Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, didn’t even know that IDEA is federal legislation during the Senate confirmation hearing. She doesn’t know the difference between growth and proficiency. Her testimony proves that she wouldn’t be fit for a job in any school, much less as the figurehead of the entire U.S. education system.

Ryan Oberlin, IS 285 Meyer Levin School, Brooklyn
(via Facebook)

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Shouldn’t this position have an education and experience requirement? If teachers are mandated to have master’s degrees in education to teach, shouldn’t the top person in education also be required to have at least the same? It is ridiculous that anyone from anywhere with no experience, training or education should be able to do this job just because they donated millions of dollars to politicians. This, and all the other top positions, shouldn’t be a position you can just buy but a position you earn through years of education and experience.

Tara Siringo, PS 9, Brooklyn
(via Facebook)

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As a school social worker for 35 years, I was appalled at her lack of knowledge of education law, standards and what public schools need. Any first-year teacher knows more than she does. She is a horrible choice.

Joann Klein, school social worker in Poughkeepsie
(via Facebook)

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I sincerely wish that people could understand how vitally important public education is to all of us, even the folks who can afford and choose private school. Public education is very much a rising tide that lifts all boats.

Phil Oakley, San Diego, California
(via Facebook)

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Yes, she’s rich and she uses that wealth to her advantage. But the real problem is that she is totally unqualified and her ideas are damaging. I wish we would spend a little less time regurgitating the “evil billionaire” narrative and more time illustrating why these nominees will be so awful. Of course there’s pay-to-play going on, but we’re getting nowhere with those arguments and this Congress isn’t going to be bothered by the money, that’s for sure.

Adam Buddy Burgess, Elgin Community College in Elgin, Illinois
(via Facebook)

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Even teachers are required to have a master’s degree. Her nomination is an insult to every student and our entire profession.

Kim Barget, Scholars’ Academy, Queens
(via Facebook)

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Public education levels the playing field; it strengthens generations and prevents greedy corporate self-interests from polluting it. We have a public education system that serves as an entry way to the American dream for all of our immigrant children. We don’t want it broken; we want it mended. 

We educators won’t simply look the other way and roll over as DeVos and corporations attempt to create a one-size-fits-all system that hurts kids and diminishes the teaching profession. Her ilk are upset because they want to line their pockets with those public dollars and break the backs of unions, which inevitably hurts the most vulnerable among us, all for the money.

Vaughn Lopez, Antonia Pantoja Preparatory Academy, Bronx
(via Facebook)

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At the level of a cabinet secretary, it’s not necessary for her to have classroom experience. Many successful people and CEOs don’t have degrees or experience in their fields (or in some cases, very little education at all) — hello Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Ray Kroc, and more.

Running something like that has more to do with management of a business, even when the product or service “sold” is education. If she is smart enough to bring in and listen to people who have the right educational experience and knowledge, combined with other useful skills for management, she’ll have the tools to do a good job.

Whether she will do a good job or not remains to be seen (as would be the case no matter who is newly appointed to this or any position), but lack of classroom experience doesn’t mean she can’t effectively lead the DOE.

Jill Wieber Johnson, parent of six in Tennessee
(via Facebook)

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Trump’s appointments have been an insult to me and everything I have worked for as a women born in the 1950s and as a master level teacher. It is beyond me how this came to be.

Kathy Nichols-Newell, retired, Berea Independent Schools in Berea, Kentucky
(via Facebook)

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It isn’t the lack of experience that is the problem. It is the overwhelming disregard for the benefits of public education. For a person to be in charge of the public education system, they should have some regard for the value of the public education system.

Sheryl Snell-Massie, teacher, Prince William County, Virginia
(via Facebook)