Senator Al Franken was pissed that this Senate hearing on education pick Betsy DeVos was so limiting, and right out of the gate he attacked the Republicans on the dais for trying to imply that using taxpayer money to fund religious education—something that Betsy DeVos who promotes a special homophobic brand of Christian education—is normal around the United States.
Sen. Al Franken: I am a member of the party the chairman of vote. Charter schools are not an issue here. It is thoroughly in the mainstream. There are 37 states in this country that constitutionally prohibit the use of public school money for religious schools. It is the dfl party in Minnesota, thank you very much, that is in the mainstream and not the witness of the chairman.
Senator Lieberman mentioned proficiency. It reminded me of this. When I first got in the senate in 2009, I had a roundtable of principals in Minnesota. He said, we think of the mslb test as autopsies. I know exactly what he meant. The students take the test in April, they get the results in late June. The teachers cannot use the test results to inform their instruction. I saw that in Minnesota, the majority of the schools were taking a computer adaptive test, a computer test where you get the results right away, and adaptive so you can measure outside the grade level. This brings me to the issue of proficiency, which the senator cited, versus growth. I would like your views on the relative advantage of assessments and using them to measure proficiency or growth.
DeVos: I think if I am understanding your question correctly around proficiency, I would correlate it to competency and mastery, so each student is measured according to the advancements they are making in each subject area.
Franken: That's growth. That's not proficiency. In other words, the growth they are making is not growth. The proficiency is an arbitrary standard.
DeVos: Proficiency is if they have reached a third grade level for reading, etc.
Franken: I'm talking about the debate between proficiency and growth, what your thoughts are on that.
DeVos: I was just asking the clarify, then --
Franken: This is a subject that has been debated in the education community for years. I have advocated growth as the chairman, and every member of this committee knows, because with proficiency teachers ignore the kids at the top who are not going to fall below proficiency, and they ignore the kid at the bottom who they know will never get to proficiency. I have been an advocate for growth. But it surprises me that you don't know this issue. And Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good reason for us to have more questions. This is a very important subject, education, our kids' education. I think we are selling our kids short by not being able to have a debate on it.
Wow. That’s educational debate 101. It’s one of the first and continuously debated subjects in education, for at least the last 50 years.
There’s video and Sen. Franken goes in on DeVos and her family’s support of the inhumane “conversion therapies” to treat homosexuality, below.
Sen. Franken had only one question left and decided to ask DeVos about her family’s support of “conversion therapy” methods.
Franken: Ms. Devos, your family has a large history of supporting anti-lgbt causes, including groups that this conversion therapy. That is the practice of trying to change is sexual orientation or gender identity. For example, you and your family have given over to focus on the $10 million your family, an organization that currently states on its website that "Homosexual strugglers can and do change their sexual behavior and identity." Ms. Devos, conversion therapy has been widely discredited and rejected for decades by every mainstream and medical health organization as not ethically or medically appropriate. It has been shown to lead to homelessness, drug abuse, and suicide, particularly in lgbt youth. In fact, many leaders of conversion therapy, including both religious ministries and mental health professionals, have not only publicly renounced it, but have issued formal apologies for their work and how harmful it has been to the individuals involved. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that this be included in the record. Ms. Devos, do you still believe in conversion therapy?
DeVos: I have never believed in that. First of all, let me say I fully embrace equality, and I believe in the innate value of every single human being, and that all students, no matter their age, should be able to attend a school and feel safe and be free of discrimination. Let's start there. Let me just say that your characterization of contributions, I don't think it accurately reflects those of my family. I would hope you wouldn't include other family members beyond my poor family. -- Beyond my core family.
Her “core” and “poor” family are billionaires.
Franken: In terms of throwing numbers around, you say student debt has increased by 1000%.
Ms. Devos: 980% in eight years.
Franken: That's just not so. It has increased 118% in the past eight years. I'm just asking, if you are challenging my figures, I would ask that you get your figures straight about education policy. That's why we want more questions. Because we want to know if this person we are entrusting, may entrust to be our secretary of education, if she has the breadth and depth of knowledge that we would expect from someone that has that important job.
[Raising my hand]
She doesn’t.