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Out of context: Reply #23867

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    There's something perverse about an ideology that views the disposing of an unborn child in the third trimester of pregnancy as an indisputable right but the desire of parents to choose a school for their kids as zealotry. Watching President-elect Donald Trump's pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, answer an array of frivolous questions this week was just another reminder of how irrational liberalism has become.

    Democrats often tell us that racism is one of the most pressing problems in America. And yet, few things have hurt African-Americans more over the past 40 years than inner-city public school systems. If President Obama is correct and educational attainment is the key to breaking out of a lower economic stratum, then no institution is driving inequality quite as effectively as public schools.

    Actually, teachers unions are the only organizations in America that openly support segregated schools. In districts across the country—even ones in cities with some form of limited movement for kids—poor parents, typically those who are black or Hispanic, are forced to enroll their kids in underperforming schools when there are good ones nearby, sometimes just blocks away.The National Education Association spent $23 million during the last election cycle alone to elect politicians to keep low-income Americans right where they are. Public service unions use tax dollars to fund politicians who then turn around and vote for more funding. The worse the schools perform, the more money they demand. In the real world, we call this racketeering.

    Yet according to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, it is people like DeVos who are "a grave threat" to the public schools "that made America great."

    Well, studies consistently show that minority groups in America's largest cities are lagging in proficiency in reading and math. Most of them attend schools that are at the bottom 5 percent of schools in their state. There is only so much an education secretary can accomplish, but the accusation of being a "grave threat" to this system is a magnificent endorsement.

    With what are Democrats on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions most concerned? Preserving the status quo. Sen. Elizabeth Warren forced DeVos, who's a billionaire, to admit that she'd never filled out financial aid forms. The Daily Caller News Foundation found that 6 of the 10 Democrats on the committee have attended private or parochial schools, or have children and grandchildren who attend. So what?

    Sen. Patty Murray, who has absolutely no understanding or regard for the constitutional limitation on the Department of Education, pushed DeVos to say whether she would personally defund public schools. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a tireless adversary of the first five amendments of the Constitution (at least), asked DeVos whether she thinks firearms have any place in or around schools.

    "I think that's best left to locales and states to decide," she replied, before offering a specific concern about a local rural district in Wyoming. Cue mocking left-wing punditry.
    In case you were unaware, Democrats on the committee stressed that DeVos is a Republican who has given money to Republican organizations and was appointed by a Republican president-elect. They further pointed out that DeVos is a Christian whose family has given money to Christian organizations that don't meet their moral approval. Mostly, though, the liberals on the committee attacked DeVos because she has a history of contributing her own money to help private and Christian schools expand their reach. She has also supported school-vouchers proponents and public charter schools that open doors to poor kids. Those dollars have likely done more to help minority students than all the committee members' efforts combined.

    As many Americans surely know, rich and middle-class Americans already have school choice. In most places, the whiter the neighborhood, the better the school system; and the better the school system, the higher the prices of homes, making it impossible for those who aren't wealthy to escape substandard schools. (Rural schools also often suffer.) This is the status quo Warren, Murphy and Murray hope to preserve.

    Yes, school reform is complicated, and challenges vary from place to place. Many reforms have shown improvement. But teachers unions and their allies opposed magnets, charters, home schooling, religious schooling and virtual schools long before data about the effectiveness of these choices was collected. And they do now, long after quality research has indicated the improvement of these options on the union-preferred system.

    But by the parameters we often judge these sort of things, public schools are racist institutions, even if that's unintentional. They have an even more destructive effect on communities than all the dumb words and racist comments (real and imagined) that regularly make headlines. It's not surprising that poll after poll shows minority families support educational choice. Unfortunately, partisanship allows Democrats to take voters for granted and ignore the issue. For millions, this is a tragedy.

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    • you forgot to post the source https://thefederalis…whatthefunk
    • Innocent mistake, deathboy? Or has Melania sanctified plagiarism for you now?
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    • The questions asked were not frivolous. They demonstrated how DeVos may have been given the position as a "reward" for contributions, rather than on merit.
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    • ha im not claiming credit. actually pulled it from reason. i just thought words might help balance the photos. give this thread some credibility ya know.
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    • many of the questions were frivolous. especially one cited. did they explicitly ask if she thought she was given job as a reward? fair enough question if so.
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    • I can appreciate a well-articulated article. But, it's always better to always give a source.
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    • always*2, apparently. haha
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    • Yeah, Bernie Sanders asked her https://www.youtube.…whatthefunk
    • not always in a world of emotion driven headlines, either turns people off instantly or gets knee jerk reactions. i think im going to focus only on the content
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    • unless asked, http://reason.com/ar…
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    • or to hide the clearly right leaning source of content me thinks...whatthefunk
    • ha reason leans whatever way you see. but proves my point that you might judge on opinion of source vs content, nice to see bernie being polite
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    • Trump wasn't polite for his whole campaign - where was your outrage then deathboy?BuddhaHat
    • Querying the source is perfectly valid. For example, if this had come from Russian-state funded RT, it would immediately lose credibility, and for good reason.BuddhaHat
    • Federalist and David Harsanyi are Conservative sources as a matter of factwhatthefunk
    • Other users are welcome to make their own opinion, based on the author's other articles & headlines: https://thefederalis…BuddhaHat
    • But I'm with @wtfunk, headlines and article content reads as distinctly right-leaning.BuddhaHat
    • see exactly what i was trying to avoid. you focus on everything but the actual content. from a partisian perspective yes sounds right leaning
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    • but thats only if you see the world from right or left
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    • I'm familiar with this site, the founder also co founded www.redstate.com, the leading conservative, political news blog for right of center activistswhatthefunk
    • Just visit the contributor link to learn about who you're reading https://thefederalis…whatthefunk
    • You would like to avoid that kind of thing in this case, deathboy. But 2 Dem senators question an unqualified, multi-million dollar donor to the GOP who's beenBuddhaHat
    • You can tell the writer is shit by their decision to bring up abortion in the first sentence.
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    • nominated as Education secretary, and 'Warren's a bitchface', and 'at least Sanders was polite'.
      Pull the other one; it's got bells on.      BuddhaHat
    • @deathboy, my previous comment is directly about the content of this article. Just saying.
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    • haha again i dont play the strawman game. im only concerned with status quo of left on educational policies. and ill one up u buddha, we dont need devos or DOEd
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    • but out of curiosity who is a qualifed person to run and why buddha?
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    • would the person be against school choice, comp, would they be for only common core? would they simply have a paper sayign they can do it, making any arbitrary
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    • decision the right course of action because of it. i really dont understand what you would call good, and id liek to udnerstand that
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    • I don't have a list of names, but ideally they would not be from a billionaire family with no experience of public education, with a long history of million-$BuddhaHat
    • donations to the GOP, and also donations to anti-LGBTQ and gay conversion therapy groups.BuddhaHat
    • @nb... the comparison is to highlight the hypocrisy of prochoice vs school choice. how can a party of one freedom be so against another. it mgith be dramatic
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    • but these guys have to play to the ent aspect some if they want to keep producing. cant work for free
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    • It's illuminating that you don't think that any of these things would influence policy; furthermore, that there aren't other, more qualified people out there?BuddhaHat
    • but buddha those reasons dont correlate to her ability to do the job? how many people with a public edu background cant do there job?
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    • i can send u lists of school administrators from reno who have all done horrible jobs but have backgrounds, and dotn come from money or donated to causes
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    • Establishing through questioning that she has no experience in the education sector, or in public education, raises significant questions about her ability.BuddhaHat
    • what influences them in many cases is money, they dont have it, the ladder climbing and political volleying to climb and get it. everyone is influenced why like
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    • By avoiding the other question, you're perhaps also saying that there aren't other people with experience that makes them better suited for the job.BuddhaHat
    • less gov, less peopel to be influenced, i have yet see a case where devos influneces might be more harm than good, if her influence is more choice
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    • Sending me a list of who is bad at their job in the Education dept still doesn't answer the question.BuddhaHat
    • And the argument that because she already has money and therefore doesn't need any more, and it won't affect her judgement or policy decisions is deeply flawed.BuddhaHat
    • Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Paul Krugman says it better than me: http://krugman.blogs…BuddhaHat
    • what question? i thougnt i asked the question and help highlight why your criteria doesnt work by showing you how it fails
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    • ... that there aren't other, more qualified people out there?BuddhaHat
    • oh im sure there is better people for the job, however how they are qualified i have no idea
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    • a qualifier for me is a person with no partisan baggage. more so than any diploma. a person who has a strong understanding of incentives
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    • a free thinker, not one tied to the idea of standarizations. a person who understands that innovation isnt up to them, but allowing it grow
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    • right, well that answers that then. good work deathboy, you have convinced precisely zero people with the strength of your argument.BuddhaHat
    • creating an environment fro ti to grow, knowing there will be up and downs, and winners and losers and balancing, one against teacher unions as standards
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    • see buddha you make statements like i have convinced 0 people. how can u make such statements with 0 evidence. its irrational
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    • and convince them of what? that your criteria agaisnt devos is easily proven false? or that you have no idea of what youd like in a person of that position?
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    • only thing i ever set out to do was show an alt opinion, highlight some of the hypocrisies and show my support for school choice as good policy
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