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Betsy DeVos doesn't know the difference between growth and proficiency

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A

Air

Banned
Ill have to watch this. I've never heard of her. Education in this country is so poor and seeing some of these responses has me shaking my head. It's going to be rough
 
S

Socivol

Member
GhaleonQ said:
I mean, the point of a charter school is that they do not have the same requirements. I get what you mean, though, and I should have acknowledged that that is a variable. Mid-year transfers rules are pretty loose in many places, as is parent recourse for discipline.

Those are 2 that stand out. I don't even think that they are wrong, necessarily, but you're right in that district schools cannot do that.



I vociferously disagree, but I would accept that my argument would be useless in a country where we had an adaptive and high-quality district education system. I would be with you!

But we've waited 50 YEARS for quality change, and instead we've ended up with unpaid liabilities, uneducated children, and social disaster. I am sorry for good teachers in bad schools, but I am more sorry for good children in bad schools.

In the end, you are telling that 8-year old, "Just wait another decade, and I PROMISE that things will change. Oh, whoops, you graduated. Or didn't."

So, I think urgency is a truly overwhelming argument. The political incentives to help the poor will never align to create change, and, again, if it did happen, the answer is always more money, not all of which goes to the classroom and which has no correlation with achievement, anyway. Choice schools NEED accountability. Some of these states are chaos, not frontiers. But there are high-performing schools that can serve children now, and that's a trump card to me and many low-income families.




Thank you for being intellectually generous. I really do appreciate it.

Again, that's easy to say, but a single mom working 2 jobs is probably not equipped or able to do the job that you would like to see. As a practical matter, I think we trust schools with that job, whether it's "character" or religion, at least for below-middle-income kids.

EDIT: ANYWAY, that it is all to say that I wish there was a bulletproof advocate for Education Secretary.
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I think that sense of urgency hurts more than it helps in many ways. People are always looking for a quick fix or the next big thing. New initiatives are implemented and if they don't immediately show results it's on to the next thing. I also really wonder if what is "broken" in education is the fact that we have made everything so complicated. I would love to see what would happen if there was a school that just went back to basics and taught things how I was taught as a child. The biggest factor in poor education is poverty and if we focused on low-income communities we would naturally see a rise in educational attainment.
 
T

TheOctodad

Member
KernelPanic said:
Dominion Theology. It's going to be the Theocratic States of America in the future.
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This is incorrect.

DeVos has been member and an elder at the large nondenominational Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, which was formerly led by popular author Rob Bell. Former president of Fuller Seminary Rich Mouw said he served on a committee with her to replace Bell, and he said DeVos is heavily influenced by Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch writer and Calvinist theologian.
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Now, I can see how the influence of Kuyper and Calvinist thinking can lead to a "kingdom now" theology as they call it (a subset of dominion theology). It functions less as "Christians should take over" and more as an idea of "Christians have a mandate to care for the world using their gifts." She's theological practice (at least by participation and association). Mars Hill (where she was an elder) got major pushback back in the day for allowing women leaders and elders (which she was the first) and lost a number of people due to their "progressive" views in many areas.

Rob Bell, the lead pastor, got flakk for books like "Jesus wants to save the Christians" and a book called "Love Wins" - a book about how the Christian concept of hell is misinformed.

Plenty of valid critiques in this thread, but she's actually not that conservative in her theology.
 
V

Vicetrailia

Member
Just watched the highlights of the session on Youtube, and what the fuck man.

Shameful non-answers. This is infuriating. Can't even answer questions about sexual assault and fraud. Democrats drilled her ass 100 feet under but Republicans are saltivating at the mouth you pass her. Fuck, this is horrible.
 
M

Measley

Junior Member
Elections have consequences folks.

Both sides though right? Hopefully this wakes people the fuck up, and get them to vote instead of sitting on the sidelines "protesting" the system. If we can get these clowns out in 4 years maybe the damage can be reversible.
 
T

TheOctodad

Member
UberTag said:
Perhaps they can roll that into guidance counselor treatment regiments. They can electroshock all of the gays in learning institutions as soon as they're identified by their teachers or outed by their peers.

Add that to their list of "improvements" after bringing in a mandatory lord's prayer and banning the teaching of evolution.
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Listen, I may be wrong, but her perspectives in Michigan were not nearly that aggressively Christian. She's conservative no doubt. Is she a good fit? Not really. Is she going to oppress anyone who's not a Christian and force creationism - I don't think so. The church she was at as an elder fully embraced evolution and was fairly liberal.

I know it sounds like I'm defending her in my posts. You can look at my history if you think I'm a defense force or anything. She has a lot of flaws, but I'm a bit more engaged in theological circles and I think it's important that the critiques of her are accurate. Inaccurate critiques just make it look like we're blowing it out of proportion. Focus on the actual flaws here.
 
P

Paskil

Member
I mean, I'm still waiting to see who he nominates for USDA. That has the biggest direct impact on me since my work involves SNAP. I'll have a job no matter what, but I think the level of incompetence and malice will directly impact how my program is affected.
 
W

watershed

Banned
jerry113 said:
Is the GOP deliberately trying to make the public dumber so that they're more likely to keep voting for them?
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Been doing it for a long time now and what's worse it that it isn't exclusively a partisan thing. Its a top down thing. And I don't mean that in a conspiracy theory sense but rather in a "show me your budget" sense. States with democratic and republican leadership (legislatures and governors) continue to underfund and even defund education. They simply do not value a well educated populace the way they say they do and the proof is always in the budget. Obviously its more complicated than that, but it boils down to states not putting money into education.
 
M

Maxim726X

Member
Holy shit she was obliterated from all angles.

She's safe, though. USA! USA!

Where was this hot fire during the Tillerson hearing??
 
S

Socivol

Member
I still can't believe she didn't know IDEA was a federal law. That is something you learn before you even set foot into a classroom. She is so problematic to me. She doesn't even know the fundamental basics of what's going on in schools.
 
L

LudicrousSpeed

Member
cpp_is_king said:
At the same time, it reinforces the notion of personal responsibility, something currently generations are severely lacking (probably because there's always someone there to bail kids out of trouble nowadays so they never take a self esteem hit. And simultaneously it sets a good example for the rest of the kids in that class of how NOT to be, because nobody wants to be the old kid in the young classroom.

I'd take a healthy dose of personal responsibility for kids these days over improved academic scores any day of the week. Turns out one will then lead to the other
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I'm sorry, you're probably right. We should just trust your gut that's upset about kids being on your lawn and discard actual studies into what programs work and what doesn't. Who cares if "Turns out one will then lead to the other" is horseshit that doesn't actually work in reality, that must be wrong because your gut says otherwise.
 
K

kris.

Banned
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
DeVos is bad.

https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/821525846930374656
https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/821519468492824576
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FGi3N4.gif


this cabinet keeps getting better and better oh my god
 
T

TheWasTheJoke

Member
KernelPanic said:
My wife has a friend who's a teacher. She brags about her degree all the time. Few people know she got it at a diploma mill.
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Is that a big problem too? I was unaware of that.

I was thinking more the
- Lack of help for students not in the middle
- Weird funding model
- Lack of teacher protection
- Terrible teaching standards
- Creationism in schools + lack of good sex ed
- Pointless middle school which forces kids to uproot themselves an unnecessary three times
- Weird nepotistic university admissions system
- Year 12 could be spent better than writing resumes and partying
- Extremely poor condition of school in black/poorer communities
- Increasing segregation

and on and on
 
O

Opto

Banned
demosthenes said:
I love her but when she's going strong sometimes she hurts her points by cutting off people she's interviewing/grilling.
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She's cutting into her because she's giving a 5th grade/Trumpish response to question

"How are you going to avoid waste/fraud/abuse?"
"We are going to avoid waste/fraud/abuse"
 
F

Four_Chamber

Member
Wow, she actually answers questions like Trump

1. Be asked a question that you definitely don't know the answer to
2. Verbal diarrhea ("I look forward to working with you to address this issue")
3. Profit?

Based on these hearings, she lacks the nuanced understanding that the person WHO WILL DETERMINE OUR COUNTRY'S EDUCATION SYSTEM has to have- its really embarrassing. Even if she's concerned I hope these hearings highlight the idiocracy that is coming our way.
 
GhaleonQ

GhaleonQ

Member
Socivol said:
I think that sense of urgency hurts more than it helps in many ways. People are always looking for a quick fix or the next big thing. New initiatives are implemented and if they don't immediately show results it's on to the next thing. I also really wonder if what is "broken" in education is the fact that we have made everything so complicated. I would love to see what would happen if there was a school that just went back to basics and taught things how I was taught as a child. The biggest factor in poor education is poverty and if we focused on low-income communities we would naturally see a rise in educational attainment.
Click to expand...

This is something on which we can both agree, and you put it so well!

I definitely agree that it is a sea change. In fact, most of the bad schools in voucher states are mom-and-pop start-ups tied to independent congregations. (Not all are bad. Texas, for example, has good religious schools that aren't part of a denomination. If they had vouchers, I assume that they would continue to provide a good education to lower-income kids.)

School districts constantly chasing _ and _ are a big reason for reform fatigue, so it righteously pisses me off when the last few education secretaries have had huge opportunities and done almost nothing productive.

However, part of the reason that, I think, vouchers work, is that lots of these schools are over 100 years old, and there's a culture, congregation (or what have you if it's not Christian), and clear mission for all of them. Catholic and Lutheran schools outperformed everybody except elite private schools for 50 years, before people stopped being religious in such numbers.

If she does encourage choice through federal dollars, which she doesn't have much ability to do with the new Every Student Succeeds Act, I would hope that it's rolled out intentionally for the reasons that you describe. Disruption is needed, but not stupid, random disruption (like New Orleans).
 
W

watershed

Banned
Four_Chamber said:
Wow, she actually answers questions like Trump

1. Be asked a question that you definitely don't know the answer to
2. Verbal diarrhea ("I look forward to working with you to address this issue")
3. Profit?

Based on these hearings, she lacks the nuanced understanding that the person WHO WILL DETERMINE OUR COUNTRY'S EDUCATION SYSTEM has to have- its really embarrassing. Even if she's concerned I hope these hearings highlight the idiocracy that is coming our way.
Click to expand...

Yes, she is severely under qualified for the position of secretary of education which is a real shame because she is replacing Secretary King who is not only clearly qualified but does have the complex and nuanced understanding of public education necessary to guide education department.
 
R

RCSI

Member
Giving non-answers or vague responses to questions should automatically have these congress members filling in the 'unsuitable section' of their forms or other evaluative procedure.
 
H

Hyperactivity

Banned
cpp_is_king said:
Why would creating separate classrooms where all students are roughly at the same level so they can obtain the maximum growth possibly be a bad thing?
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People learn in different ways, and a more varied environment helps with that.

I didn't realize until much later that u could do work far easier if I was treating it conversationally alongside a friend or some thing

Surrounding lower level student s with other lower level students makes both motivation and comprehension worse
 
H

Hyperactivity

Banned
cpp_is_king said:
Is that what they do in countriesb like Russia, China, and Japan that are destroying us in science and math?

That's a serious question btw, I don't know.

Why can't we just do what they do?
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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html

Interactive study that focuses on student interaction and thought process is a basic concept. An ideal match class, imo, should be one in which the student can almost question if he learned anything new that day, because he feels as if he could've derived the next set of steps or applications from his previous knowledge already

cpp_is_king said:
Then why are we declining globally, if the methods we use now are supposedly better?
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Many of the emthids used globally were created by us, look at article above

We've done a reallg shitty job with implementation

cpp_is_king said:
At the same time, it reinforces the notion of personal responsibility, something currently generations are severely lacking (probably because there's always someone there to bail kids out of trouble nowadays so they never take a self esteem hit. And simultaneously it sets a good example for the rest of the kids in that class of how NOT to be, because nobody wants to be the old kid in the young classroom.

I'd take a healthy dose of personal responsibility for kids these days over improved academic scores any day of the week. Turns out one will then lead to the other
Click to expand...

NO IT DOESN'T

Speaking as someone with ADHD who was constantly late on assignments and was screwing up the easy parts of my grades, THE KID KNIED ITS THEIR FAULT! You're not coming up with anything new here. As it got worse for me personally, the only thing that ever happened was that my basic self confidence in my ability to turn in the simplest assignments eroded, even if in actuality this was a mere 10-20 minutes of work.

You don't teach any self responsibility whatsoever and you only wear down on their self esteem, which makes things far more difficult in the long run

Here's a simple way to think about it: if the issue a mere situation if a lack of basic effort, WHY would a student actively ignore the easy route to make school frustrating, disappointing, and humiliating for themselves. Do you honestly believe they actively ignore the 'easy' option?
 
K

Kenclops

Banned
Linkura said:
Sorry you worked for a shitty charter school. Not all are like that.

Betsy DeVos has that Sarah Palin blank look on her face. Kind of sounds like her too. Actively pissing me off watching clips of the hearing.
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LeadProtagonist said:
I mean, overall, charter schools are like public schools. Some are bad, some are good, and some are just average. The problem is that they divert money away from fixing public schools.
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I would agree that some are good. There just has to be. But as a guy who subs by day, fixes pc's at night, I have had a chance to visit a few other charter schools. This one French charter school, the third graders were still learning to count the sides of the dice. Extremely low performing in every subject but French. The school, it seems, all their money goes into providing students with extremely high quality meals, like real cooks making stirfry, versus ham and cheese taco in a wrapper. Counter argument: I have never tried a food that smelled so good, yet tasted so bland as the French school.
 
H

Host Samurai

Member
What a shit show. All his cabinet picks are being made fools of. All uneualified. How can this happen? Why are there no restrictions on who can join a cabinet? Same with being PEOTUS
 
C

CSX

Member
my god...she could have bs an answer based on the common definitons of the two words and would actually be somewhat correct...

She couldnt even do that LOL??!
 
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