Betsy DeVos statement on historically black colleges and universities

Parents Forum
81

As @crimsonmom2019 says “Was it really that more options help students flourish or that students having AN option shows they can flourish?”

As I’ve mentioned, my daughter goes to an HBCU. When we toured the school originally, the guide pointed out the bell tower at the top of the chapel. She explained that it was much more than a church bell. It also served as a lookout and warning system for students and staff in the early days of the college, when the whites who opposed the very idea of blacks being educated would ride in to attack. The watchers in the tower were tasked with warning those on campus of their approach, giving them time to get to safety.

And that right there, is the glaring difference between the way DeVos painted the existence of HBCU’s and the typical school choice picture. HBCU’s were created because there not only were no other options, but because the very idea of educated blacks enraged and terrified some whites. Getting an education was to risk ones life for some black students. These schools weren’t created because blacks were “not happy” with the PWI’s, they came about because they were the only way higher education was even open to them.

82

Wow. Thanks for sharing, @sseamom .

83

@marvin100, we will see. She’s gonna be in the job for a bit yet. We will know if she can handle it soon enough.

@katliamom, actually, despite the “tweet storm” referenced in the article, the most interesting thing to me was the last part. You know, the statement that less than half of the students were meeting or approaching grade level expectations.

84

@Ohiodad51… imagine where these kids were when they started, considering the school is one of the fastest-improving schools in DC.

Point being, the failures of schools serving impoverished populations are complex by nature, and years in the making. Something De Vos should learn in her new role, I would hope. (But don’t count on.)

85

@katliamom, sure. I just reject the idea that the only possible solution to very complex problems is to keep doing what we are doing. I would rather give DeVos, and the ideas she represents, a chance.

86

That’s fair, but I feel the need to point out that bringing in a multi-hundred-million-dollar donor with zero education experience and zero interaction with public schools who is on the record as wanting more fundamentalist Christian education (read: Creationism) is a pretty jarring choice, and the fact that her selection and policies are fiercely opposed by an overwhelming number of educators (and not just public school, and not just unionized, and not just non-Christian, and not just liberal) isn’t a very good sign.

87

@marvin100, fair enough. Like I said, we will see.

88

@Ohiodad51, would you say, give the surgeon a chance knowing the surgeon has no medical training? Would you say that about a car mechanic? A plumber? No. Why is it that we tolerate such ignorance for the chief of the nations schools? Why are our standards so low? Why SHOULD we entrust the education of our children to such an amateur? Do they not deserve better? I just don’t GET this.

But actually, I do have some insights into De Vos’ ideas – and have seen how they’ve played out where I live. In my city – one of the nation’s largest urban school districts – we don’t have vouchers, but we do have a well established school of choice system and an extensive, rapidly growing network of charters.

And frankly, I’m very troubled by what I see.

The charters are filled with young, and underpaid, teachers who come and go. I don’t blame them: they earn 30% less than their public school counterparts, they have fewer resources for troubled/learning disabled kids than the public schools do, and they work harder. (Longer hours, school year, etc.) As an educator, you must know that frequent turnover among teachers doesn’t make for ideal learning conditions.

Neighborhood public schools in the poorer areas are slowly becoming a dumping ground for kids who either couldn’t handle the charter schools – for whatever reason – or whose parents can’t get them to the charters, because they’re not in the neighborhood (and there are no buses) or they don’t offer after school care (obviously a must for working families.)

The well-performing public schools – the ones serving a middle/upper-middle class kids taught by decently paid, union protected teachers many of who are quite experienced – those schools are under tremendous pressure to take in all the kids, even ones from distant parts of the city. The pressure is financial: the more kids, the more state money coming to the school. So these schools are really crowded. At one of “the” high schools it’s not unusual to see kids sitting on the floor, or in the doorway, because the classroom is full, and there’s no more room for chairs. A teacher told me it’s not unusual to have more than 40 kids in the sought-after AP classes.

Yes, charters and “choice” mean there are IB schools, a performing arts school, an international school with classes taught in foreign languages, and science-and-technology schools. It’s great if you get into one. Entrance to most is through a lettery, and they all have extensive waiting lists.

These schools also compete with one another for outside resources and grant funds, and have had to hire expensive fundraisers and grants specialists, and yes, that money is taken out of the overall budget, so these schools don’t necessarily have libraries, or even nice cafeterias, or suitable sports facilities. The “extra” money goes for fundraising talent, not school “perks.”

And how does all this translate educationally? Test scores – they’re pretty much the same as they were. Unless they’re lower (as in SATs, for example.)

So – you’ve got crowded classrooms; overwhelmed schools; underpaid, overworked teachers who leave the profession because they can’t afford to stay, or can’t handle it physically.

It’s not a pretty picture. Based on what we’ve heard about Best De Vos’ educational philosophy – it’s not going to get better.

89

Actually, you’re the one missing the point by ignoring the context in which Woodrow Wilson’s made that quoted speech.

Specifically, the fact he was raised in and heavily influenced by a Confederate sympathizing southern elite White family and neighbors in which the ideal society is one organized on rigid feudalistic lines…a mentality common among elite White southerners of his generation and before.

90

@cobrat

You’re still not getting it. What Wilson meant or didn’t mean is irrelevant to why marvin100 used that quote. Marvin100 was trying to rebut a very specific point I made about academic tracking, when you interjected yourself into the middle of the conversation and tried to change the subject to a history lesson.

91

But according to some FB friends’ alternative critical thinking interpretations of her philosophy, she did promise a dinosaur for every student and a grizzly bear in every classroom. :smiley:

92

Chicken and turkey in the school lunches?

93

More like pet T-Rexes for every student to parade around to impress parents, neighbors, and especially teachers/educators. :smiley:

94

First of all, no, it’s not obvious because she didn’t say that. We’re not mind readers. If she was talking about private HBCUs than she should’ve said that explicitly. Again, as I stated, about half of HBCUs are public universities, so if you are talking specifically about private ones you should be really clear about that.

Secondly, that interpretation of the founding of private schools is not quite accurate in many cases. Bethune-Cookman, for example was not founded because Mary McLeod Bethune was unhappy with Florida A&M. At the time of Bethune-Cookman’s founding in 1904, there was only one HBCU in Florida (FAMU). Bethune also explicitly wanted to start a school for girls and women - BCU started out as a women’s college and only later went co-ed (because discrimination against women was a thing at HBCUs, too, in the early 20th century).

In other cases, private colleges were started before there were any public alternatives. For example, Spelman and Morehouse Colleges were both founded several years before the three public HBCUs (Albany State, Savannah State, and Fort Valley State) were founded in Georgia. Fisk and LeMoyne-Owen were founded long before Tennessee State was founded. In some cases, there was just a need for more colleges and universities in a specific area.

–Also, minor-ish comment, but public HBCUs weren’t created to “promote” separate but equal. Many public HBCUs were only created by the pushing and agitating of black activists and abolitionists and their allies. They were black schools because of the reality of segregation in the U.S. at the time, but they weren’t created to promote that per se.

95

@Zinhead you seem to consistently call out posters for misrepresenting and misinterpreting people’s arguments to fit an agenda, but you’ve been the main perpetrator of this issue on this thread and CC in general. First you say the subject at hand is the EO and not her comments, then you try to reframe DeVos’ comments to concern only private HBCUs (a distinction she does not make as Bethune was simply used as an example), and say that it was “obvious” this is what she meant. She never said that, and no honest person would be able to deduce that from her statements. Almost all of her statements speak to HBCUs in general, and she makes comments on how they’ve operated since “founding”.

Even if she did It’s not even logical. If being able to choose between a public HBCU and a private HBCU is a choice, then being able to choose between any random two public/private PWIs constitutes a choice. HBCUs wouldn’t be “pioneers” (her words) in this regard, because private PWIs were already offering the same concept.

Also framing HBCUs as trying to uphold segregation is ridiculous and undermines the importance educated black activist played in advocating for these institutions that could give African Americans the ability to receive an education. HBCUs arose because African Americans were not going to be allowed to integrate into PWIs. The only alternative would be for them to not be educated at all…

96

@katliamom, firstly, I don’t agree with the premise. We don’t require that the Sec of Ed be a teacher or administrator any more than we require the Sec of Agriculture to be a farmer, or the Sec of Defense to be a soldier. I have never understood that argument. Secondly, a surgeon performing an operation is executing a discrete task requiring specialized training. Running an agency and executing policy has never been viewed as such. If it were, I would have expected to hear people complain that President Obama shouldn’t have proposed the ACA because he is not a doctor and therefore ignorant of health policy. Our government is simply not structured around the idea that only people from certain backgrounds may do certain things.

On a larger scale, you make some excellent points about problems with the education system. And my question has always been that if things are so bleak (and let’s face it they have been for twenty years and more) why would I keep doing the same things? We have what, tripled education funding in the last fifty years? Apparently, just shoveling money at the problem is not the right answer. Why not try some new ideas? Why not give charters, and vouchers, and magnet schools, and home schooling an opportunity to operate for a bit in a slightly less hostile environment?

And let’s be very honest. Quite a lot of the vitriol directed at DeVos, as well as the support for her, is because she represents a challenge to the size, power and funding of the NEA and the AFT. The less power those unions have, the less money and resources they can provide the Democratic Party. In a lot of ways, this is just bare knuckle politics.

97

@TheAtlantic -

It was obvious to me when I first read her statement that she was trying to frame the creation of HCBU’s with the modern issue of school choice. DeVos earns lots of enmity because if she is successful, teachers unions will lose money, power and jobs and many of the people that attack her do so purely because they are invested in the current educational system and she threatens their livelihood. The bile this woman has endured is ridiculous.

From the viewpoint of the southern state governments at the time, HCBU’s served a useful purpose in keeping blacks out of the PWI institutions. Obviously, HCBU’s were created by black activist trying to improve their community. At the same time, the white-run governments saw state-supported HCBU’s as way to avoid the 14th Amendment court fights that would overturn segregation in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The facts that HCBU’s were largely created by blacks to expand their own educational opportunities and that their existence helped racist whites to maintain segregation are not mutually exclusive.

98

Funny, that argument makes immense sense to me. To the point where I don’t see an equivalent alternative.

99

“Why not give charters, and vouchers, and magnet schools, and home schooling an opportunity to operate for a bit in a slightly less hostile environment?”

@Ohiodad51 – Good points, all. Except that all of these have been given a chance – there is no hostility to any (except vouchers) in my city, for example. Yet the results aren’t at all what we’ve been promised. Students aren’t performing any better, teachers keep leaving the profession at alarming numbers, and the poor have fewer options than ever, because their neighborhood schools are being decimated.

Look, I’ve been part of the problem, too. Both my kids at some point in their K-12 educations, attended private, regular public and charter/magnet programs. I’ve lived and seen it all, and speak from personal experience that even when embraced by a Democratic city (I’m in a very blue area) De Vos’ ideas fail to improve schools, but in fact raise problematic moral issues regarding access to quality public education FOR ALL. Not just the privileged middle/upper middle class.

100

@postmodern, are you saying that you believe the only people qualified to be Sec Def are military? Or that only farmers can be SecAg? How about Sec HHS? Doctors only? You would have to admit that is a pretty extreme departure from how we have functioned as a government over the last few hundred years. Or is SecEd somehow different? And if the answer is SecEd is different, why? That is the part of the argument that makes no sense to me.

@katliamom, here in Ohio charters operate in a generally hostile enviornment. So do home schoolers, albeit to a lesser extent. On a federal level, I believe it is accurate to say the Dept of Ed has been hostile to charters for the last eight years, and was perhaps agnostic before then. Certainly there are groups on the side of the NEA and AFT who have not been shy in using litigation to challenge and test the charter model. All that to the side though, the fact remains that the system is in large part broken. I can not understand the resistence to trying different ways to fix it. If the issue is that there is a lack of trust in a Republican adminstration, then just pretend it is a spin on Harry Truman’s great quote “first we are going to try some things, and then if they don’t work, we will try some different things”. That to my mind is the path forward. Some charters succeed. Some magnets and regular public schools do as well. Figure out why. Figure out why others of all stripes have failed. Try and support policies that will lead to more of the former and less of the later. That is what the SecEd should be doing. But the argument that there must not be any charter schools, or merit pay, or non unionized jobs because “it takes away from the mission of public education” is not getting anyone anywhere.