Trump picks Betsy DeVos as Sec of Education.

Posted by mminnick 9 years, 3 months ago to News
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Excellent choice.. She favors charter schools and good education for all.


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  • Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Citizenship was equated to the right to vote in ST. I was 11 yo when I read it and thought then, and still do, that he was absolutely correct. He did not limit it to military, even in the 50's, his idea of equality was if you were blind and paralyzed, they would find something for you to do for 2 years (like counting the hairs on a caterpillar by touch), to earn it. It was his empasis on value that I liked, he equated things to how much it was worth to you to have. Voting today has no value, requires no effort, and ends up with horrible decisions by a careless majority. I would say this election illustrated that very well, the Trump voters covered a wide band of "non republicans" but I am willing to be a deep analysis will show the vast majority are hard working people, many of whom have sat out the past elections, but reached the point they saw the negative equity line in the current system, and rebelled.
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  • Posted by Tbird7553 9 years, 3 months ago
    I read somewhere she supports Common Core, which I've read negative things about.
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  • Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That obviously is a strong, positive reaction. Maybe it will go towards limiting the snowflake supply....
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  • Posted by lrshultis 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Isn't it also a push for which private businesses get the tax money since charter schools are tax supported schools and must teach to at least government standards? Mainly just a way of getting the government out of the teacher business.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "It is not in the domain of the federal govt to support school vouchers: laissez faire. The federal government 's role in Education would be limited to Washington DC, military and reservations."
    Is this statement only applicable to vouchers or all public Ed?
    Because if fed funds and influence were removed from public schools I would oppose vouchers.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Damn!
    I should have read the posts before I posted my opinion. Either that or do my own research.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 3 months ago
    So-called educators must be gnashing their teeth throughout the country over her appointment. Finally a fellow Michigander I can be proud of.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Great idea. Citizenship should be earned and it should make the country better. Let the refugees meet the same citizenship test
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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Read it years ago. I don't agree that "service" must be to the government as Heinlein apparently did at the time he wrote Troopers. Maybe a point system (with many ways to earn) could be devised for voting like many countries have devised for immigration.
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  • Posted by MikeM35 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    For earning the right to vote, read Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, This is on the left's burn before reading list.
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  • Posted by $ Your_Name_Goes_Here 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I can confirm that. Yesterday at a meeting at Portland Community College, where I serve on the Board of Directors, she was deemed by one person I spoke with to be "the worst possible choice" because of her stance on charter schools. Apparently the faculty is pissed. LOL!
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 9 years, 3 months ago
    Now this look s very good from all angles...unless you are a teacher's union that cares about itself over kids.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thanks for the additional info, Mike.
    Was thinking about this last night. If there was a Gulch, I think voting there should be earned, not merely given as a right of birth or due to inherited wealth.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 3 months ago
    She supposedly has been a pusher of common core however.

    Don't be fooled again.
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  • Posted by Esceptico 9 years, 3 months ago
    Trump is also pushing for vouchers for all. I love that part. Teachers Unions hate it.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    She inherited wealth. She did not earn her own. The same is true of her husband. They have a wind power company. Their son is employed by it as an "urban planning consultant." I would not jump to conclusions about Elisabeth Prince DeVos.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Schools do compete. They always have. I grew up in a neighborhood where many kids went to Catholic schools. Their parents complained, of course, about having to pay taxes for public schools; but they made the choice to send their kids someplace else. One family sent their kids to a Ukrainian Orthodox school in a different neighborhood. It was their choice. And we had private schools for rich kids way out in the suburbs and rural towns.

    At the college level, by the 1850s, Ohio alone had more baccalaureate institutions than all of Europe. They competed with each other and against schools in other states.

    What you mean is that we should not have public education. No government should run a school. Perhaps not. Are you opposed to the military academies? How about police academies? What about high school ROTC? I agree with your emotional sentiment, but you have not thought this through completely.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 3 months ago
    A few words of caution from Cato here:
    https://www.cato.org/blog/its-devos-e...
    ------------------
    "Elisabeth DeVos was born Elisabeth Prince on January 8, 1958. ... DeVos' brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater USA, a private security firm which had operations in Iraq." -- She inherited her father's wealth, as her husband inherited his. Much more in Wikipedia (here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_D...

    She has been an educational activist for vouchers for decades. That much, anyway, seems good enough for the job. However, as Neal McCluskey pointed out in his Cato blog, it is not the domain of the federal government to support school vouchers: laissez faire. The federal governmnet's role in education would properly be limited to Washington DC, military bases, and perhaps Indian reservations.
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