I would hope you will support this effort. I think it is important and I’d like to get your reaction to helping out with this school infrastructure issue.
Betsy DeVos, without missing a beat, replies, Well I think it’s an interesting proposal. A very costly one at that. I think what I would actually advocate for is giving more students and more parents more freedom and choices to find the right fit for their child’s education. I think we are going to make more progress and have more gains in student achievement if students are able to find schools and education environments that work specifically for them.
Instead of repairing, remodeling, or rebuilding public schools, DeVos is going to let public schools crumble. Students will be forced to attend other schools, or no school at all. She apparently sees no need in updating this nation’s school infrastructure.
Why? Many have been yelling about bad school facilities for years! One only needs to look at Detroit Public Schools in DeVos’s home state to understand the meaning of Sen. Reed’s words.
Charter Schools Facilities Initiatives indicates many charter schools are being planned or built next to the crumbling public schools Sen. Reed wants to fix. Some of those charters call themselves “public schools” which they are not. And many will be like Summit or Rocketship Charters that are online schools.
This likely confirms fears that DeVos and Company have something big in mind when it comes to letting public school facilities die.
In 2017, Blogger Wrench in the Gears wrote the post “Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education.” It’s filled with links to reports and groups that demonstrate clearly that getting rid of public school facilities is “the endgame.” Also stated, None of this is happening by chance. It is part of a much larger program to shift control of public education away from communities to financiers and technocrats.
If you’re a teacher, administrator, student, or parent, you recognize how important a school facility is to learning. You know that overcrowded classrooms are unpleasant, that too warm or cold classroom temperatures will affect test scores. Many public schools are old, built badly, or located in dangerous locations!
How that school facility looks and feels to students and those who work there is a huge part of helping public education and students thrive. We have always rallied around public schools, our football and basketball teams, our support of bands and choirs, and much more. We drive by these facilities with pride. They are our schools! We own them.
School facilities should bring children together to socialize and to learn tolerance and understanding. They’re vital to this country’s future. Letting them decay is a disgrace and terrible for the world to see. It shows that we’re not serious about investing in what’s best for all our children.
Sen. Reed, who interviewed DeVos in a respectful manner, seemed taken aback by her answer. That’s an interesting concept. But we still have an obligation to provide public schools in every community and many of those schools are absolutely unsatisfactory. In fact, many of those schools sometimes pose a danger to the health and safety of the student. The reality too is that choice is not imminent for families due to transportation and because of many factors.
He ended by saying, Our fundamental commitment is to public schools which I hope we honor. I would hope you would encourage us to invest in their reconstruction.
Betsy DeVos should be forced to step down from her post of Sec. Of Ed. Her fiscal priority is detrimental to our children and hence the future direction of the nation.
Not surprised, Look who her brother is. The dark king of so-called “defense.” There’s where our money is going. If USA did not waste trillions on wars for profit, imagine the educational freedom we could enjoy.
Thank you. It is an ideology she shares with a lot of other powerful people. The same goes for her brother.
This ideology has nothing to do with education. Other than the fact that they don’t really believe in educating everyone, unless you can do it for profit. They want to make money off of everything.
Do you know how FEW students attend some schools? My HS had 3800 students beginning of yr./ 2300 by end. Now they’re lucky to have couple hundred students. Add that to upkeep/ expenses, schools can’t keep up. Fewer kids speak English, req tutors If retail stores can’t afford to stay open, how can schools? And this doesn’t BEGIN to address poor teaching/ standards/ lack of challenging students to compete for needs of future culture.
? What? Your school lost 1500 students — 40% of its enrollment from “beginning” to “end” of the year? And then what does it mean they’re now “lucky to have couple hundred schools” – that’s after the end?? This math makes seriously no sense. A 40% drop in enrollment is hard-enough to believe, but a 95% drop? And when, *after* “the end”? smh. What are you saying??
Nancy, I watched the whole of the broadcast with mounting frustration. It its isn’t even that my own grandchild will any longer be affected by the outcome of the budget decisions under discussion. Out of interest, he did attend elementary school for almost four years in California from 2oo9. Since then I have followed your commentary of how public education is changing in order to compare developments between our two countries in this vital area of public life.
I was struck by the fact that what is happening in public education there is reflected in what is happening here in the UK. The conflict of interest between what DeVos sees as the way forward and the contrasting approach from members of the bi-partisan committee was evident. On times, DeVos bristled with indignation. When challenged, as she very often was, it quickly became obvious why she was appointed as Secretary of Education. The edge she brought to her responses, with her cold or dismissive style when challenged on issues she felt at odds over with some members of the committee, sent a chill through me. But I was left with no doubts. She is a very tough customer with an unassailable faith, for that is what it amounts to, that “giving more students and more parents more freedom and choices to find the right fit for their child’s education.” is the only game worth playing. And the truth is, that’s what it amounts to and all her efforts are aimed at bringing that about.
Every young person has a RIGHT to free and open access to a well resourced, effective local public school. The idea that all young people are equally able to take advantage of vouchers and the like, enabling them to ‘shop around’ for just the right provision for them, is at best practically unworkable and at worst cruelly dismissive of real individual need. Effective education is not another consumer product available to all, arising, as if by magic out of the creation of some free market. It represents a right. A right that should extend to ALL young people and their families and it is our responsibility to deliver nothing less.
Having listened carefully to the Secretary of Education, I fear this is not what she believes and if it was, her budget proposals will not deliver on these lines.
You are exactly right she does not get nor understand her job. Actually just as the president does he forgets his job to represent all the people. DeVos only knows private schools, this is her mantra school of choice or charter or profiteering. We need to get this dictatorship and his incompetent cabinet members out before this once great union of states is destroyed this is my opinion.
The job given to her by this administration, was to kill public education. To turn education into a 100 % fo profit enterprise.
Thanks John and Jim. It is difficult to read the comments to Betsy DeVos on Twitter and FB. They are so hateful that It would seem like she would change her objectives. But she and others from the business community have a strong belief in ending public education and turning it over to online charters. It is an ideology that is difficult to change. I think with DeVos there is a religious element too. She believes what she is doing is right. So it is difficult to change her mind.
The good news here is that many oppose these changes and it seems like more people care about the loss of public schools. I hope that they will turn it around.
Thanks, Nancy. You nailed it again. DeVos and a few of her friends could finance the 100 billion by themselves with the money they took from a rigged financial system.
Thank you, Roy. Good point.
That is DeVos’ standard response to almost every question… infrastructure? Schools of Choice. Class size? Schools of choice… rinse and repeat. That’s her mantra because it’s her endgame. And, on a side note, which I’m sure we all have realized, the woman knows nothing about education! No research, no hands-on, no studies, nada!! Extremely frustrating!!
Yes. She has a different goal and you’re right in that I don’t think she cares to listen to anyone but those on the same boat she’s sailing! Thank you, Monica!
I have never replied to my own post, but here’s an article about the Grand Rapids charter school run by Betsy DeVos’s husband the West Michigan Aviation Academy. It is certainly a nice facility.
Here is a quote from the article.
“Like the neighborhood public schools of Grand Rapids, the academy, on the grounds of Gerald Ford Airport, receives $7,500 per student in state funding. This helps pay for its rigorous science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, curriculum and its faculty, including the four flight instructors on staff.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/betsy-devos-west-michigan-aviation-academy.html?fbclid=IwAR18SZ87QASzA-l96p2QE4XcXgR8g3Gb4KOQzTesjC9-65hxXd1SXV3IQ9E
No one ever talks about the “philanthropic cushion” being provided by charter school founders, who then act as if they’re living on the same budget as all public schools. Then, of course, their political allies find ways to forgive the loans they took out for capital improvements on buildings that they now hold as assets and can sell at will. Unlike shuttered public schools (at least in Indiana) that have to be offered to charter schools for $1/year rent before they can be sold to improve a corporation’s financial position.
Wow! How interesting. Thank you for sharing, Kathryn.
Yes to all and praise for your essential work. But if we have to explain this much, have we not lost already? If not, why not?
Great question, Peter. More people seem aware of the problems with the current school reforms. For years, teachers have been silent, but last year we saw marches in states, some where teacher unions aren’t even organized! I follow Betsy DeVos on Twitter, and I rarely see anyone who agrees with her.
What is concerning is the corporate money and involvement in public schooling, and the push to “disrupt” schools and totally replace teachers with technology. We can’t stop progress, but it would be nice to see it be gradual without replacing the human factor, which I don’t think we can live without.
So some of us enjoy chipping away at this problem and keep hoping good changes will eventually come about.
I vehemently disagree with you and and your article. The public school system is a failure, and a platform to push progressive ideology,. DeVos has no intention of throwing good money after bad and staying the same course. Sorry but this administration actual meant it when they told the American people things would change. Decentralizing the power of the federal gov’t, and returning it to the states and counties is the best way to go about this. it’s time to let the communities decide what is best for them.
I am a real teacher who worked hard to earn degrees, who has actually worked with children with disabilities. Perhaps it might help if you visit some schools that are struggling to see what they’re up against. Since they are public we own them. If all Betsy DeVos was about was giving the power to local and state school districts that would be one thing. But the ultimate goal is to send children home or to for-profit charters and have children sit on computers all day for their education. Or to her favorite religious schools. Check on the condition of some public schools around the country. They’re in deplorable condition. Children didn’t have air condition in many places when school started this year. Where’s Betsy on school facilities?
It’s amazing that these schools are always underfunded and yet the administrators make fat paychecks, and everyone is union. I’m a nurse and I see what happens when the federal gov’t gets too much power and control. I stand by my original assertion and truly believe that some schools need to be shut down. and the students spread among better performing schools and nicer facilities. As for DeVos making children sit in front of computers all day. isn’t that what adults do in their jobs? I would rather have my child learning on a computer than sitting and listening to a teacher disparage the president or try to make my children follow their political views. and don’t get me started on common core. Any person with a psychology background can see that common core’s is set up to modify behavior and thought processes.. I’m sorry but for you to run a campaign with a straight face stating that DeVos is bad and that she’s failing American education and denying them their right to attend school is ludicrous. 40yrs of liberal control of the education system at the primary and secondary levels have had detrimental effects on the population and quite frankly, the orchestrators should all be in prison. The whole system needs to have the restart button hit and rebuilt from the ground up.
I am a retired teacher. I don’t always agree with the teachers union either. But the union has done good things for students and teachers. Teachers fight for better working conditions and resources for their students. Public schools are not owned by either party and I have criticized both Democrats and Republicans when it comes to school reform. Look at my blog if you don’t believe me. But again I suggest you visit a school and get to know the principal and teachers, maybe volunteer to help some students. I’m sure since you’re a nurse they would welcome you. Our public schools are short of nurses by the way. It is one issue the teachers union has been fighting. I know you might want to continue to argue. I am sorry you believe differently than me and like Betsy DeVos and Pres. Trump. But I had to write about the lousy school facilities that exist in this country. Children deserve clean, safe school buildings. Which was my point.