She seems to be a shill for charter schools, and cited erroneous data to try to show the success rates for the ones her family ran in Michigan when questioned by Congress. The charter schools In Michigan have a poor record, not much better than the public schools, despite cherry picking... Her written questionnaire to the Senate had numerous plagiarized statements. She's either lazy or an airhead. Hope she doesn't do too much damage and if she is both, she won't.


http://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2017/01/18/betsy-devos-charter-schools/96718680/ 


Federal funding is about 10% of total revenues for most public schools: the states provide the rest. I'm ambivalent about the need for a federal education department, but not sure if there would be consistent and high quality public schools in every state without the fed. The department's goal is to "promote student achievement, ensure global competitiveness (educated labor pool, good for business), foster excellence, and equal access to education."

One troubling observation while being questioned by the Senate: DeVos emphasized "access and opportunity" for all children, leaving out "equal."

delta1 wrote:

Massachusetts overall has good public schools, despite unfunded mandates like Bush's No Child Left Behind and requirements that have forced "teaching to the test".

Competing for educational dollars makes no sense when discussing publicly funded schools. But if schools outside of that definition want to compete for private money/tuition...more power to them, as long as they are subject to the same standards as the public schools. Currently they are not, even when it comes to requiring some standard that decides what constitutes a "qualified" teacher. No public money then as far as I am concerned.

If a family decides that private education suits them, go for it. Might mean get a second job though. Unfortunately, Al is correct about "cherry picking". Your kid may not get into a charter school if he/she might ruin their "stats", even though those schools are considered public. Oh, poor kids can attend, as long as they raise the averages.

The trick is to educate the rest of them.

And most folks forget that many of the tax dollars go to heating the schools, maintaining the buildings, etc. Simply transferring a dollar amount to a school with different regulations based on students lost does not cover the costs of maintaining buildings that does not go down due to less students!

frankj1 wrote: