It's not surprising to find yet another clueless secretary in the Trump cabinet. It's sad that they are going to push policy and the direction an agency goes without the basic understanding of what they are doing; but that's Trump for ya.
Yes and no. We got to see Betsy as this anti-federal government apoointee, but the reality is more complicated than that.
When states were going through the ESSA plan process, her office was not so consistent in its expectations. In some states, the added flexibility (and sometimes low expectations) were met. Other times her office strangely would penalize states for not being ambitious enough with some of their targets, despite the obviousness that this particular state was dangerously overly-ambitious in its goals (like in several years they would double or something proficiency rates in reading). Senator Alexander and others had to slap her wrist in theoretically overstepping the bounds of ESSA. They heeded those suggestions, best I could tell.
I mean, there was some good stuff in their requirements, I must say. But it's more than a bit incoherent.
So on one hand the expectations were low for many states, were too stringent with others, and so on. And then there's the OCR guidance letters and regulations she threw out, which were controversial (some were antiquated and no longer used anyway, but for some things dealing with student loans and sexual assault they were changes with teeth in them). But then she chastised states for their low expectations in ESSA plans at SXSW.
But in many ways, the Ed Department's appointed leadership doesn't really exist as a player in anything, even moral suasion. The best that I could tell, she cheerleads for something she has no control over whatsoever: the private sector. Given that the overwhelming majority of students won't touch the private sector, she can't be bothered to tell us what she wants public schools to do or look like over the next decade.
But in other departments of the Ed office they are still getting to work, almost as if she doesnt exist. To some extent that's a great thing, but in other ways it demonstrates a lack of leadership. I mean, during the Bell and Bennett years, we didn't like all of their activities, but in some areas they exhibited great leadership that has components that still live on to this day.
Do I think she knows what she wants? No, but she will give mixed signals all over the place in the meantime.
Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk
uch: