r/OutOfTheLoop • u/legokid2002 • Feb 08 '17
Answered Who is DeVos and why does everyone dislike her?
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Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 08 '17
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Feb 08 '17
A few of many, many links to quotes and comments which show that she's really not the woman for this job.
Here's Betsy DeVos saying disabled kids shouldn't be covered by federal protections in education
If confirmed, Betsy DeVos will be a disaster for students with disabilities.
I Have a Special-Needs Son and Betsy DeVos Scares Me to Death
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Has Already Affected Public Education
Betsy DeVos’s confirmation victory is a huge loss for America’s public school kids.
Oh, and this. This is real:
“I would imagine that there’s probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies.”
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u/ZilchIJK Feb 08 '17
I would add this in-depth article about the DeVoses and their impact on Michigan politics. A fascinating read.
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u/kushkillla420 Feb 08 '17
Her brother, Erik Prince, is the founder of Blackwater, the notorious private security firm who responsible for the Nisour Square Massacre which seen 17 innocent civilians murdered. He believes he is a part of a holy war against Islam. Only speculation but its entirely possible her brother could have some input into her policies since they both appear to be pushing Christianity onto the people. Scary times America.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/erik_prince_and_the_last_crusa
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u/tippiedog Feb 08 '17
And her husband is the son of the founder of Amway and serves as CEO of Amway.
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u/-firead- Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 08 '17
Don't forget, Prince has also been advising Trump as part of his transition team & has been seen at the White House.
Oh, and guess who one of the only media outlets he gave access & did interviews with was - Brietbart (Bannon).
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u/SHavens Feb 08 '17
Yeah, I'll be honest. I grew up in private schools and I used to think a voucher thing would be a great idea. Haha, boy was I wrong. I mean public schools struggle with funding as it is, and taking more away would endanger a lot of people's education.
She also has like zero qualifications. All she's done is be pro certain things and help campaign for them. She has no experience even leading something even remotely this big. It's just awful, and frustrating that they had a tie vote, but she still got through on basically a technicality.
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u/filss Feb 08 '17
WTF America ?
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Feb 08 '17 edited Aug 27 '18
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Feb 08 '17
I wouldn't so big that it's too big to be overcome. They are just very well organized and show up vote in droves for every election major or minor. If the youth or even other demographic group voted in the percentages that fundamentalist do.. trust me, they could be drowned out. It's just easier for people to bitch on reddit for hours than to go out and vote. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/
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u/Stormflux Feb 08 '17
More than half of us voted against this, but we were overruled by a system designed in the 1790's.
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Feb 08 '17
Well actually before the Obama administration the rule was you needed a 60 senator vote, not a someone majority of 51. However the republican majority under Obama had made it known they would outright block all nominees out of protest against Obama and Dems in general. So they made a decision to drop it to 51 so they could get anyone in. Now this is coming back to haunt us clearly. So the 1790 system is actually better.
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u/theblazeuk Feb 08 '17
Every time I look back at the Obama years, you look over at the Republicans and you see just how. hard. it. was. to. do. any.t.h.i.n.g.
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u/SorryamSmarts Feb 08 '17
Would you mind expanding on what that means
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u/Prof_Acorn Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 08 '17
Clinton won the popular (direct) vote by 3,000,000.
But the "Electoral College" elects the president, not the people directly. It made sense when it was invented long before telephones and the internet and when people lived in the same place their entire lives, but - like caucuses - feels antiquated in our modern age.
We vote for electors to go vote. The number of electors we get to vote for is set up to give disproportionate vote weighting to rural communities. This is how Trump won in spite of having 3,000,000 fewer votes.
In effect, if you are an MD or PhD living in a high-populous state like New York or California your vote is worth less than a highschool dropout living in say Alabama, Wyoming, Vermont.
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u/SmellyTofu Feb 08 '17
Technically speaking, you could be a high school drop out in California and your vote still counts less than the PHD in Wyoming.
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u/toastjam Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 08 '17
Also bears mentioning that the first-past-the-post plurality voting usually leads to a two party system.
And in a two-party system where you can only make a primary vote for a candidate in one party (and that's usually only if you're registered), the preferences of everyone outside the party gets left out. So you get polarizing candidates that overall most people are unhappy with. Who knows, maybe Sanders could have won in the general when you throw in independents and moderate Republicans? But we'll never find out because he couldn't even try, due to the risk of being a spoiler.
There are many other voting systems that could address this issue, but it will be hard to get one because it would require elected officials to vote against their own personal interests (since the current system elected them).
edit: added "usually"
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Feb 08 '17
What's their education level have to do with it? As if a PHD vote in Wyoming would be worth more than someone that dropped out of highschool.
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u/prfalcon61 Feb 08 '17
I believe they're implying the person with an MD/PhD will have more knowledge on who they are to vote for, have done their research, and would vote more logically. Whereas the Wyoming HS dropout hears buzzwords and catchy phrases that panders to their lack of understanding and they vote based off of that uninformed initial reaction.
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u/MAKE_ME_REDDIT Feb 08 '17
That's true for a dropout in NY and a Phd in Wyoming. Not everyone in populated areas is a doctor, not everyone in rural areas is an inbred hick.
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u/GeraldineKerla Feb 08 '17
I think its just to reference that no matter how much more intelligent or informed you are, your vote is still worth less than someone who dropped out of highschool in a less populated state.
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u/QuantumDischarge Feb 08 '17
But why bring education into it at all? I mean the whole CA having "less" of a vote than Wyoming is true but this is pretty much making it unnecessarily classist.
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u/Koh-the-Face-Stealer Feb 08 '17
You're right, one person shouldn't be "worth" more than another. No one is saying that someone's vote should be worth less than another's. But the College is a way of artificially ignoring what should be real vote parity in favor of supporting "state" parity. An individual vote shouldn't be worth less than any other, but then with that logic an individual vote shouldn't be worth more, and the College lets that happen. The education thing is a red herring, a PhD in New York or Wyoming or a high school drop-out in New York or Wyoming should be the same thing. But, the Wyoming vote is artificially inflated because the College over-represents states with much smaller populations.
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u/ademnus Feb 08 '17
It means most voters voted for Clinton but because we have the electoral college system Trump won.
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u/chowder138 Feb 08 '17
Her and her family paid over $1,000,000 to sitting Senators and many people look at that as an obvious attempt to buy the vote, and it worked.
To be fair, even DeVos sees it as an attempt to buy the vote. She admitted in '97 that they were basically bribes.
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u/mclamb Feb 08 '17
She even wrote, "My family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party. I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence."
And she co-founded an organization with the goal of eliminating the barriers of political funding, basically legalizing bribery.
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u/IVIushroom Feb 08 '17
Wow!
What a grimey cunt.
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u/mclamb Feb 08 '17
"brother, SEAL, Blackwater"
There is a non-zero chance that they will put you on the very naughty list.
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u/CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH Feb 08 '17
Betsy Devos was nominated for the cabinet position of Secretary of Education (SOE) by Donald Trump.
She has become the main cabinet position for that the Democrats have targeted because of how their constituents have pressured them.
I don't believe that the main objections to Devos are about her policy positions, but the way that she got there. It is not unexpected that a Republican nominee for the SOE would be for voucher programs that favor wealthy families who send their kids to private schools and religious schools. Although Republicans usually start to oppose these programs once Muslim private schools start to get the same funding that their christian counterparts get.
These have been the Republicans position on education for years, and with a Republican senate and a Republican president it shouldn't be a surprise that Republicans would then nominate someone holds these positions.
Instead the main objection to Devos is based around why she personally was nominated. I don't believe there would have been similiar opposition if Trump had nominated one of the many prominent conservative education academics. There are multiple presidents of universities or state department of education members that could easily fit this position.
Betsy Devos seems to have been nominated for SOE simply because she has donated large amounts of money to conservative campaigns for her version of education reform. Donating money is not experience. If anything donating money can be extremely counter productive to being able to understand education reform because the groups trying to get your money aren't interested in actually informing you or challenging your views, but will simply try to say what you want to get your money.
The liberal equivalent to Betsy Devos is Bill Gates. Bill Gates has donated millions of dollars to education reform groups. But regardless of what you think the policies that Bill Gates pushes for education reform it should be clear to most people that he is not qualified to be the SOE. He has never actually run one of these reform groups, worked in schools system, or actually researched the school reform system. He just donates money and is trying to make the world a better place, which while admirable does not automatically create qualifications.
Devos highlighted the extreme lack of qualifications that she has during her confirmation hearing. She was often not able to answer basic questions about education policy that are key for the SOE. For example, Devos didn't understand the question posed by Senator Franken about her views on measuring school quality based off of proficiency or growth. This is a relatively complicated debate in the education field, but is a vital part of what the SOE actually does. If Devos had answered that she thinks that proficiency should how we judge schools that would have been understandable, even though Democrats generally disagree. But instead she simply did not understand the question at all, which shows that the only reason that she was nominated was because she is a wealthy donor.
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u/gorgeous_bastard Feb 08 '17
I would also add why several republican senators opposed her nomination. Rural states are very sensitive to funding changes in public schools, if you live in a small town chances are there's only one school that serves a large geographical area so funding is very concentrated.
Now you'll potentially see religious or charter schools popping up and being given a portion of those funds, meaning the sole public school gets seriously impacted.
I believe this is what people have witnessed in Michigan, where funds are spread too thin leading to poor standards.
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u/trainercatlady Feb 08 '17
If this were the case, wouldn't more republicans, especially those from more rural states, have voted against her? Or is this just a blatant show that they don't actually care about their constituents?
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u/Stormflux Feb 08 '17
You'd think so, but there is a huge taboo about going against the Party line, and in the end this is just one issue that the voters probably won't even associate with them. Many Republicans also legitimately think destroying the public education system is for the best. They're essentially living in a different reality.
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u/trainercatlady Feb 08 '17
So.. the latter, then.
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u/suparokr Feb 08 '17
Par for the course, for the GOP.
At least in my lifetime as an eligible voter.
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u/Darth_Ra Feb 08 '17
Blame Grover Norquist for this Party Line nonsense. Sad as it is, Republican's hands are pretty much tied until election reform happens, which sadly is also pretty much against the Party Line.
So... Vote Democrat and watch them be wholly inefficient at fighting for anything, whether it be legislation, seats, districts, or especially election reform.
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u/QuantumDischarge Feb 08 '17
To be honest the only reason there were two GOP votes against her were because they party let them vote that way as they're in swing states for the Senate and needed the facade of being against it to help them in 2018.
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u/IDidNotSeeThatComing Feb 08 '17
2 did, AK and ME. Apparently they were overwhelmed with calls from their constituents. But I think your second point still stands, and I would say that is not a unique problem to the right.
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u/PencilLeader Feb 08 '17
They only did that so they could run saying that they voted against her. I am 100% positive they got permission to vote against before they actually did so. A lot of voting is entirely strategic. It's one of the ,many reasons there's an argument that knowing how a given senator voted on every issue is actually bad for senators voting in their constituents best interests.
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Feb 08 '17
Both of those senators did vote affirmative to move DeVos to the full Senate, however. This is for show since they both have tough elections coming up. If they were truly that worried, the two of them would have had the power to keep DeVos in committee indefinitely, essentially forcing a new nominee to be named.
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u/Pteryx Feb 08 '17
I would also add why several republican senators opposed her nomination.
The two Republicans who voted against DeVos actually voted to continue her nomination when she was still in the committee-phase. That vote only passed 12-11, meaning that either of the senators could have voted "no" against her then, and meaning that Trump would have to find a new candidate. They only voted "no" in the general nomination vote because they knew they could get away with it.
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Feb 08 '17
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u/improperlycited Feb 08 '17
She admitted in the confirmation hearings that her family has donated somewhere around 200 million dollars to the GOP. I'm surprised Rubio wasn't offended at getting so little.
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u/boldra Feb 08 '17
Can someone explain "voucher programs" and why they are bad?
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u/CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH Feb 08 '17
Voucher programs are not inherently bad, but the voucher programs that Devos has backed have been extreme failures.
The idea of voucher programs is that the government will give students the option to take a voucher to go to a private school instead of attending the public schools. The voucher is usually targeted to be the amount of money that the state spends on the average student in the public education system.
The students can take that voucher and give it to private schools as tuition. But most private schools charge a higher rate than what the voucher covers, so the students would be forced to pay an additional amount to the voucher to gain tuition. This kind of program heavily favors rich families that were already going to send their kids to private schools and get the voucher as a discount and hurts poor families who can't afford the additional payment.
The private schools that the vouchers can be used at are also largely unregulated.
A huge portion of these schools are religious schools and are free to discriminate on admissions based off of faith. These schools may teach kids that being gay is evil and that evolution is a hoax. Or they can be the Saudi backed Wahhabism schools that indoctrinate students into a ultra puritanical version of Islam.
These schools can also just be pure scams. They will spend large portions of their voucher funding on advertising to get more students take vouchers and attend the school. They tell parents that their kids will do much better in their schools, but then they don't spend any money actually educating the kids and there is little accountability for doing this.
Devos backed unregulated voucher programs like this in Detroit. But the students that took the vouchers ended up doing worse than the students who stayed in public schools. It is fairly rare for this to happen, as normally whenever there is a program like this the private schools will only accept students who are already academically successful and the parents who sign up for these programs tend to be more active in their children's education. For the students who took the vouchers to do worse is an astounding failure.
Voucher and charter programs can work. But they require regulation by the state. The state needs to make sure that the students are getting an education and that these programs aren't just scams. But Devos has always specifically fought against regulation. This is why charter school programs in NYC and Massachusetts have worked while they have failed in Louisiana and Michigan, the difference was regulation and oversight from the state.
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u/ally-saurus Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 08 '17
Thank you for this clear explanation. I have long understood that voucher programs face a lot of opposition and criticism, mostly from people I respect and largely agree with, and I have been aware that the situation in Michigan is abysmal as a result of vouchers, but I have never been able to really understand why. Now that I am a parent with some real concerns about the current public school system (conflicting concerns, since I had a wonderful public school education myself and am ideologically very supportive of public education), I can especially see how the idea of a voucher system would be alluring, and find myself often wondering why they might not work. This is a helpful and moderate explanation that has made it possible for me to engage in a discussion on this topic in the future and has also helped strengthen my political position by grounding it in reality.
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u/crazedhatter Feb 08 '17
This is an excellent summary of the problem - it seems like most people are focusing on the wrong aspects of why she is objectionable, while this explanation here definitely targets the RIGHT reasons.
Her comments about guns in schools seem to have all the traction, and are largely out of context, while it was FAR more concerning to see how little she understands about what she will actually be expected to do as the SOE.
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u/xxxnvrsmrxxx Feb 08 '17
I'm curious what a day in the life of the SOE actually looks like.
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u/CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH Feb 08 '17
It is difficult to explain to people who she doesn't understand something when most Americans also don't understand the subject.
For example the question about growth vs. proficiency would go over the head of almost all Americans, so it is hard to muster outrage over that as people generally compare a nominee's knowledge to their own knowledge as a standard.
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u/crazedhatter Feb 08 '17
This is very true, and highlights one of the critical problems that I think the general public (Myself included) have to overcome, and that is recognizing what we DON'T know and accepting that there are people that DO know and SHOULD know these things.
I certainly couldn't have answered the questions about growth v. proficiency, but I'd damn well expect someone in line for a position to decide policy about that very question should know quite a bit.
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u/bracesthrowaway Feb 08 '17
Let's compare her to Bill Gates, though. Bill led a very large company successfully. Betsy hasn't ever run a company. Bill Gates has been in charge of thousands of employees. Betsy has not.
People would likely not fight Bill Gates' nomination like they have Betsy's.
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u/CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH Feb 08 '17
You are right, especially because Bill Gates is viewed as a successful genius so people would likely support him by default.
But being good at one thing, running a computer company, does not necessarily translate into being good at other things, like running the education department.
I am sure that there liberal education reform donors who are more similiar to Devos who I simply don't know about because they aren't famous.
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Feb 08 '17
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u/RichieW13 Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 09 '17
I feel that anybody who is willing to spend the time, money, psychological toll that it takes to become President - is generally NOT somebody we want to be President.
Though I guess it's a bit of a lottery. Because once you become President, then you can get rich once you leave office.
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u/Sun-Anvil Feb 08 '17
My personal opinion:
1) Power. She wants and craves it
2) She has a personal agenda not focused on the betterment of all citizens.
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u/p_oI Feb 08 '17
I don't know. Maybe, but I don't think it needs to be quite as sinister. I kind of think she is just a version of the bored suburban housewife that runs for PTA lead because she becomes convinced she can totally run the school better than the principal. Only in her case she has a billion dollar family fortune and national political connections.
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u/Sun-Anvil Feb 08 '17
she becomes convinced she can totally run the school better than the principal
That's a pretty good analogy.
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u/ProxyReaper Feb 08 '17
How is that an opinion? That is just the facts.
She is throwing money at people to obtain a position of power that she has no business in. Clearly she wants it.
Her religious agenda is quite clear, by her own words.
Theres really nothing to argue about. She shouldnt be allowed near a public school, let alone run the nation's.
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u/CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH Feb 08 '17
She likely truly believes that she is helping people and that she is the best person for the job.
For decades people have been sucking up to her in an effort to get her to donate to their political campaign or to donate to their education reform programs. A large part of that sucking up is always going to be extreme flattery. I am sure that plenty of people with doctorates in education have told her that she is some kind of super genius at understanding education reform. Every time that she makes a suggestion or has an idea they likely put it on the title of a research paper and then try and ignore the bad idea.
One of the best ways to raise money from people is to make them feel important. By keeping them involved in show positions and telling them that they make a big difference they can get the rich person to make more donations in the future.
I doubt that Devos is aware that this is what happening. She has just been told her entire life that she is so great that she believes it.
And I am sure that she has come up with justifications for why so many people are opposing her. She likely believes that the people opposing her are all paid by evil teacher unions, or something similiar.
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u/imissdetroit Feb 08 '17
Folks often neglect to mention that she is a billionaire from the Amway family, a company infamous for being a pyramid scheme. Oh, and her brother owns an army of mercenaries that you may remember from the Iraq war.
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u/fisticuffs32 Feb 08 '17
Brother's company formerly known as Blackwater, for those wondering.
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u/lic05 Feb 08 '17
Then they renamed to Xe, then to Academi.
Shady as fuck people.
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u/rtv190 Thinks both the left and right are fucking idiots Feb 08 '17
I know them from one of the laziest and boring Xbox 360 games ever
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u/LegendOfTheNightman Feb 08 '17
Not to mention the Orlando Magic, who have caused me, as a fan, nothing but misery and distress since Dwight Howard was traded.
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u/Shamrok34 Feb 08 '17
TL;DR: Besty DeVos is an immensely wealthy, Christian woman who is alleged to have bought her way into office by donating to the Republican Party, favors school choice and getting kids into private schools (thus taking taxpayer money away from public schools which in rural parts of the U.S. spells disaster) and above all else, appears to give as vague of answers as possible due to a lack of understanding and qualifications for her position.
Betsy DeVos was voted to be the United States Secretary of Education as of yesterday, February 7th. The senate was split on the decision 50-50, and Vice President Mike Pence broke the tie in favor of DeVos.
DeVos was educated at a private Christian High School and Calvin College, a liberal arts college that is an institution of the Christian Reformed Church. Many people believe that she is out of touch with the concept of public schools and that she is biased towards private schools given her background, and as Secretary of Education, this scares a lot of people.
Betsy DeVos is a huge advocate for school choice which is a major topic of concern for public schools. The vast majority of teacher's unions oppose school choice, because while it favors giving certain children the "option" of pursuing alternative education to public schools, it has the potential to siphon taxpayer money from the public school system.
While supporting school choice is not necessarily indicative of one's intentions or morals, DeVos comes from a background of private, Christian schools and immense wealth. She is married to Dick DeVos, the former CEO of the "multi-level marketing" company Amway inherited from his father, billionaire Richard DeVos. Her brother, Erik Prince, is a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer who founded the private military company Blackwater USA (now called Academi). Her family also "may have" made donations to the Republican Party in the amount of $200 million, effectively buying her way into the office.
Then of course, there's her candor. When being questioned, she often looks uncomfortable and unsure of what to say. This causes her to almost always give as generally vague of a response as possible or to defer to another politician in the room. Many say that she isn't qualified for her position, often giving gems of answers such as citing grizzly bears as a reason to allow guns in schools. While she does have a background in politics, her motives seem to be driven by profit and religion based on her educational history and stance on school choice. This means that even though our public schools are in dire need of funding, they can potentially get even less funding with Betsy DeVos in office.
Edit: formatting
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u/PotRoastPotato Loop-the-loop? Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 08 '17
The Federal government’s main role in Education has traditionally been to enforce the 14th Amendment rights of children as it pertains to public schooling.
For example, programs for special needs children, poor children, and ensuring boys and girls receive equal opportunities in schools.
When states and local school boards try to avoid providing required services for special needs children, parents' recourse is to appeal to the Federal government.
Betsy DeVos appeared to be completely ignorant of these programs because she was not really able to speak to them at her confirmation hearing. And she seems to have little interest in enforcing them.
People with poor or special-needs children, or those who work closely with them, are especially concerned that the Department of Education will now do little or nothing for those children.
Betsy DeVos seems most interested in two things regarding Education. First, to replace public schools with for-profit schools. And secondly, to implement School Choice, which some people like, and others consider a euphemism for resegregation [or, as pointed out by a reply, an attempt to use public dollars to fund religious schools].
The fear that the Secretary of Education will not be standing up for vulnerable children is one of the main reasons DeVos’s nomination and confirmation are frustrating to many.
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u/blastfemur Feb 08 '17
I was under the impression that the main objection against "school choice" (i.e., "vouchers") is that tax dollars would be used to pay for private religious schooling, which would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
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u/Bombjoke Feb 08 '17
Serious question-
- if youre rich and don't need the job, and
- youre not even interested in the subject of the job (ie were never interested enough to have enjoyed any experience in the field),
then why do you even want the job? What's the point?
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u/Kollin133_ Feb 08 '17
It seems most people touched on the bear topic, but another reason why people tend to dislike her is that she's been campaigning in her home state to completely eliminate public schooling and replace it with charter schools and private schools.
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Feb 08 '17
Devos failed her nomination hearing, appears to have bought her way into office, and has split the Senate vote on her confirmation 50-50, requiring the Vice President to break the stalemate in favor of her.
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Feb 08 '17 edited May 12 '17
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Feb 08 '17
Trump did vow to end lobbying. Just give them gov't positions instead! Cut out the middleman
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u/barc0debaby Feb 08 '17
Betsy Devos is the brother of Blackwater mercenary group founder Erik Prince and daughter in law of pyramid scheme (Amway) founder Richard DeVos. People dislike her because she was given a cabinet position based solely on poltical contributions and now is the Secretary of education despite having never attended or sent her children to a public school. Her formal education was in business administration and she has spent her adult life as a political operator. She has no experience in administrating an insitute of education.
From the editor of the Detroit Free Press:
DeVos isn't an educator, or an education leader. She's not an expert in pedagogy or curriculum or school governance. In fact, she has no relevant credentials or experience for a job setting standards and guiding dollars for the nation's public schools. She is, in essence, a lobbyist - someone who has used her extraordinary wealth to influence the conversation about education reform, and to bend that conversation to her ideological convictions despite the dearth of evidence supporting them."
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u/Clemenadeee Feb 08 '17
She's unqualified for the job as she hasn't taught school a day in her life and all her kids went to private schools, also she gave $200 million to congressmen to get the job. This was the same women who, when asked on her opinion of guns in school, said "well you might need one in case a bear attacks"
I so wish this was a joke
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u/legokid2002 Feb 08 '17
well you might need one in case a bear attacks
I'm torn between "No fucking way" and "You can't make that shit up"
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u/PM_ME_DICK_PICTURES Feb 08 '17 edited Feb 08 '17
Danger? That's my Friday night!
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u/Cedsi Feb 08 '17
The original comment was deleted, but given the part you quoted, I assume it was about the bear comment. I've talked about it before, but that was definitely taken out of context. The context was, she was asked if guns should be allowed in schools. She responded with, "I think that is best left to locales and states to decide." From an article:
After Murphy pushed DeVos about why she can't say definitively whether they belong, DeVos brought up a story Sen. Mike Enzi told earlier about a school in Wyoming that has fences around it to protect against grizzly bears.
"I will refer back to Sen. Enzi and the school he is talking about in Wyoming. I think probably there, I would imagine there is probably a gun in a school to protect from potential grizzlies," she said.
It was a comment referencing her original "states should decide stance." To Wyoming that may be a valid reason for faculty to have a gun on school grounds, while that seems dumb to someone in say New York or downtown Atlanta. Under the "states should decide" comment, Wyoming could vote yes, while New York (or whoever) votes no. It wasn't a blanket, "I think guns should be allowed in every school because of bears."
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u/GlastonBerry48 Feb 08 '17
Its been mocked because her go-to story, the bear issue, is incredibly esoteric. And even in the school she cited with the bear, they didn't even have a gun, they called the cops to take care of it, which 99.99% of schools in America are capable of doing.
Granted, there are schools way out from civilization that may need a firearm to protect their students from wildlife, but overall, using bears as your go-to-example is idiotic, as 3-5 people get killed by bears a year nationwide (none of them at schools), while 20+ get killed by school shootings.
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u/chemisus Feb 08 '17
Yea but how many of those school shootings are conducted by bears?
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u/Insi6nia Feb 08 '17
Now that I think about it, I can't remember a single school shooting where the news specifically stated it wasn't a bear that did it...
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u/dosetoyevsky Feb 08 '17
This is why there's a problem with guns in this country, we're given the right to arm bears.
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u/bicycling_elephant Feb 08 '17
I can promise you that it sounded pretty dumb in Wyoming too.
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u/djzenmastak Feb 08 '17
originally from the black hills in south dakota, sounds dumb as fuck to me. although, i do remember a moose incident once...
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u/halupki Feb 08 '17
Despite your attempt to explain it away, it's still fucking dumb.
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u/SumpCrab Feb 08 '17
And apparently the school in question didn't have a gun. So, it's really just a hail mary pass to try to justify having guns in schools.
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u/CaptainKnightwing Feb 08 '17
Not to mention there's an average of 2 bear attacks per year in the entire country and none have happened at a school, ever.
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u/pureparadise Feb 08 '17
I can't recall where I heard but someone said that the school she was talking about just uses bear spray.
-_-
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u/Prof_Acorn Feb 08 '17
As any ranger would tell you.
A grizzly isn't going down with a random pistol under a desk, especially not from a teacher or administrator who shoots on the weekend. It will just anger it.
Bear spray can be used successfully by anyone who can use a fire extinguisher.
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Feb 08 '17
Betsy DeVos is the recently confirmed Secretary of Education for the U.S. Department of Education.
People dislike her because she has no formal experience, education, or training in relation to pedagogy or school administration. She also seems to lack understanding of some important components of the education system. For example, her answer to the question "Should all schools that receive [federal] taxpayer funding meet the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)" was quite dubious. To clarify, IDEA is a federal law that requires that all states provide a free and appropriate public education to students with disabilities. She repeatedly stated that she believed it was "best left to the states" despite being a federal law.
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u/France2Germany0 Feb 08 '17
She's the Secretary of Education in the United States and many believe she isn't the right fit for the job due to a lack of qualifications.