Betsy DeVos Nomination Approved

[OreoRosies86]

OH SNAP

 

[the_mother_thing]

See 2 responses up. Gotta find someone new.

Might I suggest a napkin to wipe the dribble? Or perhaps tissues ... in case someone breaks out in tears.

It is, after all, only Week 2 of what will surely be a looooooong four years.

 

[OreoRosies86]

Pardon me while I let the politeness waft over me.

 

[E B]

. I don't care for the tone it's set here, which is why I don't visit as often as I used to

THIS! I pop in & out, but all the bullying & negativity in 'hangout' (political threads) is like eating a rotted peanut; the foul bitterness makes you not want more. Then time passes, the bad taste in your mouth is gone, you go back for another, and bam, there it is again.

---------------

Actually being the hypocrite who joyfully shoved spoonfuls of crap into others' mouths for 8 years, then gets whiny when it's time for them to eat?

But what do I know? I didn't skip school much, and I don't look up to nor model my behavior after women who ponder bombing the WH, discuss their kid's genitalia on social media, or use offensive racial slurs in an effort to boost their child's self-worth.

Might I suggest a napkin to wipe the dribble? Or perhaps tissues ... in case someone breaks out in tears.

Life- it comes at'cha fast.

 

[AnnaH]

What's wrong with being polite? You might try it sometime.

 

[OreoRosies86]

Sorry. I wanted to go to charm school, but I can't afford private tuition

 

[AnnaH]

You can always google "good manners."

 

[AnnaH]

This is an important discussion, but clearly only those who agree with the op are welcome.
Peace

 

[the_mother_thing]

Life- it comes at'cha fast.

Gee E B ... we're just all having light-hearted conversation in here. Didn't you see our abundant use of emoticons?

Or are you suggesting that Kath actually meant this:

People will clearly defend *any* level of incompetence before admitting to being wrong, huh?

and Elliott meant this:

Crickets from the Trumpettes it seems

to be offensive, and thus MY own comments were perceived offensive?



I'm really trying to figure this all out, given so many sudden changes in positions about things.

 

[OreoRosies86]

I googled it, but I must have missed the chapters on flouncing.

Also, criticizing my posting style doesn't actually add anything to the conversation about WTF just happened to our education department.

Oh, and I used to work for the Department of Education, before you get *too* invested in telling me I don't know what I'm taking about.

 

[asscherisme]

A big thanks to all teachers. I was in the classroom for many years before changing careers and know how hard you work.
Is your major concern that she will institute school choice? If so, what are your worries about that?

Because "school choice" is her nice way of saying that she wants to essentially de-fund public schools in favor of private (read: religious) schools. Here's an excerpt from an interview she did in 2001.

Asked whether Christian schools should continue to rely on giving—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...Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God's kingdom."

Added Dick DeVos: "As we look at many communities in our country, the church has been displaced by the public school as the center for activity...t is certainly our hope that more and more churches will get more and more active and engaged in education."

She wants to tear down the barrier between church and state.

I find this terrifying

 

[ruby59]

People will clearly defend *any* level of incompetence before admitting to being wrong, huh?

Who are you speaking to?

Quoting might help.

You know what? I think people are getting it. The people who are going to, anyway.

I will remember that the next time I do not use the quote feature.

 

[the_mother_thing]

This is an important discussion, but clearly only those who agree with the op are welcome.
Peace

It is, indeed! I'm sorry to have derailed with my finding amusement in yet another one of Elliott's silly assumptions about "Trumpettes". They just absolutely crack.me.up! And we all just need to laugh from time to time.

I googled it, but I must have missed the chapters on flouncing.

Also, criticizing my posting style doesn't actually add anything to the conversation about WTF just happened to our education department.

Oh, and I used to work for the Department of Education, before you get *too* invested in telling me I don't know what I'm taking about.

I'm sure you didn't miss anything; and that you're a fabulous teacher having worked at DoE!

 

[OreoRosies86]

I'm not a teacher, but how fabulous that you think so! Simply marvelous

And THANKS for your vote!

 

[the_mother_thing]

I'm not a teacher...

Oh, but you are ... it takes a village, after all!

 

[OreoRosies86]

I'm not a teacher...

Oh, but you are ... it takes a village, after all!

Is that a Madonna song?

 

[the_mother_thing]

I'm not a teacher...

Oh, but you are ... it takes a village, after all!

Is that a Madonna song?

I really wouldn't know; I don't support her inappropriate behavior, irresponsible threats on citizens, and racist vulgar speech with my wallet.

 

[jaaron]

Is that a Madonna song?[/quote]

I really wouldn't know; I don't support her inappropriate behavior, irresponsible threats on citizens, and racist vulgar speech with my wallet.[/quote]

Sorry - thought for a minute you were talking about the prez, instead of a woman who hasn't had any real significance in maybe a decade. sorry - couldn't resist, but if the description fits...

 

[OreoRosies86]

Is that a Madonna song?

I really wouldn't know; I don't support her inappropriate behavior, irresponsible threats on citizens, and racist vulgar speech with my wallet.[/quote]

Sorry - thought for a minute you were talking about the prez, instead of a woman who hasn't had any real significance in maybe a decade. sorry - couldn't resist, but if the description fits... [/quote]

You win the internet today. It's important to vote with ACTUAL votes, and not just your wallet.

 

[the_mother_thing]

Is that a Madonna song?
Sorry - thought for a minute you were talking about the prez, instead of a woman who hasn't had any real significance in maybe a decade. sorry - couldn't resist, but if the description fits...

I don't golf on his courses or stay in his hotels either ... sorry to disappoint you (and Elliott).

I was actually trying to stay on topic with regard to the "village" of influence it reportedly takes to raise children.

 

[katharath]

Is that a Madonna song?

I really wouldn't know; I don't support her inappropriate behavior, irresponsible threats on citizens, and racist vulgar speech with my wallet.[/quote]

Sorry - thought for a minute you were talking about the prez, instead of a woman who hasn't had any real significance in maybe a decade. sorry - couldn't resist, but if the description fits... [/quote]

Ah, the party of "family values"...

 

[monarch64]

Let us all be reminded that Madonna, the same one who Does All The Bad Things, did have a hit song about being "pro-life:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G333Is7VPOg

 

[OreoRosies86]

I'm still laughing over this. Yes definitely let's not support people who behave inappropriately, make irresponsible threats (and act on them) on citizens, and engage in racist vulgar speech. Unless you want to put them in office. Oof.

Back to the topic at hand. I'm still catching up with everything that happened today.

 

[telephone89]

Every day I fall further and further into shock. This woman knows nothing - absolutely nothing. I really don't see things going well here...

 

[the_mother_thing]

I'm still laughing over this. Yes definitely let's not support people who behave inappropriately, make irresponsible threats (and act on them) on citizens, and engage in racist vulgar speech. Unless you want to put them in office. Oof.

Back to the topic at hand. I'm still catching up with everything that happened today.

IKR! Even HuffPo cited her role in helping push the "Obama=Muslim" mantra:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-rucker/can-black-people-trust-hillary_b_9312004.html

Throughout the 2008 election season, racist and bigoted smears about Barack Obama circulated online, and bubbled up into mainstream conversation about the campaign in the traditional news media. Two of the most prominent lies about Obama, which persist to this day, were that he is secretly a Muslim (playing on fear-mongering and bigotry about Islam), and that he was not really born in America. Both of these ideas paint Obama as “other” and outside the mainstream, drawing their potency from fears about Black people gaining power. People generally associate these memes with the right wing. But the truth is that for the entire Democratic primary, not only did Hillary Clinton’s campaign do nothing to push back against the racist fear-mongering about Obama, it actually fed this atmosphere and helped it grow. It was a part of their strategy from early in the campaign.

Other incidents of her inappropriate behavior, irresponsible threats & actions, and racist vulgar speech:

Among the Clinton picks is a very insensitive and racist pick for the EPA:

“Likely an African-American (and/or at Education)”

... she called Paul Fray, her husband's campaign manager at the time, a "f###### J## b######".

Mrs Clinton denied the allegation and pressed the president into supporting her, but the author, Jerry Oppenheimer, said: "Three witnesses have now publicly acknowledged that she said it."

But privately, (Hillary) embraced the Clinton campaign’s aggressive strategy of counterattack: Women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Mr. Clinton would become targets of digging and discrediting — tactics that women’s rights advocates frequently denounce.

The campaign hired a private investigator with a bare-knuckles reputation who embarked on a mission, as he put it in a memo, to impugn Ms. Flowers’s “character and veracity until she is destroyed beyond all recognition.”

In a pattern that would later be repeated with other women, the investigator’s staff scoured Arkansas and beyond, collecting disparaging accounts from ex-boyfriends, employers and others who claimed to know Ms. Flowers, accounts that the campaign then disseminated to the news media.

By the time Mr. Clinton finally admitted to “sexual relations” with Ms. Flowers, years later, Clinton aides had used stories collected by the private investigator to brand her as a “bimbo” and a “pathological liar.”

Disparaging other women and people of color & different religions is flat out wrong; doing so while claiming a career advocating for women, children & minorities is hypocritical & inexcusably abhorrent.

But enough about HRC ...


I haven't spent a TON of time researching Devos; I know she advocates school choice for parents who feel their public schools are failing their children. I plan to talk with my family & friends who are teachers for their perspective, but what exactly is it that everyone here is against about her? Have Ed Sectys in the last 15 years done such a stellar job? If not, is a new approach with innovative ideas for education really a bad idea? Why do you see school choice as bad? Wouldn't you or any parent want the option to send your kids to better performing schools, especially in inner-cities where many feel children have fewer opportunities to succeed due to poor education options?

 

[OreoRosies86]

LOL as usual it is paramount for you to have the "last word." Hillary didn't win, (thought we were talking about Madonna but ok sure lets keep tap dancing) I'm talking about the MESS we're in with Trump.

Oh now HuffoPo is your news source? I thought it was a "liberal rag"

I'll be back after coffee.

Edit: your boy Pence is all about conversation therapy for gay people. Well, Betsey Duvos has spent upwards of $7,000,000 on Focus on the Family, which advocates for just that despite it being shown across the board as being absolute warfare on a person's mental health and certainly a violation of their civil rights. Yes, that's a woman I want dictating what is best for my child. Since she has never worked with children as even a substitute teacher, has no background in education, and neither her children nor herself have ever attended a public school, that gives sensible people MAJOR concerns. Add in her views on Creationism and biblically led education, you have us in very questionable territory. But I really do need coffee.

 

[the_mother_thing]

LOL as usual it is paramount for you to have the "last word." Hillary didn't win, (thought we were talking about Madonna but ok sure lets keep tap dancing) I'm talking about the MESS we're in with Trump.

Oh now HuffoPo is your news source? I thought it was a "liberal rag"

I'll be back after coffee.

Edit: your boy Pence is all about conversation therapy for gay people. Well, Betsey Duvos has spent upwards of $7,000,000 on Focus on the Family, which advocates for just that despite it being shown across the board as being absolute warfare on a person's mental health and certainly a violation of their civil rights. Yes, that's a woman I want dictating what is best for my child. Since she has never worked with children as even a substitute teacher, has no background in education, and neither her children nor herself have ever attended a public school, that gives sensible people MAJOR concerns. Add in her views on Creationism and biblically led education, you have us in very questionable territory. But I really do need coffee.

Sheesh, I was agreeing (in principle) with you. Eat a Snickers already.

FOX NEWS ALERT: more than one person can - in fact - wear the same style of shoes. But this thread isn't about Trump (or Pence); it's about Devos & education, which again, I tried to get us back on topic about by asking questions.

Again, I ask (of anyone): if Ed Dept leaders have been so fantastic with all of their experience, influences and ideas over the last 15 or so years, why is our education system in such shambles? Why does going a different direction in the type/background of leader cause so much angst?

 

[OreoRosies86]

You're confusing angst for genuine concern, and since you tap danced over my above comment, I'll ask directly if you believe a person who has no background in education, bought her way into the position, and invests in gay conversion therapy should be in charge of molding our country's young minds.

 

[Tekate]

Republicans have no interest, care or concern about democrats, or the democratic process. Time will reverse this messs. I hope. otherwise we will become a banana republic.

 

[Tekate]

The result of DeVos' detrimental effect is that people in our country will be dumber for generations to come. The US is on the path of decline in so many ways and at a rapid pace.

Went into a grocery store the other day. Made a purchase. The cash register was not working properly, so it could not tell the cashier the correct change to give back to me.

She could not figure it out and I had to help her - a high school student. And this has happened quite a few times.

Many colleges have a so called 13th grade to help many catch up to where they should be.

Look at the test scores in English and Math.

SAT scores at lowest level in 10 years. Just google it.

So much for the quality of our public schools NOW.


Many have become so dependent on auto correct that when they have to manually fill out a job application they cannot correctly spell half the words.

oh come on. making change? unless you are taught how to do it you don't know how to do it. No college I know of has 13th grade. When I went to college in 1970! I had to take a remedial math course because I scored too low on the entrance exam for math and I had to take a non credit speech class - I went to a high school in richy rich Fairfield County in Connecticut. Tests scores are lower for math and science because of parents, not because of curriculum. Some states don't even have kids take the SATs. ACTs are a bigger test to take these days and according to my son (who took both) ACTs show what you learned, SATs show more of what you learned and logic and analytical skills.

http://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-by-state-most-recent