While Senator Lamar Alexander is focused on presenting alternative facts about why opposition to Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos is growing, a group of education professors is actually outlining reasons DeVos’s nomination should be rejected.
The group, called the Teacher Education Collective, published an article explaining why they oppose DeVos. The members of the group include Ilana Horn and Elizabeth Self of Vanderbilt.
Here’s some of what they said:
During the three-hour hearing, she refused to pledge to maintain public funding for public schools; evaded commitments to the educational rights of students with disabilities in schools receiving public funds; muddled the distinction between measures of student learning (which are commonly understood and very consequential in the lives of teachers and students); and casually overestimated by 800 percent the increase in student debt over the last eight years.
Because they believe she is unqualified, the professors felt a need to express clearly and directly their opposition:
We believe unequivocally that DeVos’s confirmation would further threaten the democratic ideals of public education, the future of the teaching profession, and the fundamental right of U.S. children to a free and fair education.
In light of this, we recognize the collective responsibility to register our dissent publicly, to call upon elected officials and demand that they oppose her appointment, and to encourage others to do so as well.
These individuals are educators who educate future educators. They train the teachers who take jobs in our nation’s schools. They are strong and certain in their view the Betsy DeVos is not the right choice to lead the US Department of Education.
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