DeVos vs Obama on education

[John Sneed]

Two things pop into my mind. First, when I was enrolling in an M.Ed. program at Minot State University they made me take an English competency exam to be able to enroll without having to take remedial classes. It was mostly spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. FWIW I scored a 99%.

I also remember when I pastored in Nebraska a discussion came up about the need to offer remedial writing classes at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Students were enrolling who could not write basic papers and didn't know how. This was considered a problem because seminary students come to work on masters and doctoral degrees. That means all of the have bachelor and masters degrees. This was back in the very late 90s or the turn of the millennium.

I don't argue that educational programs need to be funded. I have to agree in principle with William though. If you have a failing program with failing ideas, throwing money at it will only help the program fail in a more spectacular style. Education is strength and a good education is vital to any chance of success in life. We need to rethink our approaches to education. Like most things, it will probably be painful. But we need to figure out what works and what doesn't and we need to finance those educational schemes that succeed. I know, you will say, tell us what they are. I imagine smarter people than me will have to sort those categories out.

Just a few thoughts.

[Dave Roberts]

John, while I am one of the most vocal supporters here of public education, I for one don't think that throwing money at education is the answer. However, when we don't fund the basic needs of teachers and, in fact, give them a tax deduction for what they must spend out of pocket that the public doesn't fund, we are desperately underfunding schools. Also, the local politics of school life is astounding. When I served on a school planning commission for a Virginia school district, one of our recommendations was the close some schools and realign school districts based on current, not 1940's populations, there was an immediate outcry. When our report was presented, every community that might lose a local school, even one where grades had to be combined because school populations were too small or where a building that was built in the 1920's required endless high-dollar repairs, people were not willing to allow a reduction in school costs in order to alter the landscapes of schools. There is an economy of scale also in education. I now live in a combined city/county school district. Each year, there is a fight between city and county over who can make the smaller contribution each year. The concern is not education but a posturing to keep the local contributions down in order to get re-elected to the city council or county board. It amounts to another strangulation of public education. The current high school needs desperately to be replaced as the buildings leak every time it rains where buildings have been joined together to add additional space. The leakage is not just from the roofs but also through the walls of a couple of those buildings. I don't want anybody throwing money at the problem, but give schools tools to work with.

By the way, there are two private school systems that reach into our area, both from neighboring counties. Their unstated purpose is still to preserve segregated schools. That is not an alternative for education, IMHO. Yes, they can offer less expensive education for college prep and general education, but they do not provide either special education or vocational education. They also do not need to run buses to every corner of the county.

[Dave Roberts]

This morning the Dallas Morning News published the following editorial from a Rice University education professor. It definitely paint DeVos in a difficult light.

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[Sandy]

Maybe this link will work better--

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comme ... ept-absurd

[Sandy]

The whole idea of Betsy DeVos as education secretary is absurd, not because of the position that she holds, but because she is so pathetically unqualified. I'm an advocate for a limited form of school choice, and all evidence points to the clear need for reform in American education. But she, like almost all of Trump's non-military cabinet appointees, got the job because of the amounts of money she's contributed to the campaigns of most of the Republicans who confirmed her, not because she's done anything outstanding in education. What work she has done in education has been a monumental failure in every way except generating profits for investors. The outcome of her venture was to take the run down, failing Detroit school system, rob it of some of its funding to put in the pockets of the already rich, and simply add to the number of failed, gang-ridden schools in the city, though now they have even fewer resources than before. So, yipee, folks! Lets see if she can do the same thing nationally!

I'm a proponent of school finance reform, and school choice. Throwing money at public schools doesn't solve the problems, because they are deep-seated, related to the way schools are operated and administered, and how outcomes are measured. But bankrupting the public school system, and allowing tax dollars to seep into for-profit schemes only limits the resources available for students, and it doesn't resolve the administrative problems that still cause failure to produce outcomes.

I will say, too, that the impression that is slathered around about private, religious based schools, and particularly private Christian schools is largely false. We do not just take the cream of the crop. Even though we are tuition driven in most cases, most families are making deep cuts into family budgets for luxuries that most people take for granted to send their kids because a quality education and their spiritual development is a priority. We do not "pre-select" the successes, and cast out the failures. If you were looking hard enough, I'm sure you could find a religious-based school that fit that profile, but they are the exception, not the rule. And we're not asking for taxpayers to fund our ministry, we are asking for our parents to be allowed to determine the destination of the tax dollars they pay, or for their expenses to be deductible in providing the education for their kids that they want them to have.

[John Sneed]

Dave and Sandy,

I am hearing what you are saying. The fact is, the solution, at its root is painfully simple, but painful to bear. We need to change how we think about the structure of our public school systems. When Dave says recommendations were made and rejected because it would change the way things were done in certain people's districts, then those people and they way they view the school system needs to change. But humans fear change and will resist it when they can. But until people change their thinking I am afraid we will be stuck with 21st century realities using 1940s vintage information. I have always thought of myself as a smart guy (even if Ed says I am "undereducated"). But this problem is going to take some seriously smart and innovative thinkers.

[Dave Roberts]

[Sandy]

[Joseph Patrick]

[William Thornton]

[Haruo]

Has anybody considered throwing the money at the kids instead of the schools? Pay them to bring their own scores up?

[Dave Roberts]

[Joseph Patrick]

From Joseph Patrick...aka Gerry Milligan
William said: "DeVos hasnt implemented any measures and thus hasn't failed. There's no measure of success for her 20 days of service so far."
Maybe she has not implemented any measure but she caved in to #45 and Sessions by rather quickly reversing herself on transgender toilets. To me her spinelessness was failure.

[William Thornton]

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

[Haruo]

Can't see why it can't be replicated with public funding. Don't know how it is in your states, but when they pushed through the Lottery here in Washington it was on the promise that the profits would be earmarked for education. (Don't think they quite kept up their end of the bargain, but still, a lottery provides lots of easy money.)

[Sandy]