I have a number of teachers in my family as well. Some work with special needs kids.

They are beside themselves as well.

I am kind of this-way/that-way about DeVos. I think she was put in the mix because she’s a big donor and I don’t think she’s particularly qualified, but I’d like the federal government’s sway over school districts to be diminished.

All that being said, I would never call my family members “hypocrites”. Especially because they are actually teachers and I’m not.

One of the biggest problems that exacerbates all our other problems – we don’t listen to each other anymore.

I speak as someone who comes from a family packed with capable, dedicated educators who do genuinely care about kids and who believe themselves to be committed to the needs of children above their own. All of them are beside themselves over DeVos, andI’m mystified as to why these good and caring people cannot see their own hypocrisy.
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An excellent comment, and a good suggestion on specialization (my grandson is autistic and doing very well in a school that has made helping special needs kids a high priority).
You could take the final graf and apply it to almost any political issue today.

The ability of the Democrats, in general, to hold mutually contradictory positions without recognizing the problem argues for cynical and entrenched hypocrisy, or cognitive dissonance on an massive level.

The Left, of course, is maintaining a very consistent position: whatever advances their power is the principle they support today.

Great comment! Good to hear from you again.

These are fair and reasonable objections. But if public schools are best equipped to deal with special needs children, then they should grasp that capacity and capitalize upon it as a particular strength. It’s needed and valuable, and there’s no reason to use that special capacity as an excuse for holding back the development of other children who don’t have the same needs. As for the fear that charter schools will siphon off the best students, that’s entirely up to the public schools. If charter schools reveal methods and techniques that work better for capable students than those used in the public schools, and the public schools choose not to adopt them for whatever reasons of contractual limitations, teacher convenience, union calcification or whatever — well then, whose fault is it, if children and parents decide to abandon ship?

I speak as someone who comes from a family packed with capable, dedicated educators who do genuinely care about kids and who believe themselves to be committed to the needs of children above their own. All of them are beside themselves over DeVos, and I’m mystified as to why these good and caring people cannot see their own hypocrisy.

” Trump, betsy, and voldemort [Pence]”
” The Destroyer of Public Education”

One compared DeVos to Professor Umbridge (not knowing much about education).

A more fairer critique:
“Objectively, DeVos doesn’t know the issues that Public Schools are going through. This is not a conservative/liberal thing. She couldn’t articulate her understanding on the Proficiency vs Growth debate. That’s simply bad for executing ANY policy regardless your sentiments of Public Schooling or the direction education should go.”
” And not knowing there are already federal laws protecting children with disabilities was frightening”

I haven’t seen the video of which they speak so they could be bringing up decent points.

Elders passed with a large margin.

Most of the ones who ran into problems with a Senate controlled by the president’s own party (as is the case now) had hired illegal immigrants as nannies or that sort of thing. Their nominations were ordinarily pulled before a vote.

Didn’t Clinton get a couple stopped? Jocelyn Elders comes to mind. Though I suppose it’s possible that she got pulled before it came to a vote due to how unpopular the choice proved to be.