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Her entire argument goes off the rails when she says “We should be investing in students, not schools”…Wait, do you propose to give every kid money or something? Education is done in an institution…you have to FUND THE SCHOOL if you want to help students.
This said…there is a point to be made that for some “bad” or “under performing” schools…giving them more money and more funding will not help them. The solution is not that simple. Some of them have very very bad administrations and staffs who will not help anyone regardless of proper funding. Additionally, there needs to be an overhaul in how the common core functions. At its heart is something good (a standard of education that all schools and students must meet)…how we test against that standard is a bit meshugge.
Those “bad” schools are where she should be asking “Why are they under performing? What support system do these students need? Is it money they need? Is it a change of administration?” But of course she isn’t capable of doing that…because…well, she’s an idiot.
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I’d change “neocon” to simply “conservative” there, but otherwise I agree. I’d also add the long-standing practise of selling anti-intellectualism to the low-information voters that make up the conservative base.
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I didn’t think any of them believe Communism is bad now, since Russia was held up at the worst example of it, and 45 thinks Putin is his friend.
Details are very inconvenient to ideological crusaders.
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That same Secretary of Energy didn’t actually know what that department did when he advocated it’s removal, while we’re at it. He thought it was about regulating power or something…he was pretty shocked when he found out he was responsible for securing our nuclear arsenal.
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No you’re not. You’re a devout Christian, but you’re not a zealot. You haven’t threatened anybody on this board with eternal damnation and hellfire in the afterlife or physical torture in the here and now for failing to conform with your personal beliefs. Honestly, until you stated that you’re even Christian, I would have thought you an atheist, given that you haven’t brought it up before, while in my experience, American Christians take every opportunity they can to tell you just “How Christian They Are” in this display of Conspicuous Religiosity (Cross-waving? Cross-measuring contest? What’s the good term here for this?), and that’s the demographic that elected 45.
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It’s the mask slipping over the underlying lizard face.
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When she says she doesn’t visit underperforming schools and then agrees that maybe she should, I think we all sense her crossing her fingers behind her back and scrunching up her nose in disgust.
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“studies show…”
“oh, has that happened?”
“well, i’m not sure.”
And because once you start peeling that rock back you uncover all manner of complex issues such as institutional racism, corrupt provider/client relationships, selective funding, living wage considerations et al.
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IIRC, a few decades ago corporate leaders complained about the need to spend millions of dollars educating new employees who lacked the skills to operate a cash register, handle money, and make correct change. They invested in cash registers with pictures representing products, bill counters/sorters, ATMs, and change dispensers. Today we have more self-service/checkout options and fewer cashiers, bank tellers, and service workers.
Unemployed/underemployed people are consistently told to get more education, which is expensive, so they get loans. The jobs they expect to get as a result of more education are scarce, so many remain unemployed and in debt. The obvious money grab is public school funding, but the stealth one enriches the institutions charging high tuition and offering/managing/collecting student loans.
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When ever I see an interview with ANY of the cabinet or the president I can’t help thinking what an interview on The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 or Newsnight on BBC TV would be like for them?
I’d pay to see that.
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I love all those movies!
Tattered Glory
COTUS
They’ve Taken Over The White House I and III (II sucked)
We Eat Tonight
Good stuff.
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Correct…but that is her job. You do not “not do your job” because it’s too hard or a PITA. You maybe change jobs because of that sure.
Which just illustrates that Ditzy Devos is either a) willingly being inept or b) actually inept. While conspiracy theorists and such would love it to be A or a combo of the two…I firmly fall into it is B. She is just a freaking moron. As is most of the cabinet (Chao, Sessions, Perry, Pruitt, Navarro, etc).
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Jimmy Carter pursues his Christian beliefs with such zeal that he’s still building houses for poor people even though he’s in his 90s and battling cancer. Too bad so many zealots decide to cling to the less positive interpretations of Christianity instead.
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And the less dancy-singy ones too…
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There’s “zeal” and “zealotry”. Zeal is passion. Zealotry is fanaticism. They’re not synonyms, not anymore. And, speaking from my own experience as a non-Christian in the US, if you define those who follow the “less positive interpretations” of Christianity as “zealots” instead of “bigots engaging in self-projection as God”, than, from my experience, the majority of American Christians are zealots.
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I agree, and on the face of it the “students not schools” talking point is appealing and makes sense to folks that distrust institutions and experts.
Of course it falls apart under the thinnest of scrutiny. Especially when seen from the point of view of a student that needs some help.
It is sad/comical the way she claims to concetrate on individuals and then retorts with stories about the whole state of Florida.
It is clear that the only real policy analysis was “market based is better” and then the rest is pure spin doctoring.
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Oh for sure they’re all serious contenders for Upper Class Twit of the Year, but they’re all stupendous morons who have very specific beefs with the exact agencies they were appointed to run, which is an ugly combination of simple ineptitude and open malice that usually only shows up in episodes of Captain Planet. DeVos is actively uninterested in solving problems with public education because that’s not why she got herself installed at that agency. The fact that she has no idea what’s going on in public schools is a feature of her appointment, not a bug. I don’t even think there’s some grand conspiracy behind it. I just think Trump is an idiot who’s easily manipulated, and no small number of people are aware of that fact. There is an ocean of rich assholes out there who feel put-upon by the government in any number of ways, and see this administration as their golden Trojan horse to let them finally slay the beast (or at least bend it to their will) from within.
To add to the list of Manchurian morons, the guy currently running the CFPB was actively engaged in efforts to destroy it before he was installed as acting director over the head of the actual employee who was supposed to become acting director when the former director quit. And someone who was previously sued by the CFPB is using that as qualifying experience in their angling for a position there.
We’re going to run out of hen houses long before we run out of foxes.
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