Henry Payne for February 03, 2017

Oh yeah, Big Teacher is behind the opposition to having a Secretary of Education who doesn’t want public schools to have funding that could be used by religious schools.

Nothing about the $47 million that the DeVos family has made in political contributions since 2000? Whose votes are really bought & paid for?

If you look at the changing world demographics, the US could be doing very dangerous things by encouraging the development of religious schools. Do we really want to be perceived as a theocracy?

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/23/why-muslims-are-the-worlds-fastest-growing-religious-group/

The private schools already have an advantage. Supporting the inequity with tax dollars is not going to level the playing field or help the middle class.

https://images.washingtonpost.com/?url=http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/03/income.png&w=1484&op=resize&opt=1&filter=antialias

Public education is the bedrock of America. Destroying it in the name of “competition” is foolish in the extreme. Religious schools teach nonsense such as creationism and other ignorant crap. Charter schools don’t show ANY significant advantage over public schools. Do you want to have a country or not? Public education is the key. If you want to encourage a civil society, you really need to have WAY, WAY more public education, not less. We actually need federally sponsored daycare for all families. But going backwards is the conservative preference. I have zero problem with religious schools if they are privately funded. Sometimes these schools are terrible, sometimes terrific. But don’t make everyone else pay for spreading delusional concepts like, for example, “transubstantiation” or that the Egyptian pyramids were send for grain storage.

Eli Broad, the prominent local philanthropist behind a massive effort to increase the number of charter schools in Los Angeles, is protesting the appointment of Betsy DeVos as secretary of Education.

“I believe she is unprepared and unqualified for the position,” Broad wrote. “Indeed, with Betsy DeVos at the helm of the U.S. Department of Education, much of the good work that has been accomplished to improve public education for all of America’s children could be undone.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-eli-broad-opposes-devos-20170201-story.html

When even a proponent of charter schools is against her, she’s got to be really bad.

that is a special – unlike the usual bargain bin republicans who are a dime a dozen for the CEOs, corporate elites, bit Oil and pharmaceuticals, and Russia.

Hey Payne, when’s the last time you were in a schoolroom? Do your kids attend public school? Have you ever taught? Do you sit on the schools site-base decision making council? Or the local school board? Do you go to PTA meetings? I invite you to come see my school, meet my students. We’ll be glad to show you the great things public schools and teachers do in rural Kentucky. We love our students and, quite honestly, would die for them. What would Betsy DeVos do? Or even YOU for that matter? There is a huge, unfair misinterpretation of how things are in our schools. Mostly by people, like Ms. Betsy, who have NO idea what reality is like. I’m serious, come to Breckinridge County, KY, tour our schools. See what DeVos is trying to do away with. We’re rocking here buddy, we don’t need you or Betsy upsetting the apple cart.

Our glaring failures in healthcare and education should long ago have sent a message to the voters that they are not getting the representation that people in other countries are, yet the voters are either complacent or apathetic and do not vote, or vote without thought.If this administration does not do well, maybe the voters will start paying better attention.

A large part of the problem is that American schools do not teach the students how to learn for themselves. A good portion of the long term unemployed are not able to readily learn new skills. Learning how to study, design experiments, take unbiased data, and how to teach others what you have learned don’t seem to be part of the curriculum.

It’s obvious that Henry knows as little about education as Betsy DeVos. What a surprise!

funny, quality of education seems to be totally missing from this debate. why is our education system one of the worst in the developed world?

Hey Mr. Payne, maybe you should read your other hometown newspaper…http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/06/22/michigan-spends-1b-on-charter-schools-but-fails-to-hold/77155074/

Some religious schools refuse to teach any science which does not actively support their religion.

As far as religious schools producing more polite and better behaved teenagers, I used to ride a bus past a Parochial school, usually around the time the pupils were getting out. Among the other behaviors I saw (along with smoking and cursing on the bus) I saw a teenaged boy elbow an elderly lady away from a vacant seat so that she was left standing. When I pulled the “boy” (he was my size) out of the seat and offered it to the lady, all of the “kids” stared at me as if I had done wrong.

So much for wonderful alternate education systems.

Surprised that Payne isn’t pushing a shopping cart loaded with Amway products!