{"id":19570,"date":"2017-01-18T05:44:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T05:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=19570"},"modified":"2017-01-18T05:44:25","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T05:44:25","slug":"devos-outlines-vision-u-s-department-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/devos-outlines-vision-u-s-department-education.html","title":{"rendered":"DeVos outlines vision for U.S. Department of Education"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DeVos outlines vision for U.S. Department of Education<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

DeVos outlines vision for U.S. Department of Education:-\u00a0<\/strong>Betsy DeVos, a Michigan advocate for school choice and vouchers and President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s nominee for education secretary, vowed Tuesday to protect any schools \u2013 public, private or otherwise \u2013 as long as they are working for students and parents and serving their needs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Facing Democrats who questioned DeVos\u2019 support of school choice and what it may mean for public schools, DeVos said she supports \u201cany great school\u201d \u2013 including public schools and those beyond what \u201cthe (public school) system thinks is best for kids to what moms and dads want, expect and deserve.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot all schools are working for the students that are assigned to them. I\u2019m hoping we can work together to find common ground,\u201d DeVos said, rebuffing a request by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that she vow not to propose funding cuts for any public schools.<\/span><\/p>\n

DeVos, 59, stepped before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for a rare nighttime confirmation hearing, facing a broad spectrum of questions that ranged from early childhood education, free college and the Obama administration\u2019s crackdown on college sexual assaults to her own personal beliefs about sexual orientation and any support she gave for controversial \u201cconversion therapy,\u201d which she denied.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in equality and I firmly believe in the intrinsic value of each individual, and that every student should have the assurance of a safe and discrimination-free place to become educated,\u201d said DeVos, telling U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., that as regards the alleged support, she might \u201cbe confusing some other family members in some of those contributions, and also looking at contributions from 18 or 20 years ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a mom I just can\u2019t imagine having a child that would feel discriminated against for any reason, and I would want my child in a safe environment,\u201d she said. She acknowledged, however, that her family may have given as much as $200 million to Republican candidates and causes over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to questions, she also promised that neither she nor her husband, former Amway head and heir Dick DeVos, would be politically active while she serves, if she is confirmed. She also said that given her family\u2019s complex financial arrangements, she will resolve any conflicts of interest. \u201cI will not be conflicted,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also defended her support of charter schools and school choice in Detroit, saying there is \u201ca lot that has gone right in Detroit\u201d given the poverty there and rebuking reports that charter schools haven\u2019t delivered as big a change in education in the city as promised.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Democrats went on the attack, Republicans on the committee lined up to defend her: The chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., opened the hearing with a strong endorsement, saying, \u201cBetsy DeVos in my opinion is on our children\u2019s side \u2026 I believe she\u2019s in the mainstream of public opinion and her critics are not.\u201d He went onto say she has fought to help low-income parents have choice in education options and that 73% of Americans support school choice<\/span><\/p>\n

Told by DeVos that she supports public education, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said, \u201cMan that\u2019s amazing, you would think some would have us think you do not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

DeVos came into the confirmation hearing a week after it had initially been scheduled and three days before Trump\u2019s inauguration at the U.S. Capitol. Democrats, teachers\u2019 unions and others have loudly denounced DeVos\u2019 nomination, arguing that her vocal support of vouchers and school choice programs could undermine public schools.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBetsy DeVos is a billionaire who has spent her career & fortune rigging the system to privatize and defund public ed,\u201d Randi Weingarten, head of the 1.6-million-member American Federation of Teachers union in a tweet earlier today.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alexander said the committee could vote on DeVos\u2019 nomination as early as next Tuesday, after which it would be sent to the floor of the U.S. Senate for final confirmation. Murray, the top Democrat on the panel, complained that the hearing should have been delayed until the Office of Government Ethics sent a letter on DeVos and any agreements she will make to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Democrats, who have little chance of blocking DeVos\u2019 nomination, still put up strong resistance at Tuesday\u2019s hearing. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tried to pin DeVos on a commitment to enforce employment rules at for-profit institutions; Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., urged DeVos to embrace free tuition at all public colleges and universities, which she called \u201ca really interesting idea\u201d but said policy makers have to \u201cconsider that in life nothing is truly free, somebody will pay for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In a particularly sharp exchange, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, asked DeVos if she or any family members had ever taken out a loan or been awarded a grant from the federal government to pay for college. DeVos said she hadn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Warren then noted that Trump last year paid a $25 million settlement to students of Trump University who complained that they didn\u2019t get what they paid for. Asked if DeVos would enforce rules that require career colleges to offer saleable skills to students, DeVos said instead that she would \u201creview\u201d the rule.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand about \u2018reviewing\u2019 it. We talked about this in my office,\u201d said Warren. \u201cThere are already rules in place to stop waste, fraud and abuse and I don\u2019t understand how you cannot be sure about enforcing them. \u2026 If you can\u2019t commit to use the tools that are already available to you in the Department of Education, then I don\u2019t see how you can be the secretary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She also declined to vow to keep in place Obama administration rules requiring colleges and universities to be more responsible for cracking down on sexual assaults, saying she needs to look at them. \u201cSexual assault anywhere and any place is a problem,\u201d she said. Pushed by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to say whether guns belong in schools, DeVos said it\u2019s an issue \u201cbest left to locales and states to decide.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She added that for a school in a place like rural Idaho, educators might need \u201ca gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Protesters, many of them from Michigan, attended the hearing, filling up a hallway outside the packed committee room. Among them was 17-year-old Dannah Wilson, who had ridden one of two buses from Detroit the night before with about 120 other people. Wilson, a senior at Cornerstone Leadership and Business High School, a Detroit private school, said she\u2019d come \u201crepresenting students across Detroit. I just honestly want to know how she feels and responds to these questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson said her mother pays $11,000 for her and each of her two younger sisters to attend the school.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s mother, Dawn Wilson-Clark, said her five children have attended some 22 Detroit schools in all. \u201cChoice is not the issue,\u201d she said. \u201cThe issue is quality. We have a lot of choices, but they\u2019re not quality and the charter schools are not held to the same accountability that the public schools are.\u201d At one point last year, Wilson-Clark said, she was driving 200 miles a week to four different schools \u201ctrying to get my children a quality education.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shoniqua Kemp, another Detroit parent with the 482 Forward education organizing network, said \u201cquality is a problem\u201d in Detroit schools, even with a wide array of choices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSchool choices can be a good thing \u2013 however, give me quality. My choice shouldn\u2019t be \u2018Rancid tomato\u2019 or \u2018Pick one from the garbage.\u2019 That\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

DeVos came into the hearing with many supporters. Writing in the Detroit News today, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder praised her selection, saying she \u201chas a big heart and she believes strongly that parental control of education through school choice is integral to improving the performance of our K-12 system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cContrary to the misleading picture the teachers unions are trying to paint, she shares her support for school choice with several fair-minded and prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama\u2019s two education secretaries, John King and Arne Duncan,\u201d Snyder wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several school reformers, including political rivals of Trump\u2019s, have praised DeVos. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called her “an outstanding pick,\u201d saying her allegiance \u201cis to families, particularly those struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder, not to an outdated public education model that has failed them from one generation to the next.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all, she\u2019s a pretty conventional choice,\u201d said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning Washington think tank.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hess noted last month that President Obama\u2019s 2015 nomination of King, then New York\u2019s education commissioner, \u201cwas greeted courteously and approved rapidly\u201d by the Republican-controlled Senate, despite King\u2019s \u201ctroubled tenure in New York, one that featured a disastrous rollout of the Common Core.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But while school choice advocates say DeVos\u2019s efforts have largely succeeded, others say her work in Michigan has brought disappointing, sometimes chaotic results.<\/span><\/p>\n

The DeVoses have long sought to bring more private competition to the public school system. In 2000, the couple led a failed petition drive to institute a voucher system in Michigan that would allow parents to use public money to send their children to private schools. The state constitution prohibits such use of public funds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposal. But a similar plan is the centerpiece of Trump’s education plan. He wants to spend $20 billion in federal funding now being spent on other things \u2014 and expects states to kick in even more \u2014 to provide to pay $12,000 in private school tuition for every high-poverty child in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

The couple also played a role in getting Michigan\u2019s charter school law passed in 1993, and ever since have worked to protect charters from additional regulation. When Michigan lawmakers in 2016 were considering a measure that would have added oversight for charter schools in Detroit, members of the DeVos family poured $1.45 million into legislators\u2019 campaign coffers?\u2014?an average of $25,000 a day for seven weeks. Oversight was not included in the final legislation.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result, Michigan\u2019s charter sector is among the least regulated in the country. About 80% of charters in Michigan are run by private companies, far more than in any other state.<\/span><\/p>\n

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers has said Michigan is well below average in the number of underperforming charter schools that close, and Douglas Harris, a professor of economics at Tulane University, last November called DeVos\u2019 appointment a \u201ctriumph of ideology over evidence,\u201d saying that as one of the architects of Detroit\u2019s charter school system, she holds partial responsibility for what even charter school backers acknowledge is \u201cthe biggest school reform disaster in the country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michigan’s charter-friendly policies have allowed nearly 100 schools to open, run mostly by for-profit charter-school-management organizations. That has given families wider choice over their children’s schools, but it has also created an expensive oversupply of about 30,000 seats in city classrooms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Current U.S. Education Secretary John King, who cut his teeth teaching in and founding charter schools in Massachusetts, last week noted that Michigan\u2019s weak charter school law has brought \u201ca proliferation of\u201d low-performing schools. \u201cIn Michigan, I do think the lack of strong accountability in their charter law, and in their charter sector, has harmed public education generally, and has harmed, ultimately, students,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/2017\/01\/17\/devos-outlines-vision-us-department-education\/96689510\/<\/span><\/div>\n

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