CALL 202-224-3121 AND TELL YOUR SENATORS/CONGRESSMAN “VOTE NO” ON BETSY DeVOS ON JAN. 31ST!
Please sign the CREDO Petition to keep Betsy DeVos from becoming the next Secretary of Education and Please Call your Senators and demand DeVos be denied Secretary of Ed.
CREDO PETITION act.credoaction.com/…
My husband and I have been together for 27 years. He is a retired Public Educator with experience as a teacher, principal, and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction with 35 years experience. I have asked him to give his perception of Betsy DeVos after watching her confirmation hearing:
After my husband asked me to comment in this article, I spent some time thinking about how to respond. There is so much I could say but I will attempt to summarize my feelings in a brief way since often educators get accused of talking too much! I think that talking behavior happens when you are passionate about something! My experience as mentioned above includes teaching, leading campuses as a principal, and leading all instructional programs, as an Assistant Superintendent, including Federal programs, IDEA, and accountability systems.
Frankly, I was appalled that Betsy DeVos is being considered for this critical position based on her past actions and lack of experience in education. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, approximately 90% of our children are in PUBLIC schools. Betsy DeVos has no experience in public schools. She did not even attend one, nor did any of her children. We simply cannot have someone in charge of the public school experience of 90% of our children who has no experience in public education. Yes, she said she was a mentor. We in education do love our mentors, however they do not have the depth of understanding regarding how schools operate and what it takes to continuously improve.
Mrs. Devos could not answer the most straightforward questions asked at the hearing. Most notably to me was her lack of the knowledge or unwillingness to show her true colors in order to answer questions about guns in schools, accountability, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and higher education. Her lack of appropriate answers clearly demonstrates her lack of Federal Law regarding accountability, Title programs and equal access for children with disabilities in order to receive a quality free and appropriate education.
You cannot continually improve the system from the outside looking in. You cannot change the system when you don’t believe in equal access for all and demonstrate through your donations to anti LGBT efforts that you discriminate against large portions of our student population.
Finally, educators deserve better. To nominate Betsy DeVos would be a slap in the face to all educators and the children they teach. This candidate has no experience that qualifies her for this job. Her credibility will immediately be in question by educatiors throughout the US. We need a strong mutually supportive relationship with the US Department of Education. We have been through tough times, we have great evidence of improvement, and we need a leader who will continue to help us improve Pre Kindergarten through college. Betsy DeVos is NOT the leader we need. Thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you.
5 MUST WATCH CLIPS FROM THE BETSY DeVOS CONFIRMATION HEARING HELD JAN. 17TH
Betsy DeVos can never become our next Secretary of Education. Billionaire DeVos’ hearing began yesterday, and her family has donated a quarter of a million dollars alone to the members of the education committee who are tasked with vetting her nomination. The DeVos family has given a total of more than $950,000 to 21 senators who will have the opportunity to vote on her confirmation.
For her part, DeVos, a long-time Republican megadonor, has made clear that her extensive campaign donations are meant to sway policymakers. “I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence,” DeVos once remarked. “Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return.” Once again another example of “Pay to Play”
Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos and her husband have extensive financial holdings through their private investment and management firm, RDV Corporation. The firm, where DeVos once served as director, has financed real estate acquisitions, telecom companies and online charter schools, among other things. But one particular deal is creating concern on Capitol Hill.
RDV is affiliated with LMF WF Portfolio, a limited liability corporation listed in regulatory filings as one of several firms involved in a $147 million loan to Performant Financial Corp., a debt collection agency in business with the Education Department.
Twenty-three percent of Performant’s revenue is directly tied to its dealings with the Education Department, which awarded the company 14 contracts worth more than $20 million in 2016, according to regulatory filings and government documents. The company lost out on a recent contract bid with the department and is now protesting the decision with the Government Accountability Office, which can dismiss the dispute if the department reverses course.
If confirmed as secretary, DeVos would be in a position to influence the award of debt collection, servicing and recovery contracts, in addition to the oversight and monitoring of the contracts. She would also have the authority to revise payments and fees to contractors for rehabilitating past-due debt — all of which has Senate Democrats concerned.
DeVos is also for using vouchers for Religious Schools also. Senate Republicans expect a fight Tuesday, especially on DeVos' positions regarding vouchers, which are widely seen as benefitting families who want to send their children to parochial schools, and raises questions about tax dollars funding religion.
"There is a religious agenda behind voucher proposals," said Katherine Stewart, author of the book, "The Good News Club," which explores the religious right in schools. "There is a segment of the conservative evangelical world that sees public education as secular, and is therefore hostile to it."
DeVos herself has made comments about the role of religion in schools. She and her husband, Dick DeVos, sent their kids to parochial schools, and Dick DeVos told the Associated Press in 2006 that he's for the teaching of intelligent design in schools.
DeVos is a right-wing voucher and charter school activist whose numerous projects include the disastrous effort to spread charters in Detroit, which failed to increase student achievement while allowing charters to operate with little accountability or oversight.1 She also has an appalling record on civil rights, which indicates she will be a threat to LGBTQ children, especially transgender students, who face prejudice, harassment and bullying in schools and suffer from higher rates of depression and suicide than non-LGBTQ classmates.DeVos’s stance on LGBT rights is not known—she has declined to comment ahead of the confirmation hearings—but there are reasons for concern.
The DeVos family has been the primary funder of some of the most anti-LGBT organizations in the country, to the tune of more than $200 million. Her father-in-law, Richard DeVos, was one of the first mega-funders of the Christian right in the 1970s, and his foundation is now a fixture at The Gathering, the Woodstock of Christian right funders, and a major funder of Focus on the Family. The DeVos Center for Religion and Society at the Heritage Foundation has promoted a quasi-theocratic worldview. And Betsy DeVos’s father, Edgar Prince, was a founder of the Family Research Council.
Another Major Concern is Betsy DeVos not be willing to say she would not agree with Donald Trump about getting rid of “gun free zones” on school campuses.
Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary, said during her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that local authorities should decide whether guns should be barred from American schools — citing the case of a school in Wyoming where a special fence protects students from bears. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy asked Betsy DeVos to explain whether she thought guns belonged “in or around schools.” Murphy has been one of the most vocal senators about strengthening gun control laws since a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his state in 2012 killed 20 children.
MURPHY: Do you think guns have any place in or around schools?
DEVOS: That is best left to locales and states to decide. If the underlying question is—
MURPHY: You can't say definitively today that guns shouldn't be in schools?
DEVOS: I will refer back to [Wyoming] Sen. [Mike] Enzi and the school he was talking about in Wyoming. I think probably there, I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies.
MURPHY: If President Trump moves forward with his plan to ban gun-free school zones, will you support that?
DEVOS: I will support what the president-elect does. If the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence.
MURPHY: I look forward to working with you, but I also look forward to you coming to Connecticut to talk about the role of guns in schools.
Sunday, Jan 22, 2017 · 8:45:05 PM +00:00 · Kevin1957
Here is a link to an incredible article in The Washington Post on the delay of the vote for Betsy DeVos which shows her incredible “Conflict of Interest” and why she should never be Secretary of Education!!
READ: “After ethics review, Senate postpones committee vote for Betsy DeVos” wpo.st/… and here is the link to her Government Office of Ethics Report to read www.scribd.com/...
