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Originally Posted by Dowly
I don't know why the Democrats voted against her, but she certainly is incompetent. That much became clear from her hearing.
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to be an actual teacher? perhaps, certainly if you base your opinion solely on a 30 second clip, but that is not the post she is up for.
What exactly do you think the U.S. federal education secretary does anyway?
He/she does not teach or establish school curriculum, education is a state responsibility in the U.S.A.
The Secretary sets broad education policy. DeVos has been working on the Michigan Charter school system for over 20 years. By all account, Michigan charter schools, like Charter schools throughout the USA generally out perform public schools, so she has the experience and she has gotten results.
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So that first point is taken: She is inexperienced in running the sort of shop she's about to take over. But then again, if she's a competent administrator, that's really what the job demands. As education analysts such as University of Arkansas' Jay P. Greene and Reason Foundation's Lisa Snell have told me, the education secretary has relatively little to do, as most federal funds are pre-committed through funding formulas that are difficult to monkey with very much. What the secretary can do is set a broad agenda and a tone. And that, not her lack of credentials, is why Democratic senators tried to "hold the floor" against her. DeVos has been very involved in Republican politics at the national and state levels, where she chaired the Michigan Republican Party and has supported all sorts of school-choice plans.
Given that, Senate Democrats and teachers unions are dead-set against her. The DeVos vote isn't ultimately about whether or not a Detroit billionaire runs a program that accounts for only 10 percent of K-12 spending around the country. (The federal government's influence is magnified by the conditions and rules it attaches to schools that receive any federal money.) It's about DeVos's outspoken support for both the general idea of publicly financed school choice and specific plans.
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http://reason.com/blog/2017/02/07/th...upport-betsy-d
again, just politics.