Skip to main content

Letter to the Editor Regarding DeVos

***Update:  At the time this letter was read at Monday’s board meeting, the hearing regarding Betsy DeVos’ nomination as the secretary of education was still scheduled for Wednesday, January 11. Later that evening, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions postponed the hearing until January 17 at 5:00 PM.


This is a letter to the editor that I will submit for the January 12 edition of the Belleville-Area Independent

-----

To the Editor:

This week marks a defining moment for public education in the United States. On Wednesday, January 11, a hearing will have taken place regarding Betsy DeVos’ nomination  as the secretary of education.

During the past few board meetings, I have expressed my concerns publicly about Mrs. DeVos’ appointment to the top education post, and I reiterate those same concerns here. I have contacted Senator Stabenow and Peter’s offices, and they both have now expressed their concerns regarding this appointment and have vowed to vote against her nomination. I commend this move from our senators on behalf of the students in Michigan’s public schools.

In Michigan, DeVos has been an outspoken advocate for charter schools. As Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press has written, she and other family members have given over $2 million to GLEP, the Great Lakes Education Project, a political action committee that promotes “school choice.” She is a member of the American Federation for Children as well as other organizations that encourage “choice” and “parental empowerment.” While these phrases sound good, they all operate under the guise of improving academic outcomes but are supported by incredibly troublesome records of achievement.

I encourage anyone wishing to learn more about Michigan’s lackluster results with charter schools to read “Michigan spends $1B on charterschools but fails to hold them accountable” from the Free Press. 

I am deeply troubled over the possibility of her appointment to this post for a myriad of reasons, including: her utter lack of experience in public schools, as she did not attend a public school, did not send her children to public schools, and has never worked in a public school; the DeVos family’s contributions to undermine increased charter school oversight, including lifting the cap on the number of charter schools in Michigan; and her involvement in the 2000 campaign to amend Michigan’s constitution to allow school vouchers, which is currently prevented by the Blaine amendment.

At the time this letter was submitted, the Office of Government Ethics, the department responsible for vetting cabinet nominees, has expressed concerns about DeVos and the seemingly rushed nomination process as well, noting that her ethics review was still incomplete.

I believe that the secretary of education should put research first, and he or she should represent the best interests of our public schools and not work to undermine them.

Sincerely,

Kevin English
Trustee, VBPS Board of Education

Resident, Sumpter Township

Comments

  1. I like your style, Mr. English, and even more, your substance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Does anyone think DeVos as secretary of education is a good idea?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Handwritten Cue Cards in the 21st Century

I just stumbled upon this behind-the-scenes clip of Saturday Night Live's cue card process. This is intense writing. This is writing that is dependent upon trust and checks and balances. Over a short period of time, skits are written, drafted on cards, revised, and the cards revised over and over again. I also really love that SNL continues to use cue cards and not a teleprompter. Like Wally points out, technology can fail. Handwritten cue cards ensure the show goes on. Comedy is hard work. Writing is hard work. Changes are made up until the last minute to get things just right. This is a form of real-world writing.

Six Things to Keep in Mind When Your Class is NaNo-ing

Students recently drafted their reflections about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), so I wrote beside them about the lessons that I had learned. Here they are: Limit the other work you give . While you may feel the pressure to have copious assignments in your grade book (there tends to be a sort of teacher shaming if you don't have many assignments in, as if there is a magical number), you have to recognize what is valuable and what is not, especially during the 30-day writing frenzy that NaNoWriMo is. I tried to make every assignment relevant for the month and their novels. Students encountered "daily challenges" (these quickly turned into every-other-day challenges) that focused on many of the necessary elements to good novels: dialogue, story world development, character creation, subplots, etc. Everything was designed so that students could use their work in their novels, and it allowed me to have short glimpses of the types of things they were writing abo

Past Secretaries of Education

After last night's hearing with nominee DeVos, I decided to research past education secretaries. Senator Alexander talked a lot about "precedent" when it came to procedures regarding the HELP Committee. Let us remember that the first education secretary was appointed in 1979. That's the same year that Congress created the department under Jimmy Carter. This is also the same department that Ronald Reagan promised to abolish. Even the first education secretary had experience in government. Shirley M. Hufstedler was both a federal and state appeals court judge. I'm going to say that because of that experience, she's probably familiar with law and how laws work. As we saw last night, when Betsy DeVos was redirected a question because her answer implied that states could choose to implement federal law or not, she might need a refresher. Then we had Terrel Bell, who was a high school teacher, bus driver, and served in the Marines. Again, a long list of public