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Betsy DeVos as the US Education Secretary
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Betsy DeVos is the 11th United States secretary of education since February 7, 2017. She was selected by the president Donald Trump. She has been participating in making education policies since past three decades. She remained an advocate for bringing reforms for children and parents regarding their education. She has been working passionately for helping out the underserved children and ensuring quality education for them. Her interest in education developed when she sent her daughter to school and realized that American education system does not provide equal opportunities for all children. She worked as an in-school mentor for underserved students in Grand Rapids Public School about which she said was a life changing experience for her. That 15 years tenure changed her perspective about education system and encouraged her to work for education reforms for all.
However, DeVos has been the center of criticism for a long period of time. She has been promoting her recommended options for parents to opt for the schools for their children whatever they decide to. She believes that government should provide the subsidies to the parents in the form of vouchers in case they choose a private school. During her period, she has not only received criticism from Democrats but Republicans alike. The teachers’ union allies and the people in rural states who solely rely on the conventional public schools have opposed her promotion. Another contradiction has been that she could not even advocate her own policies. She has made significant mistakes since she entered the public life. The first gaffe on her behalf was when she began with her confirmation hearing where she seemed quite confused about the federal education laws. But she could not cover up and made another huge mistake when she called America’s black colleges as real pioneers about the school choices. Later, in another hearing she said that she would stop the federal funds for private schools in case she noticed any discrimination against African Americans or students from the LGBT community .
The series of embarrassing moments did not end there as she yet made another blunder when she publically advocated the prevention of funds for the Special Olympics and later backtracked saying she was always against the cut after President Trump had overridden her. She has had so much hatred and denial that president of Thomas B. Fordham Institute who is a conservative education think tank said that she should stand down as she was damaging her cause herself. She has even made it hard for the education reformers to take steps at both local and state level. However, amidst all these unwanted events in her career, she made an effective move that could change the entire perspective of education system in United States. She was acknowledged by a conservative institute in Manhattan, where she mentioned the initiatives from the Obama era that she had overturned or was planning on reversing them in regards to civil and student rights.
DeVos jeopardized a program in order to help the educators and policy makers to regulate the college loan debt. The Trump administration threatened to eliminate the student loan forgiveness program after ten years of service and timely payments. However, only a select few received forgiveness and it turned out to be another biggest failure. Her right hand man, Steven Menashi, has remained her advisor in all these tragic public policies such as failure of student protection program, safety against sexual harassment and assault, and protecting student loan forgiveness program. However, President Trump awarded him with appointment in the Second Court of Appeals. DeVos is also trying to bring around the vouchers again and teaming up with a right wing think tank, American Enterprise Institute, in order to support Trump’s plan of cutting $5 billion from the state schools for funding private and religious schools .
DeVos has been criticizing the primary and secondary education system in the united Stated for the past decades. She has been using different tactics to promote her privatization agenda. She often uses the term student achievement crisis or expanding education freedom in order to gain support for her privatization motive. Nonetheless, she does not focuses on bringing reforms to the public schools or improving the parents and teachers support. These factors could easily be used to potentially enhance the test results. Her education philosophy is based on free market approach such as she is working on reducing the government’s role while increasing the privatization of schools. She believes that within an educational setting, there are no cultural difference implications and that vouchers and agreement can save many schools from failing. However, there are certain limitations in her professional life just as she is considered too polite, or without clear meaning of her ideologies without the fear of any gender, race, color or nationality. DeVos has also not made any comments for bringing improved educational technology reforms in schools. Neither does she criticizes nor does she acknowledges or tries to fix these issues about leaning outcome . Throughout her career, she has been mainly attacked or critiqued rather than being acknowledged for her work. Though she had significant ideas in her mind regarding education reforms and forwards towards advanced research techniques, a few of her decisions can still make a big change in the whole educational system.
Bibliography
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, Bryan. “DeVos’ Formula for Success: Trash Public Schools and Push Privatization.” The Conversation, November 2019. http://theconversation.com/devos-formula-for-success-trash-public-schools-and-push-privatization-126232.
Leonard, Devin, and Shahien Nasiripour. “Trump Picked His Perfect Education Secretary in Betsy DeVos.” Bloomberg.Com, July 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-07-17/trump-picked-the-perfect-education-secretary-in-betsy-devos.
NEA. “Betsy DeVos and Her No Good, Very Bad Record on Public Education.” National Education Association, March 22, 2019. https://educationvotes.nea.org/2019/03/22/devos/.
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