The namesake who inspired the old saying "Heavens to Betsy," which originated in the 19th century as an exclamation of surprise, is unknown.
There's very little obscure, however, about president-elect Donald Trump's nomination for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. She's high profile in just about every way: part of a billionaire family, philanthropist extraordinaire, and founder of a national foundation promoting better education for disadvantaged children.
Being a Michigander, DeVos is familiar with the notorious Detroit school system.
Think of the worst school conditions you can imagine; your most nightmarish imagination cannot do justice to the reality suffered by the Motor City's urban district students. Horror stories abound about facility conditions (the average building age in the district is 47 years), and Detroit public schools are dead last--by a city mile--in urban school benchmark exam scores.
Here's how one faculty member described her school: 'The odorous smell of mold and mildew hits you like a brick wall when you step through the front doors at Spain Elementary-Middle School in Detroit," wrote Lakia Wilson, who came to Spain 19 years ago as a first-grade teacher. "When I first started, it was a school any city would be proud to have in its district.
"Today, it's the poster child for neglect and indifference to a quality teaching and learning environment for our 500 students. The gym is closed because half of the floor is buckled and the other half suffered so much rainwater damage from the dripping ceiling that it became covered with toxic black mold. Instead of professionally addressing the problem, a black tarp simply was placed over the entire area like a Band-Aid. That area of the school has been condemned.
"The once beautiful pool sits empty because no one has come to fix it. The playground is off-limits because a geyser of searing hot steam explodes out of the ground. What do our kids do for exercise with no gym, playground or pool? They walk or run in the halls."
Despite spending 50 percent more per pupil than the national average, Detroit public schools are cash-crunched and $3.5 billion in debt. It must be hard to run a school at only $14,000 per student.
Critics of DeVos, who supported charter schools in Detroit, also condemn her support of school-choice vouchers. The problem is, school choice already exists, but only benefits those who don't need vouchers.
Here's what school choice looks like in Detroit: As recently as 2009, the district's enrollment was 90,000. This year it's about 45,000. Those who could afford to choose another school did so. In spades.
Guess who's left? Those kids without a choice.
None of the stone-throwers from afar who accuse DeVos of wanting to "destroy" or "gut" public education would permit their own child to attend the failing Detroit schools. And yet they're fine, on principle, to champion the status quo at a school system that has elevated failure to new levels of appalling.
The education establishment is getting the same wake-up call the political establishment got a few weeks back. It's time to make American public schools great again, and that means making sure all kids are learning.
The good news is that there are a lot of great public schools already. My kids had wonderful experiences in the Jonesboro Public School system, and there are scores of other Arkansas schools whose students and parents would say the same thing.
But there are also some public schools that aren't so great, and forcing children to attend a public school that isn't working is not education--it's akin to oppression.
And who suffers most in those situations? Poor kids. Minority kids.
It's easy to lose sight of the magnitude of money at play in education. In 13 years of public schooling in Detroit, the investment per student is a total of $182,000. A small class of, say, 16 students represents $2.9 million. If Michigan went to individual teachers in Detroit and said, "Here's $3 million, teach these 16 kindergartners for the next 13 years," it might be a crazy idea, but still an improvement over the deplorable situation the Spain elementary teacher related.
When students are the main focus of education, there shouldn't be any sacred cows in public schools. But big-school bureaucrats try to protect the herd at all costs, including stark-raving scare tactics about programs like vouchers.
In higher education, taxpayer funding always follows the student. Why is that seen as a threat in primary education? It's only a threat when viewed from the perspective of a school that needs to trap students rather than attract them.
Seen through a poor parent's eye, state funding that follows her child to the school of her choice is the furthest thing from a threat to education--it's a treasured opportunity.
Programs that help poor students leave failing schools may not help those failing schools, but they won't hurt well-performing schools. The reminder Washington needs to send to the states is that nobody should be in the business of helping bad schools stay open.
The education priority should be teaching students.
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Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 12/02/2016