DeVos: Made Up of Individuals

I didn't want to cover that damnable 60 Minutes speech any further, but I need to make this point because all the folks who are just pointing and saying "Har har! DeVos is so dumb!" are really missing a crucial point.

I'm talking about this specific quote from the interview:

I hesitate to talk about all schools in general because schools are made up of individual students attending them.

And we can set this one, in response to the question about disparate and racist responses to student misbehavior, right next to it:

Arguably, all of these issues or all of this issue comes down to individual kids. And--
 --it does come down to individual kids. And--often comes down to-- I am committed to making sure that students have the opportunity to learn in an environment that is conducive to their learning.

Regular DeVos watchers recognize the ideas expressed here. These statements are clumsy and awkward, but they are not stupid-- they are an attempt to frame her policy choices in language that is consistent with what she has in mind.

DeVos has consistently said that she favors individuals over institutions, and she has tried to frame all her discussion of education in terms of individual students. Take this construction:

Well, we should be funding and investing in students, not in school-- school buildings, not in institutions, not in systems.

Why say something like that over and over?

Because it plays better than saying, "We should defund public schools."

Why keep making these ridiculous responses about individual students instead of looking at the system?

For the same reason that government officials are forbidden to say "global warming." For the same reason that the use (or non-use) of the phrase "radical Islam" became a hot-button issue.

DeVos hesitates to talk about all schools in general because she if she did, she would have to acknowledge that they exist, and she doesn't want to-- she wants to frame education as something that has to do with individual students and not with taxpayers and not with education professionals and certainly not with the public schools that she would like to get rid of. She is saying very plainly that families and students are going to be on their own, and if that means, for instance, that black kids get unfairly hammered by whatever rules are in place, oh well, that's too bad.

She would like to rhetorically erase the idea of funding public schools and a public school system because she would like to actually erase the practice itself.

Yes, her attempts to reframe the issues of education are clumsy, partly because, stripped of her checkbook powers, she is a terrible, terrible persuader. And mostly because her idea is a really dumb idea, and rhetorical tricks will only get you so far when you're trying to sell a really dumb idea.

But it's not a set-up for a joke.

On the one hand, I'm glad that the mainstream has finally noticed some of these issues (seriously-- I'm glad folks were struck by the whole "taking money away from struggling schools is kind of dumb" thing, but some of us have been saying it for twenty years). But on the other hand I feel like I'm watching people who are being told by an assailant, "I am going to punch your children in the face" and people are reacting like this is a hilarious joke, but not, really, that assailant is really getting ready to punch your children in the face, and he just told you he's going to do it, and maybe you should do something other than make jokes about it.

CA: DFER "All-Star" Running for Governor

Whitney Tilson is the hedge fund guy behind Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a reform-backing group that is only sort of technically Democratic. Tilson sends out a regular newsletter, and in the most recent edition, he beats the drum for California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa.

This guy.

Villaraigosa is a former Los Angeles mayor. In Tilson's letter, DFER calls Villaraigosa "a bonafide DFER all-star" and touts his impeccable "ed reform credentials."

As Mayor, he sought mayoral control over Los Angeles' schools, and used his platform to take responsibility over a large subset of the City’s failing schools including those in South Los Angeles, Watts and East Los Angeles.

So he's helped out reformsters with some real estate grabs. And then there's this:

Importantly, given that Mayor Villaraigosa served for years as an organizer for the local teachers' unions, he continues to be one of the only leaders in the country who can speak against inequities in education with the credibility of being a pro-union Democrat who once represented members of the unions he is now holding accountable.

While it's true that Villaraigosa used his union work to launch his political career, he may have singed that bridge a bit when he called the LA teachers union "the largest obstacle to creating quality schools." Villaraigosa has picked fights with any number of unions in LA; I'm not so sure the "pro-union" hat fits pretty well, but Villaraigosa is a fine example of what Slate was talking about when it wrote the headline "Betsy DeVos Didn’t Say Anything in Her Viral Clip That Democrats Haven’t Supported for Years."

When Eli Broad tried to launch a plan to privatize half of the LA Unified School District, Villaraigosa was there to offer his vocal support.  And while Tilson may want to label Voillaraigosa pro-union, the candidate himself makes it a point to paint the teachers union as his enemy. Because, I guess, being anti-teacher is one way to earn political and financial capital in these races. Oh-- he would like tenure to be harder to get as well.

Bottom line: California, like DFER, New York, Connecticut and a few other locales, is a place where many Democrats are largely indistinguishable from Republicans when it comes to public education. For the moment, California Democrats have some choices for governor. We'll have to wait and see if anyone emerges who wants to actually stand up for public education, or if California will be one more place where public education becomes a political orphan.

DeVos In This World

By this time, everyone in the education world, or even the world next door, has heard about Betsy DeVos's appearance on 60 Minutes being grilled by Lesley Stahl. Unfortunately, most of this morning's coverage seems to focus on roasting her for being an uneducated twit. I recommend folks look a little more closely at what she's saying. Ready for just one more take on this?

In the widely reposted exchange from the interview, DeVos is pressed on the results of her meddling in Michigan, where she got pretty much everything she wanted, and schools statewide have suffered because of it. DeVos tried to hold up Florida as an example of success.

Neither state is an example of success by any conventional education measures. Michigan, which has had the most DeVosuian influence, is an educational disaster area. Florida just earned a low ranking in US K-12 education. 

People look at this disconnect and think, "Well, only a dope could think that these policies actually helped these states. Betsy DeVos must be a dope."

I think the conclusion that she's a dope is a mistake.

Here's another theory. Let's assume that getting a good education to every child is not a goal. Let's assume instead that the goal is to have education functioning on the free market, free of public institutions and government meddling. Let's assume that seeing some businesses prosper and profit is further proof that the market is working properly. Let's assume that directing public money to religious schools at the expense of government programs is a desirable and commendable outcome. In fact, let's assume that in such a system, having some schools and students sink to the bottom is a desirable outcome, because the free market is supposed to reward the deserving and allow the undeserving to sink to the low level where they belong. And if gutting public education has the effect of gutting unions and taking power away from those damn Godless Democrats, well, that's only right, too.

If we assume those things, then Michigan and Florida are unqualified successes.

So you can assume that DeVos calls these states a success because she's a dope, or you can listen to what she's telling you about her goals, which is that those states have come close to achieving them.

The interview includes a clip of someone calling out her wealth, and there's the usual speaking against the idea of federal overreach (by which she seems to mean "reach") including the now-characteristic insistence that certain bad things shouldn't happen in school, but it's not the government's place to do anything about it. Nor is she ever going to really acknowledge systemic racism. The most charitable read for that last one is that she just doesn't get it; the least charitable read is that DeVos is simply racist herself (those black kids wouldn't get in so much trouble if they didn't deserve to, because you know how they are).

And throughout the interview, there's that voice and that smile. That same rictus of a smirk. What is up with that?

I have a thought.

Any analysis of DeVos that doesn't factor in her religious views, her brand of Midwestern fundamentalism, is a mistake.

Looking at that smile, I was reminded of an old Christian admonition- "Be in this world, but not of this world."

It's a view that people of faith, people who have been elevated by a relationship with a personal Lord and Savior, do not actually belong in this dirty, debased world. The rules of this world cannot be their rules. To achieve Godly goals, they may have to use worldy tools, even pretend to go along with worldly rules, but this is stooping to achieve a higher purpose. God will even give His chosen tools (like earthly wealth and political power), but they must avoid being seduced by worldly things, including a desire for worldly acclaim and recognition. That means, among other things, that the Chosen don't owe these earthly, debased, going-to-hell persons an explanation. You can be in the world with these people, and maybe feel sorry for them, but there is no need to connect with them-- you are almost like two separate species, passing each other for a brief moment as you travel to two separate destinations, you to eternal glory in Heaven, and they to endless damnation in Hell.

So you smile. You smile hard, because it shows that you're still better than they are, and that you haven't stooped to their level. You smile even as they say mean things about you, because if the people of this world mount powerful forces against you, it's just further proof that you are right (and they are wrong). In fact, you are so right, and so sure of it, that real conversations with them aren't necessary because what could you learn from people who are so low and earthly and wrong? But you go through the motions to show that you're the bigger person, and because sometimes worldly tools must be used to achieve divine goals. You smile.

Betsy DeVos's smile is the smile of Dolores Umbrage or the Church Lady. It's an angry, flinty smile, a smile that says, "I am in this world, but I am not of it, and some day I will rise above it and leave you behind."

I know, I know. I am engaging in more armchair psychiatrist than people who just skip straight to, "She's a dope." But when I look at her, I see a face that I saw dozens of times on the United Methodist Youth Fellowship circuit. I always wondered how those folks would grow up, and in most cases life beat them into a humbler, kinder shape. Betsy DeVos looks to me like how they would have grown up if they had been bubbled inside enough  wealth and privilege to convince them that they were right all along. There's no humility there, and no kindness, though I would bet that DeVos thinks she has kind thoughts about the rest of us, and I suppose she does, in the same way that some folks have kind thoughts about scraggly stray cats. But not only is she not of this world, but she hasn't been in it all that often.

I don't believe for a minute that DeVos is a dope. I think she's worked very hard at packaging her core beliefs, knowing that in this world you can't just say "Close all public schools, hand education over to religious schools, give everyone a voucher." You can't just say "There should be no collectives except the Church, and it should admit only those who deserve to be there." You can't just say, "Some people are supposed to be poor and miserable, because if you don't properly follow God's word, you're supposed to be poor and miserable." You can't just say, "My wealth is a sign from God that I have been anointed to do His work." You can't just say, "Your opposition to me just proves that Satan is mobilizing against me in this world." Your silence on all these matters is just a price of being in this world. But since you are not of this world, you won't have to pay that price forever.

If DeVos sometimes seems confused by questions asked by worldly interviewers and worldly Congressmen, it is in part because they are following a worldly script that she rejected back in her youth. If she seems confused, it may not be because she doesn't get it, but because she still can't quite understand why the rest of us don't get it.

Betsy DeVos is not a dope. I wish more people would see what she keeps putting right in front of our collective face. She has a vision of what education and government should look like, and if it seems that her vision is dangerous and damaging to the world, that does not matter to her, because this world is not her home.

ICYMI: Lost Hour Edition (3/11)

It's another lovely Sunday, and here is some reading for the week. Remember-- only yu can amplify the voices that you believe should be heard.

Things Economists Should Start Saying

Jersey Jazzman takes a look at the kinds of "expert" analysis offered by economists about education.

Who Are the Data Unicorn Tech Giants

There's a lot to wade through here, but it's a good look at some of the connections within the race to monetize student data without getting bogged down by student consent.

When Big Data Goes To School

Alfie Kohn doesn't blog often, but when he does, it's always worth a read.

Teachers In Your State Are Underpaid

This Vox piece comes with a clickbaity title, but it's a pretty interesting batch of data about teacher salaries in every state.


10 Things We Shouldn't Expect Public Schools To Do

Nancy Flanagan passes on some observations from a friend about the expected roles of public schools. It's kind of stunning when you just lay it out in a list like this.

Teach Kids When They're Ready

Is there anything more consistently ignored in education then the fact that littles develop at the same pace they always have, no matter how hard we try to rush schooling?

Cost Benefits Show Failure of Voucher Plan

The Journal Gazette offers a direct and simple debunking of the Indiana voucher plan by using facts. Go figure. Once again, voucher systems turn out to be a way to channel public tax dollars to private religious schools.

Minneapolis Public School Hosts Teach for America Recruiting Event

In Minneapolis, another reminder of how TFA is the ground troops for spreading charter schools, and how some public systems have become complicit in their own destruction.

New Oklahoma Teacher Vows

A look at the super-secret vows that new Oklahoma teachers must, apparently, take when they go to work.

AEI: Localism and Education

The American Enterprise Institute, a right-tilted, free market loving thinky tank, has put out a collection of essays organized around the topic of localism in America, and within that book is a brief-ish essay by Frederick Hess and Andy Smarick entitled "Localism and Education: Pluralism, Choice, and Democratic Control."

My town, in a somewhat earlier time

Hess and Smarick set out by connecting localism and pluralism, but also connect localism to the freedom "to forge lives and ties among those who share their beliefs and values" which is kind of.... not pluralism. They place public schools in that tradition of community endeavors launched by "responsible, civic-minded" citizens.

Indeed, given the role schools have historically played in binding together the fates of neighborhoods, fostering understanding and interdependency among neighbors, it is no great feat to understand why in so many communities school choice is seen as a threat rather than a boon. In short, two time-tested notions of localism are in tension: one rooted in liberty and free association and the other in the bonds of community.

And the "challenge for education reformers" is that their measure of the merits of different approaches has "become remarkably detached from that of many families, voters and communities."

I agree with this, mostly, except the word "become." In much of the modern ed reform movement, policies and initiatives have ben detached by design. Common Core was designed specifically to override local decisions and bring uniformity from community to community, state to state. Charter schools have been mostly run as private businesses with no actual local governance; who can forget Reed Hastings arguing that local school boards should be eliminated. The detachment from local concerns has always been baked right into reform. As it will turn out, Hess and Smarick don't really disagree with me.

Hess and Smarick admit there are mixed feelings, noting that localism is both "revered and reviled." Then they cite its "long and tangled history" as resulting in a hyper-local control that was "pragmatic, not just philosophical." Some of the conditions of localism, in Hess and Smarick's narrative, began to change:

--namely, explicit efforts to prize assimilation over diversity, the reduced role of churches in schooling, and the increased capacity of state and municipal government--

And this, they argue, led schools to become less local.

Brown v Board, they suggest, kick off a period of government control, based on the moral claim that some locales could not be trusted "to do right by all their students," and history certainly backs that up. And that set of moral reasons, many reformers over the past half-century have wanted to see les localism. Hess and Smarick identify three "camps" of anti-localism reformers.

Business and "Accountability" Republicans. These are the guys pushing standards-based reform and test-based accountability, because you can't trust the locals to get it right-- particularly when that damn teachers union gets involved and starts pushing back.

School Choice Advocates. These are the folks that see local schools as "bureaucratic monopolies" where students must be rescued from their zip code.

Democratic Reformers. Are there Progressives who "have come to see localism as little more than a problem to be solved"? Probably true, as long as there are Progressives who believe those rubes in the hinterlands will screw up standards, segregate like crazy, and try to screw over the poor neighborhoods.

I'm not sure I buy this taxonomy entirely, but their actual point is that despite a wide variety of reformsters who are out to kill localism, almost none have actually managed to end it.

Why, Hess and Smarick wonder, is it so hard to kill?

One, they note, is a sentimental attachment to local control and a belief that it offers "a bulwark against grand plans and far-off agendas." Hess and Smarick aren't going to dismiss this as a legit concern, "given the number and goofiness" of such plans that have been imposed on schools over the year.

But they also want us to consider one other pro-local force, and here they disappoint me, because we have arrived the long way around at the old argument that it's those damned champions of the status quo, those unions and administrators who have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. It's a shallow argument, and it overlooks two critical points. First, if teachers and administrators are motivated by their vested interest in the system, well, so are all the reformsters who stand to make a living from "disrupting" education or who stand to make a fortune by opening an education-flavored business. Second, and more importantly, it overlooks another explanation for the pro-traditional stance of the "blob"-- people who are trained and experienced professionals in a field might just have a better idea of what works and what doesn't. In fact, we've been at this long enough now to start having versions of one particular conversation over and over and over again:

Reformster: I have discovered widgetomification, and it will revolutionize the education field.

Actual educators: That's a new version of an old idea. It won't work. You should not try to inflict it on schools. You should not waste our limited resources on it.

Reformster: You dreadful status quo-ians. You need to be swept aside.

(Some time passes)

Reformster: I have had another genius insight. I have come to announce that widgetomification does not work!

Actual educators: No shit, Sherlock.

Hess and Smarick almost acknowledge this when they write:

...perhaps Americans have decided to continue situating schools’ authority at the level of small, local democratic units not merely because it is convention but because there is wisdom and value in that convention.

They note that even where charters have captured large market shares and "empowered" (my scare quotes) parents, there is still a move to return power to local boards.

All this works us around to the question of what localism in K-12 actually means.

Reformers have tried to sell choice as "the ultimate expression of localism," allowing families to choose their communities and generally embodying "an understanding of localism based on voluntary associations, nongovernment bodies, and individual empowerment." They have some theories about why this pitch doesn't fly. I think they've missed a couple of major points, but I'll let them go first.

To many communities, they note, a school is not just a school, but a source of local pride. This is correct. Where you find small town school districts contemplating merger, there will be more discussion of school mascots and community identity than of ways to reconcile pedagogical techniques. And when my own district discussed closing some outlying elementary schools, there was the same level of concern you would expect from closing a post office o a community center.

Hess and Smarick are correct to note that, expanding choice "would seem to lead to atomization... in a manner likely to enervate communities and undermine social capital." And they are also correct to note that one some of the issues raised, there is not much room for compromise. " Either public schools are governed by elected officials or they are not." Either families can choose to send their children to private schools and have taxpayers foot the bill, or they can't.

Hess and Smarick have overlooked some other factors here. At one point they characterize choice as pushing authority down "from hulking, bureaucratic district offices." But in small town and rural districts, the central office is not hulking, and it is staffed (like every other small town institution) with readily recognizable friends and neighbors.

More notably, choice systems clash with localism because choice system disenfranchise large chunks of the community. A good solid Baptist community member may not approve of the Catholic school, or an African-American community member may not like the idea of a segregation academy in town, but if those community members don't have children, they have no say in what happens to their choice-directed tax dollars. In my region, where cyber-schools are the only real choice options functioning, community members are angry that a handful of families can make a decision that threatens the future of a school that is valued by the entire community because of laws passed by folks far off in the state capital. Hess and Smarick talk about the visible results of charters and choice, but in my neck of the woods, the visible effect of choice is that taxpayers are paying their taxes and suddenly it's not enough to maintain long-time valued community assets and traditions. A handful of families may get to exercise some choice, but the vast majority of taxpayers get no say at all in choices that are visibly damaging their beloved community schools.

Hess and Smarick end with a battery of questions about the bands of localism and how they both clash with and support the reformy desire for school choice (which is really the only type of reform being discussed here). But think tank ruminations aside, school choice and localism go together like chocolate and gasoline.

NPE: Parent's Guide To Online Learning

The Network for Public Education has released a new guide, "Online Learning: What Every Parent Should Know." At twenty pages, it's not exactly a quick skim, but for folks who are trying to sort through the basic issues of the online delivery of education-flavored product, this is a good place to start.

After an introductory overview from NPE head Carol Burris, the guidebook looks quickly at how we arrived here (spoiler alert: both Obama and Trump administrations like online education just fine). Then we break down some other issues.

The Different Flavors

Online learning is now part of several different products being sold to the public, so NPE breaks it down:

Virtual schools aka cyber-schools refer to a set-up in which the student logs on full-time for "school." Course content is delivered on line, often with the student at home. Blended/hybrid learning is when students are in a bricks-and-mortar school, but get a significant amount of their instruction via computer. You'll also hear "competency based" and "personalized" in reference to online schools, emphasizing the mastery of specific skills and adaptive software that supposedly adjusts what it delivers to the student next based on the work that the student just did.

I Can Haz Money

NPE notes that for-profit educational management organizations (EMO) make a squatload of money. Note my own state, where the cyber-schools are paid based on the cost-per-pupil of the sending district and not based on the actual cost of providing virtual school. And it could get even more profitable outfits like blended learning schools are allowed to ignore any and all class size rules.

How Many On Line Students Are There?

We don't know. Next?

How Do Online Students Perform Compared To Their Meat Widget Peers?

Short answer: poorly.

Long answer: Here are a bunch of different studies, each of which has its own special problems (including, and this is me talking, that many of them use test scores as a proxy for student achievement despite the fact that test scores have not been proven to be a useful or accurate proxy).

But the report does break down studies and results as they relate to the different types of online learning listed above.

The results from full-time on line learning are lousy. Nobody thinks cyber-schools actually work, except, apparently, the various legislators who have enjoyed that sweet, sweet lobbying support.

A study of blended personalized [sic] learning seems to show some positive results there, but that study has enough holes in it to swallow a fleet of semis. But NPE looks at that RAND study in some detail.

So Let's Look At Some Specific Blended Learning Models in Action

NPE takes a look at particular businesses. Like our old friend Rocketship Charter Schools, a blended learning model that was going to revolutionize education, except that it pretty much hasn't. Not even a little.

There's also a blended learning model strictly for math called Schools of One (from way back in 2009 in NYC) that, while backed by the usual gang of pseudo-edu-philanthropists, never generated any real positive results except for some good positive PR. It eventually changed its name but, unsurprisingly, rebranding did not result in new awesomeness.

And there's the Summit platform, the Facebook-backed platform that is currently hot and has spread widely. Summit is notable for waving a huge number of red flags regarding the privacy and ownership of student data.

If This Stuff Doesn't Work All That Well, Why Hasn't It Gone Away

Short answer: because money.

Long answer: Many for-profit companies have a big stake in this business, and the money they spend lobbying for favorable rules is a mountainous thing, indeed. They are also well-connected by groups like ALEC, which like the idea of chipping away at public schools. NPE offers a couple of instructive examples, like the way that lobbying and what we used to call bribery opened up Maine and turned it into a playground for the personalized education biz.

What Else Do We Have To Watch Out For?

NPE talks about some other players in the cyber-sandbox of education flavored businesses.

There's I-Ready and the ever-lovin' MAP exams, examples of online tests that are used to shape and direct instruction in public schools. There's credit recovery, which in this context refers to products that let a student log on, do some work (or have somebody do some work) and get credit for courses they failed.

And, in some ways the most creepy, behavior management apps like Class Dojo, which both allow teachers to track student behavior data and also store that data to be shared with heaven-only-knows-who.

Man of these products are piloted and financed by people who are from the world of venture capital and business, and not education. It's also worth remembering that when programs like these are free, that's a red flag. Remember the old on-line adage-- if you aren't paying for the program, then you are the product.

Yeah, What About Privacy Protections, Anyway?

NPE gets into a lot of specifics and detail here, which is useful because parents should understand just how minimal the privacy protections. are. Really minimal.

Also (and I'm not quite sure why NPE slips this point in here), parents should also be aware that just because these are computer programs, that doesn't mean they aren't loaded with bias. Every "personalized" program involves predictive software, and the research suggests that those predictive algorithms are just loaded with bias and prejudice.

How Can A Parent Tell Whether a Particular Program Is Bunk?

NPE spends a page and a half on this, and while the rest of the report suggests elements for parents to consider, they crystalize some of that advice here.

First, cyber-schools are bunk. Don't put your child in one.

Consider class size and teacher-student ration. Consider how much time your child will interact with a real, live human teacher. How much time will you have to spend as a parent monitoring and supporting your child. What is the program's track record-- how many students are passed or retained. How freaking boring is it (you van collect this info from your child). How much screen time will be involved (because more screen time is not a good thing). What is the program's purpose, and can the vendors provide any evidence that it actually works (studies that the company performed themselves don't really count here). Can you talk to schools that already use the product.

There's more, but you get the idea.

And That Brings Us To The End of the Report

If you are reading this blog, you probably know much of what is included in the report, but if you know a parent who's trying to sort this all out, this report can be an excellent resource to pass along. It's well-sourced with plenty of links and references, and it lays things out pretty clearly, with both a big-picture look at the issues and some very specific ideas for parents who are starting to navigate this world.

Parents need to understand that slick glossy ad copy coupled with high-powered hype does not equal quality educational material. This report is a good primer for cutting past the shiny fog.

Save the link and pass it along to someone who needs to see just what the problems with online learning are.

The DeVosian Dilemma

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has a problem.

Okay, she has several problems, but one problem exists at the intersection of all her larger problems in the office.

Earlier this week, DeVos wagged her federal finger at the Council of Chief State School Officers. She wanted to deliver some "tough love" to the states, scolding them for producing new ambition-free  education plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that were "more focused on compliance than innovation."

Just because a plan complies with the law doesn’t mean it does what’s best for students. Whatever the reasons, I see too many plans that only meet the bare minimum required by the law. Sure, they may pass muster around conference tables in Washington, but the bare minimum won’t pass muster around kitchen tables.

Yes, I'm holding a big box of nothing, right here

There's more of this in her speech (after searching for her official voice at the start of her tenure, DeVos seems to be settling into a sort of folksy Midwestern-ness that masks her ignorance of public education and her billionaire pedigree with homespun grandma style). She wants the states to stop just doing the bare minimum and start showing the initiative to "innovate and improve."

Who told the states they could get away with doing just the bare minimum going-through-the-motions compliance? Well, that's part of her problem-- Betsy DeVos told them that.

On numerous occasions, DeVos has made it clear that she thinks that DC should keep their nose out of this. It's not her job as United States Secretary of Education to tell states how best to obey the laws that are enforced by the United States Department of Education.

This is extra problematic because the law is, at many points, exceptionally unclear. Lawmakers peppered it with words like "ambitious" and "challenging" and left the Department to figure out what they actually mean. Only DeVos is of the opinion that the Department has no business telling anybody what anything means. And at the same time, Betsy DeVos has a pretty good idea what those words should mean.

We've seen her use this approach in other places. Going all the way back to her confirmation hearing, we can see that, on the one hand, she thinks certain sorts of discrimination shouldn't happen, but on the other hand, she can't imagine a situation where she would use the power of the Department to tell a school to stop practicing any of those sorts of discrimination.

This oversight issue has been the issue that folks, particularly conservative folks, have been watching all along. Once DeVos got her hands on the wheels of power, would she use them? The answer seems to be no, she won't. She'll just make a frowny face if she doesn't like what's happening.

This dilemma plays into several of her key weaknesses as an education secretary.

First, as a lifelong Very Rich Person, one who has never held a job outside of the family business, DeVos has little knowledge of how things get done outside her rich person bubble. Inside the bubble, a frowny face is probably more than enough to get the wheels turning and people hopping. She's never had to play the game by anything but DeVos rules.  But outside the bubble, there are plenty of people who don't care if she's frowning because they didn't go her idea of an extra mile.

Second, she lacks both the experience and the heft to wield the bully pulpit. Yes, she has worked as an activist and lobbyist-- but always with a checkbook and political connections in hand. When a legislator in Michigan wouldn't choose to do the right thing, the DeVos way was to threaten him with a primary challenge that would end his career. She has no such leverage against the governors. If she wants to speak on matters of public education policy, she speaks with no more expertise than any random person pulled off the street. Imagine someone who has worked for decades in education saying, "Well, if DeVos thinks that's a good idea, maybe there's something to it."

The bully pulpit does not automatically bestow attention, wisdom, and heft on whoever steps up to it. If you want people to pay heed, you have to bring something with you, and DeVos does not.

Third, she has no reserve of trust to build on. Her experience with public education is in trying to dismantle it, and that doesn't exactly inspire trust. One of her few clear policy directions is favor the interests of businesses (like loan companies and for-profit colleges) over the interests of students. She has a long history of calling public education names (like dead end). And she would really like to see public money financing private schools. None of that inspires trust.

Fourth, DeVos is lousy at articulating her vision for schools. She just made a trip to Parkland and the school that was the scene of the terrible murder of seventeen students and teachers; afterwards, she held a press conference at which she sort-of-answered-ish five questions, and then zipped off without even saying goodbye. Or look at her recent stock photo tweet in which she tried to make the point that public schools haven't changed in 100 years, but instead made the point that she doesn't know what the inside of a modern classroom looks like. If she has a strong vision of what she wants US education to look like, she either can't or won't articulate it either in broad strokes or sharp details.

At times it looks as if DeVos really wants to be a leader, but after a lifetime of being followed and obeyed, she doesn't seem to know how to lead in a situation where her wealth and connections don't do her any good. She's been given the actual power attached to the USED-- but she doesn't believe in using it. She won't use the levers she has, and she doesn't have access to the levers she has preferred to use in the past.

Just as her boss has destroyed US "soft power," the power to persuade and cajole without resorting to threats and sabre rattling and big martial parades, DeVos has acquired no "soft power" to operate in her office. She's got formal power that she doesn't want to use, and a bully pulpit that she's incapable of using. She's stuck between the power she doesn't want, and the power she doesn't have.

What could DeVos do to move forward?

Well, she could go ahead and flex her federal muscles and make states bring her ESSA plans that she actually likes. She could find ways to leverage the power of her office to get states to do what she wants them to do. But she doesn't seem to want that, and honestly, I don't want her to do it-- other than to protect the rights of people who don't have protection of their rights and interests on any other level.

Barring that, DeVos could attempt to build soft power. She could make an honest effort to get out into public schools-- lots of public schools-- and get a look at what is actually going on. And she could pair that "eyes and ears" tour with a moratorium on saying stupid things that broadcast how little she knows about public education in 2018. She could hire some top people to help her run the department instead of hiring corporate reformsters whose main interest is to loot and grab. She could articulate-- no, honestly, I don't know how she fixes this, unless it turns out she's not after the policies she has indicated she's after. Her goals, as nearly as they can be deduced, are complete anathema to a robust public education system. She really has no business being Secretary of Education-- and I say that not because I think she's a terrible awful person, but because when you're in charge of an enterprise which has goals and values diametrically opposed to your own, it's not good for anybody. Certainly not education, the country, the taxpayers, and probably not even DeVos herself.

There she sits in DC, unable (and unwilling) to use the department to effectively pursue her own policy goals, and unwilling (and unable) to use the department to support public education in this country. The DeVosian dilemma is that everybody loses, and public education in America loses extra hard. Of course, since this comes on the heels of the King Katastrophe, the Duncan Disaster and a string running all the way back to the Paige Pee-down-his-Pants-leg, we may need to take a hard look at the Department of Education. But that's a conversation for another day. In the meantime, we'll just have to watch DeVos struggle between the lever and the pulpit, like a fish flopping sadly on the dry beach of a frozen Great Lake.