President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

You need to get out more.

 

Poor Tucker Milo.

 

Surely Glenn Beck can find him a half hour on TheBlaze with Kelly Bundy and the other one.

 

Statement from U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Visiting Jefferson Middle School Academy in Washington, D.C. | U.S. Department of Education

Here is DeVos's statement after the visit.

"I thank D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson, Jefferson Middle School Academy Principal Greg Dohmann, Superintendent Natalie Gordon and a tremendous team of administrators, teachers and students for welcoming me to Jefferson Middle School Academy today. Jefferson Academy is a public middle school on the rise and a great example of the successful collaborative innovations occurring within the D.C. Public Schools system.

"Focusing on their students and families is at the heart of Jefferson Academy's approach, and that's exactly what I believe is at the heart of providing an exceptional education. Great teachers and leaders help make great schools, and I was honored to speak with Jefferson's team about our shared commitment to strengthening public education.

"I respect peaceful protest, and I will not be deterred in executing the vital mission of the Department of Education. No school door in America will be blocked from those seeking to help our nation's school children."

So I ask YF, does a statement by the Secretary of Education count as evidence of the school being "on the rise?" Maybe she just didn't understand what that meant, either.

 

"I found much that was alarming about being a citizen during the tenures of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. But, whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance, destitute of all decency, and wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English.” Philip Roth

 

I write this as someone who has to deal with DofEd types (if only figuratively) on occasion, and I have to say that if it's a matter of her lacking credibility with them, that's not necessarily going to be a negative thing to a broader audience. Because if my experience is even moderately representative, credibility with them depends largely on the degree to which you share their vocabulary and a common philosophical base. Put another way, just because those of a particular institutional field consider something to be illegitimate doesn't mean that those outside that field will agree. Indeed, those outside that field might interpret that insider reaction as a positive thing!

 

Weird. You seem to know an awful lot about his NYC salad days to have never even been there during that time.

 

I think you're right about this (No, I'm not kidding)
The Christians who voted for him don't care that he doesn't walk the walk. They just care that he says he's on their side and will fight for what they want from a government.
The military and veterans who support him are willing to overlook his draft -dodging because they think he has their backs.

 

Except her critics have done a very good job of making people understand the instances in which DeVos showed herself to be ignorant on the topic of education. You may wish to note that protesters met her on the way into the building. Perhaps that was just about Trump, but I doubt it.

My point being, her lack of credibility goes well beyond DofEd types. Right or wrong, teachers are usually pretty good at explaining things in a way everybody can understand and it isn't just Democrats among teachers who are disgusted by DeVos. I've spoken with teachers who are strong Trump supporters and they are also angry about her appointment.

 

OK, a diversion. Because Trump has played golf every weekend he's been in office and said he wouldn't, some are criticizing him. Not me. It has long been my belief that if Presidents tried their best to have normal weekends as much as possible despite the nature of their job, they'd have better mental health and the country would be better governed. Not the point here. I have a quiz. Mark Knoller, the CBS radio guy who's the historian of presidential trivia, has found the president who played the most rounds of golf during his time in office. It's whom I would have guessed. So you folks guess. No peeking at Google.

 

CIA agent says he quit over Trump:

Opinion | I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.

 

Again, though, you're talking about the "in" group's anger/disgust. Just because teachers are mad (to put it simply) isn't the be-all end-all. Further, it could be argued that DeVos has not shown herself "to be ignorant on the topic of education" but rather "unversed in the language of the education profession." The latter is not necessarily proof of the former.

I'll give a brief example from my career to hopefully illustrate what I'm talking about. Placed on a committee to assess student learning with respect to long-established learning goals, I found myself being lectured to by a School of Education type (they always tended to lead committees dealing with SACS issues) about how "You can't use students' grades on a test to assess learning." Which was likely true and the standard of practice in most cases ... but in this instance the learning goal (long established) was literally "Students will be prepared to pass the Uniform CPA Examination." My colleagues and I on the committee (this was a college-wide committee) argued that, hmmm, it certainly seems as if students' pass-rate on the CPA exam would be a very good indicator of how good a job we're doing of preparing them for the CPA exam. Maybe there are others we could also use. But certainly we'd want to use that one. But no. No way. Our chair could not move beyond her profession's general framework to embrace any other view. In her view we were the ones who were ignorant. It ultimately took the provost's office stepping in (and a bit of deus ex machina in the way of a job change) to break the logjam.

I should emphasize that I'm not all that enthusiastic about a choice like DeVos -- I think the smart play when you're going to make a contrarian nomination is to pick a nominee who speaks the opposition's language fluently -- but I think the reaction to her by the education profession can be taken as more informative (re: how she plays beyond the education profession) than it actually us.