Did somebody say “Davos?”
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This is America. We’re just skipping the middle bit and going straight to the corrupt strongman and his cronies.
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Whenever I see Tom Baker, I think of the Sea Captain from Blackadder. “You have a woman’s hands Blackadder”
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Tax monies diverted to private christian schools is bad enough but don’t forget that her brother, Dick DeVros was the founder and CEO of Blackwater - war profiteer and mercenary death squad. Nothing in life is free except sucking on the teat of the taxpayer - oh but I guess this family had to pay for that " privilege, so I suppose she’s right.
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This woman is all kinds of wrong. Her explicit goal is to funnel taxpayer money to religious schools:
Asked whether Christian schools should continue to rely on philanthropic dollars—rather than pushing for taxpayer money through vouchers—Betsy DeVos replied, “There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education…[versus] what is currently being spent every year on education in this country…Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s Kingdom.”
Also, her brother is the founder of Blackwater.
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Dick’s her husband. Her brother is Erik Prince. The lot are scum.
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Fuck her with a gay bear.
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Huh, I had no idea Cutco was that kind of company. Make me sad - I love their table knives.
This is very true. But (speculating) there may still be value in trying to make sure, as a society, that the necessary shibboleths are expensive but otherwise worthless. In other words, make education for jobs that need it essentially free, and make whatever next gets chosen to indicate class background extremely expensive and hard to acquire or mimic. Best case: the relatively less idiotic businesses make a killing hiring cheap talent. Worst case: all the classism (and associated -isms) becomes a lot harder to not see.
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Would be a better education secretary that she would be.
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Yes, you are correct. Her brother Prince was the founder of Blackwater. Thanks for that correction. I wrote that trying to get out the door this morning. 
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And tell me: How’s that working for the Russian people of late? Did wonders for their governance, yes? Got rid of the corruption, right? Their healthcare is really something to see now, huh? Russia also “had” a genocidal dictator…oooohhh, maybe we should get one of those next?
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A complicating factor is that in America there are many more jobs that now “require” a post-secondary degree or certificate, but didn’t before. This situation spawned the whole for-profit colleges scam that was effectively shut down when the government cut off loans to their students (AKA the “schools’” gravy train). The expectation from corporate HR that you need an expensive B.A. to do that administrative assistant job, though, is still in place.
So the damage has been done and the value of a post-secondary education (as a broad concept) has been somewhat debased. What’s left that has value for those who want cachet and to get elite jobs? Competitive and name-brand schools. Getting into those schools in turn in requires (in most cases) a high-quality K-12 education* or the family’s ability to buy your way in.
All of which is to say, I only see those class markers hardening.
[* a commodity that Devos plans to further damage by draining more money from already underfunded public K-12 schools]
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I agree. One irony is that the very top schools are actually more affordable than the next tier down, once you actually do get in, because they can afford more financial aid (grants not loans).
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Understandable. There’s much malfeasance with this family, just making sure all the parties are named. 
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I’m fine with taxpayer funded free online college degrees.
Taxpayer funded Free bricks and mortar college degrees where the “free” means taxpayers somebody else coughs up sixty large per year? Not so much.
We’re still talking about in-state rates to state colleges, not private universities. So in New York, for example, it would be six grand. It doesn’t cover room and board as well. Please try to keep up.
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As I see it, if the argument is “nothing in life is truly free” then shouldn’t all public roads be toll roads? We pay taxes for lots of public services, and most of them we don’t think about. I think we can all agree that being able to drive on every local access road for free is a benefit to society as a whole, so why shouldn’t public higher education also be considered a boon to society? We’re not talking about sending everyone to Harvard or M.I.T. and having the taxpayer foot the bill, we’re talking about UMass and UConn and Fill-In-The-Blank Community College. For a kid living at home in a poor part of town to be able to commute to some local school and get an education means one less kid on the streets, one less kid susceptible to crime and drugs. Why is it bad to spend taxpayer money on education, but OK to spend taxpayer money on more police, more prisons, and clog our courts? It’s public money either way, but one is an investment while the other is a hasty repair.
If you were going to hire someone, and you could choose between a candidate with a “free online diploma” and someone who went to an actual brick-and-mortar school, who would you choose?
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The F35 is going to cost about 1 trillion. Invading Iraq was more than that.
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And yet Rethuglicans will tell you that we can simply do away with food stamps and other social welfare programs and let those same inadequate “philanthropic dollars” fill in the gaps…
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I don’t think I’d care. Depending on the job, I might hire someone who never went to college.
