Diane Ravitch on Trump, DeVos and the corporate ed “reform” agenda

The Dig

Daniel Denvir

News, Politics

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2017

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Trump has nominated Betsy DeVos, a free-market, far-right Christian billionaire dedicated to privatizing public schools, to be his Secretary of Education. In her confirmation hearing, DeVos made it painfully clear that she has little understanding of public education aside from her dedication to destroying it. She is the heir to an auto parts fortune and her husband, Dick, is the heir to a fortune derived from the direct sales company Amway, which the FTC at one point decided was not a pyramid scheme. Interestingly, she is also the brother of Erik Prince, who founded the infamous mercenary army Blackwater has now, according to The Intercept, been quietly advising the Trump Administration. The couple, thanks to their money and relentless ideological drive, are heavy-duty power players in Michigan politics, where they have wreaked havoc on Detroit public schools. In many ways, this oligarch’s nomination is the extreme and cartoonesque outcome of decades of bipartisan corporate-aligned policy that pushed charters and high stakes testing, and attacked the teachers unions that stood in their way. Today, we’re joined by historian Diane Ravitch, one of the country’s leading scholars of education policy and a vocal critic of corporate reform efforts that promote privatization and high-stakes testing as the solution to problems largely created by segregation, poverty and funding inequity. Amongst many other books, Ravitch is the author of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this is Micah Utrecht, associate editor at Jacobin Magazine.
0:08.2	I just wanted to say a quick word of welcome to Dan Denver and his podcast, The Dig, to Jacobin.
0:13.9	Dan is a fantastic journalist who I've known for a long time, who's covered everything from dirty cops in Philadelphia to the failures of our
0:22.1	immigration system to rank and file teachers union reformers. And we're extremely happy to have
0:27.9	him and his podcast as part of the Jacobin family. There's going to be much more audio visual
0:33.5	content from Jacobin in 2017, including a podcast hosted by me and writer-organizer
0:39.1	R.L. Stevens. You can find that, as well as audio from different events that we have done,
0:44.7	like issue release parties or talks with authors, on the Jacovin iTunes channel. So please
0:49.9	subscribe and rate and review us. If you want to support The Dig, you can find a Patreon account in the show description
0:56.6	or on the Dig's Facebook and Twitter pages.
0:59.4	And to support Jacobin, visit jacobinmag.com slash subscribe.
1:04.9	Thanks. Here's Dan.
1:15.4	Welcome to The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin Magazine. My name is Daniel Denver, and I'm broadcasting from AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island.
1:21.4	Donald Trump has nominated Betsy DeVos, a free market, far-right Christian billionaire dedicated
1:27.2	to privatizing public schools to be his education
1:30.1	secretary. In her confirmation hearing, she made it painfully clear that she has little
1:35.2	understanding of public education aside from her dedication to destroying it.
1:40.1	So public, public charter, private K-12 schools, if they receive taxpayer funding, they should
1:45.1	meet the same accountability standard.
1:46.6	Yes, they should be very transparent with the information and parents should have that
1:50.3	information first and foremost.
1:51.8	And if confirmed, will you insist upon that equal accountability in any K-12 school or
	...

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