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DeVos Backlash Sees Parents Threatening to Homeschool Kids
NBC News ^ | 02/09/2017 | by JON SCHUPPE

Posted on 02/09/2017 6:22:32 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Among the initial opposition to Betsy DeVos' confirmation this week as education secretary were calls on social media by parents, including liberals, to start homeschooling their children.

That reaction to DeVos — a billionaire school-choice advocate who has never worked, attended or sent her kids to a public school — reflects how polarizing her nomination was.

It also comes layered with paradox.

That's because DeVos, whom the Senate confirmed Tuesday to head the Education Department, is herself a big proponent of homeschooling.

In a 2013 interview with Philanthropy magazine, DeVos, who has invested in private and charter schools and is an advocate for their expansion, said homeschooling was "another perfectly valid educational option."

She continued:

We've seen more and more people opt for homeschooling, including in urban areas. What you're seeing is parents who are fed up with their lack of power to do anything about where their kids are assigned to go to school. To the extent that homeschooling puts parents back in charge of their kids' education, more power to them.

DeVos' emphasis on school choice is a natural fit for the homeschool movement, whose members span the political spectrum but are largely conservative Christians who resist government oversight. That group has helped fuel remarkable growth in recent years, carrying the movement from the fringe and closer to the mainstream.

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: betsydevos; education; homeschool
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To: SeekAndFind

Homeschooling kids is great!

Less tax dollars for progressives who control public school education.


41 posted on 02/09/2017 6:47:47 AM PST by Hostage (Article V)
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To: PGR88

Seriously. Do they not see the irony of their tantrums? They are exercising the very choice that Ms. DeVos stands for!


42 posted on 02/09/2017 6:49:41 AM PST by NohSpinZone (First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers)
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To: Gamecock

**Among the initial opposition to Betsy DeVos’ confirmation this week as education secretary were calls on social media by parents, including liberals, to start homeschooling their children.**

Which, oddly enough, DeVos supports.


I feel sorry for kids who are being home-schooled by parents who don’t understand this basic concept.


43 posted on 02/09/2017 6:50:49 AM PST by samtheman (Trump won bigly. Trump governs bigly. His critics don't get bigly.)
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To: SeekAndFind
People upset that someone who is not a slave to the teachers union is now in charge of a department that doesn't actually fund or run their public schools will pull their kids out to educate them at home?

Nah, big government fans don't like taking personal responsibility. Empty threats.

44 posted on 02/09/2017 6:52:25 AM PST by pepsi_junkie (ui)
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To: SeekAndFind
My wish is the DeVos is the last Secretary of Education. This failed department needs disbanding and control handed to the states.
45 posted on 02/09/2017 6:52:28 AM PST by JayElBee
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To: SeekAndFind

To which this homeschooling mom says:

Welcome to the dark side. We have cupcakes. And beer.


46 posted on 02/09/2017 6:57:45 AM PST by pinkandgreenmom
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To: rbg81

I have a neighbor that’s doing it and her kids just get fat and stupid.


47 posted on 02/09/2017 7:00:30 AM PST by struggle (The)
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To: SeekAndFind

“That reaction to DeVos — a billionaire school-choice advocate who has never worked, attended or sent her kids to a public school” - Funny the last part of that sentence could also apply to David Coleman. The architect of the common core standards.


48 posted on 02/09/2017 7:00:42 AM PST by crusadersoldier
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To: JayElBee

Didn’t these people all move to Canada yet ?


49 posted on 02/09/2017 7:01:08 AM PST by Col Frank Slade
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To: headstamp 2

Online courses and degrees are already available and starting to catch on.

Its not a matter of if, but when.
I can see a day when only hard sciences have an attendance requirement. And even they will offer many online options.

This will put a serious hurt on the SJW wings of the college crowd.


50 posted on 02/09/2017 7:02:11 AM PST by oldvirginian (If someone tells you biscuits and gravy ain't a meal, just walk away. You don't need the negativity.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Yes! More Winning!


51 posted on 02/09/2017 7:04:01 AM PST by nfldgirl
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To: SeekAndFind

Many leftist claiming to become home-schoolers will have second thoughts when they actually see what is required. For one, they will have to actually spend time with their kids ...


52 posted on 02/09/2017 7:04:12 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: SeekAndFind

...parents, including liberals, to start homeschooling their children.

&&&
Yeah, like that’s going to happen. These prog women are too taken up with themselves and their careers to actually spend that amount of time with their own children. They pass them off to the care of strangers beginning when they are only weeks old.


53 posted on 02/09/2017 7:06:30 AM PST by Bigg Red (The best f-word we can apply to Obama on this glorious inauguration day is "former".)
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To: relictele

And the sentence you refer to was constructed in a way to reveal a poor understanding of English composition. So the writer is, I suppose, a typical product of public school education.


54 posted on 02/09/2017 7:10:52 AM PST by Bigg Red (The best f-word we can apply to Obama on this glorious inauguration day is "former".)
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To: SeekAndFind
Where do public school teachers send their own kids?

About 11 percent of all parents — nationwide, rural and urban — send their children to private schools. The numbers are much higher in urban areas. One study found that in Philadelphia a staggering 44 percent of public school teachers send their own kids to private schools In Cincinnati and Chicago, 41 and 39 percent of public school teachers, respectively, pay for a private school education for their children. In Rochester, New York, it’s 38 percent. In Baltimore it’s 35 percent, San Francisco is 34 percent and New York-Northeastern New Jersey is 33 percent. In Los Angeles nearly 25 percent of public school teachers send their kids to private school versus 16 percent of Angelenos who do so.

55 posted on 02/09/2017 7:11:43 AM PST by meadsjn
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To: silverleaf
lousy public schools riddled with disrespectful shiftless losers

But enough about the teachers and principals....

56 posted on 02/09/2017 7:13:38 AM PST by relictele (`)
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To: NohSpinZone

You are not expecting progs to exhibit signs of logical thinking, are you?


57 posted on 02/09/2017 7:15:40 AM PST by Bigg Red (The best f-word we can apply to Obama on this glorious inauguration day is "former".)
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To: SeekAndFind
a billionaire school-choice advocate who has never worked, attended or sent her kids to a public school

Tell us what you really think, NBC. Btw, does being a "community organizer" count as working?

58 posted on 02/09/2017 7:15:57 AM PST by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: JayElBee

Amen!


59 posted on 02/09/2017 7:16:29 AM PST by Bigg Red (The best f-word we can apply to Obama on this glorious inauguration day is "former".)
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To: rbg81

Someone here or elsewhere once posited, accurately, that functionally illiterate/innumerate parents view school primarily as a free babysitting service, especially when Head Start, free meals and after-school programs are added to the mix.

Kids are out of the house from 7 AM to 5 or 6 PM in many cases. Ostensibly this is to mirror the parents’ work hours but as we all know they aren’t going to work.


60 posted on 02/09/2017 7:16:57 AM PST by relictele (`)
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