Tuesday, February 07, 2017

DeVos confirmed as Secretary of Education: Pence casts tiebreaking vote

The U. S. Senate just confirmed billionaire Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education 51-50.

The deciding vote was cast by Vice President Mike Pence, the first time a vice president has had to cast the deciding vote for a Cabinet nominee.

The Missouri Senators split with Republican Roy Blunt voting for DeVos and Democrat Claire McCaskill voting "no."

10 comments:

Sad Message for Education said...

And, as promised: Moran and Roberts ignored their constituent's pleas from Kansas as well. Students really deserved better than complete ignorance of public education and the laws that govern equal opportunity services.

Anonymous said...

Not surprised Roy Blunt followed the rest of the herd in taking campaign dollars from DeVos and in return voting for her. Money speaks louder to Roy than supporting public education. Betsy just bought her way to a cabinet position. Drain the swamp....I don't think so.

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't senators who took campaign donatons (big donations such as those bestowed on Roy Blunt) recuse themselves from the vote? Isn't this an issue that should continue to be discussed and widely aired? We have a president whose election is likely illegitimate and now DeVos is suffering from the same taint. Another who should be challenged on legal grounds are Tom Price with his insider trading scandal. Drain the swamp indeed. Grow the swamp more like.

Comrade Trump said...

I find it tragically hilarious that Trump voters are going to get the exact opposite of everything they were sold by this snake oil salesman.

Lucky for me I speak Russian.

Anonymous said...

You guys are right. Leave public education alone...it's working splendidly.

Anonymous said...

I hope the Black Community takes advantage of those vouchers and floods the Charter Schools with their kids.

Anonymous said...

You guys are right. Leave public education alone...it's working splendidly.

SCAMWAY AND BLACKWATER TO THE RESCUE!!!

Anonymous said...

@4:53 I hope they do, as well! Then they can finally get the decent education that they deserve. Charter and private schools do not tolerate the street thuggery that the public schools do. Therefore, instead of having to spend half of their days breaking up fights, interrupting drug transactions, interrupting drug usage and interrupting group sex acts, they could actually spend it educating. Believe it or not, more than half of those kids in urban public schools WANT to be educated, they WANT to get out of their current situation. Now the amount and size of those doors out, have been increased.

Anonymous said...

4:53 & 6:59 - Betsy's unintended consequences? Oh, the delicious irony!

Anonymous said...

@6:59. Charter schools offer mixed results and in the aggregate perform no better or worse than public schools. Many public schools do very well. These are usually schools where there are more resources and where more of the children have stable, comfortable homes. There are public and charter schools in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods that do well and others that do poorly. There are a number of factors at play in these assessements. Again, when they are operating on an equal playing field - charters don't always have to take the most problematic students - there is little to choose to from. Putting more of our educational eggs into charter schools will only weaken the public system that, were reform not so ideologically loaded, could be improved. Finnish schools offer a great template.

Specific problems with charters are that mechanisms for insuring accountability are not always as stringent and we are now finding that teacher satisfaction is often lower leading to problems of retention.

The problems that you reference (and which you exaggerate to the point of absurdity) are problems that transcend the schools and reflect the life and culture of neglected and poverty-stricken neighborhoods. These problems won't be solved in the schools alone. And charters won't do it for sure.

As for religious education, I'm sure that my tax dollars shouldn't be subsidizing your religion. If folks think it important that their children be indoctrinated early, they should be willing to pay for it with their own money.