Waving Education Goodbye

Personally, I had never heard about the secretary of education until this year’s sobering nominee came up. Trump’s cabinet member picks were quite easily the most ridiculous in presidential history, but the pick that stirred me the most was the nomination of Betsy DeVos. We share none of the same values and I was outraged that anyone — even crazy Donald Trump — could nominate her. In case you are unable to see the pattern in Trump’s picks, they are all millionaires and extremely unqualified to fill the positions they are nominated for. Betsy DeVos is no exception. After reading up on DeVos, I came across three major glaring reasons proving Betsy DeVos’s incompetence. One: Her past history in Michigan. Two: Her statements and struggle to be confirmed. Three: What the education department has already done under her management.

DeVos is undeniably unqualified to hold any position presiding over public education. DeVos never attended public school, none of her children were sent to public schools — instead her daughters were home schooled and the sons were sent to a private christian school costing around $10,000 a year (Wang, Timmons). However, miraculously, DeVos is a former chairman for the Republican party in Michigan where she worked to privatize public schools. This is such an oxymoron, if you ask me. She also led big pushes for charter schools in Michigan and the results were not in her favor. Most of those schools recorded test scores below state average (Strauss). Betsy DeVos was able to use her millions of dollars to crash Michigan’s education system into the ground, so putting this woman in charge of the US education budget of around 70 billion is not a good choice for our public schools.

The one silver lining is that millions of students and citizens and even a few republican politicians were able to see the lunacy in this candidate and speak against her. Twitter and other social media platforms went wild with users voicing their opposition to Betsy DeVos. Senators Sanders, Franken, and Warren schooled DeVos in the hearings. The interrogation that best proves her incompetency was when Minnesota senator Al Franken asked DeVos how she valued growth and proficiency. Here is that exchange:

“I think, if I’m understanding your question correctly around

proficiency, I would also correlate it to competency and mastery, so

that each student is measured according to the advancement they’re making in each subject area,” she told Minnesota Sen. Al Franken .

“Well, that’s growth. That’s not proficiency,” Franken responded.

“This is a subject that has been debated in the education community for years,” Franken said. “It surprises me that you don’t know this issue.”

This should’ve been enough to squash DeVos’s nomination, but it didn’t. It was effective in converting several republican senators to no votes, but unfortunately the senate still tied — a first in confirmation history. Even though some republican senators voted against DeVos, she was saved by the lovely Mike Pence with the tie breaking vote. Her lack of experience is laid out so clearly in just this one response, but apparently it wasn’t enough.

The last and most entertaining reason I have such strong feelings against DeVos is thanks to her personal and the US department of education’s twitter pages. DeVos and the USDE tweeted out a series of error ridden tweets that did not go unnoticed. Everyone from your average Joe to Merriam Webster and the NAACP chimed in to fix the errors. The first came from DeVos’s personal twitter page the day of the inauguration. The message was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors and even after the mistakes were called out, her apology tweet still was wrong.

This is the woman in charge of our education everybody! And this was just the first. The next came from the USDE page. In honor of Black History Month, the US department of education tweeted out this picture

With the following caption: “Education must not simply teach work — it must teach life. — W.E.B. DeBois”. Twitterers around the country expressed their disappointment and frustrations sub tweeting the tweet. This may not have directly been the work of Betsy DeVos, but it fueled the growing flame of distrust in her management.

Even with the expectations low in Trump’s cabinet picks, Betsy DeVos is a new low. The evidence overwhelmingly shows her incompetence and displays her lack of experience. From her shaky past to the rocky road she went down to getting confirmed to the disappointing results already coming from the department, it is clear that Betsy DeVos should not be in the position she has.

Sources:

“Betsy DeVos Reacts To Grammatical Errors In Tweet.” CBS Detroit. CBS, 23 Jan. 2017. Web.

“Betsy DeVos Struggled to Answer These Education Questions.” Time. Time, n.d. Web. 22 Feb.

2017.

Kircher, Madison Malone. “Department of Education Misspells W.E.B. Du Bois Tweet, Also

Misspells Apology.” Select All. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

Strauss, Valerie. “A Sobering Look at What Betsy DeVos Did to Education in Michigan — and

What She Might Do as Secretary of Education.” The Washington Post. WP Company, 08

Dec. 2016. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

Strauss, Valerie. “DeVos’s Education Department Misspells Name of NAACP Co-founder in

Tweet — and the Apology Had a Mistake.” The Washington Post. WP Company, 12 Feb. 2017. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

Willman, Mitchell. “Public University Students React to Betsy DeVos’ Confirmation as Secretary

of Education.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 07 Feb. 2017. Web.

22 Feb. 2017.

Wang, Amy X., and Heather Timmons. “What Makes Trump’s Pick of Betsy DeVos as Education

Secretary so Controversial.” Quartz. Quartz, 17 Jan. 2017. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.