BETSY UP NEXT – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  President-elect Trump's nomination of the brilliant and devoted Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education, will get the usual Democratic meat grinder approach as Ms. DeVos now comes up for confirmation.  From Fox:   

Three of the groups challenging the reform agenda of President-elect Donald Trump and his education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos received more than $2.6 million from teachers unions and their allies, according to federal labor filings.

DeVos, a pioneer in the school choice and charter school movements over the last two decades, has received vocal opposition from Democrats and some of the country’s most powerful unions. The National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and AFL-CIO, which serves as an umbrella group for dozens of unions including the AFT, have all called on the Senate to reject the nomination.

They have also pumped millions of dollars into think tanks and activist groups that have supplied Democrats with intellectual ammunition to oppose her.

DeVos, the head of the American Federation for Children, has come under scrutiny from a number of liberal groups and media outlets, along with unions. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and Center for American Progress (CAP) have each released reports critical of charter schools since President-elect Donald Trump announced the nomination in November.

COMMENT:  Once again we see how backward these "progressive" groups are.  They oppose any real school reform, especially if the reform threatens teachers' unions.

I am not anti-union.  I'm a union member.  But teachers' unions often don't act in the interest of children, but in their own interest alone.  Charter schools are a breath of fresh air in education, but they're a threat to union control of schools, and thus the Democrats oppose them.  Children?  Who needs children? 

It goes beyond this.  Like any thoughtful educator, Ms. DeVos wants to clean up the swamp known as the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education – the so-called "Title IX" office.  This office promulgates regulations right out of the Kremlin playbook.  Students accused of offenses like sexual violence, the campus term for rape, are often denied even the basics of due process as they try to defend themselves.  The standard of evidence decried by this federal office is so low that a ham sandwich could be convicted. 

Ms. DeVos has been accused by the modern McCarthyites of making financial contributions to FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.  This is one of the finest, fairest organizations I've seen developed in my lifetime.  It is a model civil rights group, fighting against lynch-mob justice on college campuses, and for basic Constitutional rights for college students and faculty.  But it is a threat to the Title IX industry, and thus is being smeared as some kind of dark force. 

I think Betsy will win out, and the real forces of darkness defeated.

January 17, 2017