Comments for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

Teachers need to be supported and valued by policy, and students need to be able to be freely who they are within the school environment, whatever their identity.`

Public higher education needs more funding and faculty, students and staff need more support. Students should not be saddled with debt that leads to forcing them into corporate backed careers rather than pursuing their passions. If students could pursue their passions rather than being forced to worry about their paychecks, they could create a better world for all.

All students need a reasonable way to obtain a high school diploma. Teaching to the test is not working. We must support different learners. Standardized tests do not show what kids learned or teachers taught. We need to trust teachers to access a child's strengths and weaknesses. More play based learning must be brought back to our youngest learners. Project based learning and vocational skills as well as life skills must be returned to priority in our middle and high school. We must stop rating and ranking our teachers with flawed standardized tests. We need to make school and learning fun again. Let teachers teach so kids can learn. Special learners and new English learners must be supported not left behind and punished by test scores. We must stop the college ready crap. Kids need the foundations in English and Math, Science and Social Studies. Enough of the CC/Next Gen standards. And stop all the tech, screen based learning and data collection. This is not how kids learn best. Profiting from kids is disgusting. Get the billionaires and politicians out of education.

"Stop promoting the privatization of public schools. Protect student rights by supporting students with special needs, are lgbtqia, and are marginalized."

Teachers need a raise. We lose teachers each year because they can't afford to stay in the profession. Testing must be curbed and the millions we spend on it redirected to fund our classrooms.

My school needs an adequate system of wrap-around services to provide students with adequate dental care, health care, social-emotional/mental health support. Creating equity among schools will improve student academic outcomes.

our special needs student must not have their rights usurped by deregulation. We need to change our work environment from teaching in 90 plus degree classrooms in spring and summer. We need to expand career training through BOCES and create a fair student loan system .. DeVos could start by simply supporting public schools

The first thing that is needed in my school is a sense of safety so that students are not afraid of being deported, shot by the police, or beaten for using their gender identity bathroom. We need the Secretary of Education to protect all students and not to roll back all of the protections that have been put in place previously. We need our school budgets not to be devastated by funding sent to charter schools which are doing no better and often worse. We need equal funding with the entitled and affluent. We need our schools to be desegregated. We need infrastructure repairs. We need books, we need supplies, we need more teachers, more guidance counselors, and more trauma specialists. We need education that is fact based and protect the separation of church and state. We need illumination of merit pay and a teacher a valuations based on fallacious testing, which also devastator budgets .

We need better services and supports for students who struggle due to trauma. We need more counselors and social workers, especially in the elementary schools. We need more respect and acknowledgement that public schools are the foundation for a strong democracy.

Grow a heart for all our children, Grow a heart for our teachers, Grow a heart for our public schools

Less testing, happier teachers, smaller classes, more supports for students who need it: http://wapo.st/2fGKlYq Good schools for ALL kids, not just the lucky few-- that's the only way successful nations do it Bertis Downs, Clarke County School District, Athens GA

Fully fund special education! Provide for education on climate change! Encourage school gardens! Respect and protect our GLBTQ students! If you refuse to do any or all of these things, RESIGN!

We need adequate, equitable and sustainable school funding. We need integrated schools. We need protection from corporate charter and voucher vampires who steal our funding and give it to wealthy donors. We need an end to high stakes standardized tests and Common Core.

Visit and learn from the real professional teachers. You need to financial support public education. Our kids are our future, don't let them down again.

Stop allowing private higher ed institutions to debunk students of a quality education that leads to a good job.

Privatizing is not the answer to public education in the United States. Fully funding and appropriately staffing ALL district public schools is. When we commit to giving educators and students the support they deserve, we will have the world-class education system necessary to serve our democracy.

Stop the vouchers - only wealthy people who can already afford to send their children to private schools benefit and poor and middle class families loose out on a good public education that they deserve.

My school needs more space: with three schools crowded into one building, we have to share a lot of common areas and we no longer have a school library!

She needs a 180 degree focus turnaround. I am a grandmother whose youngest grandchild is now in college. But outraged at what is happening to public education.

Learn something about public education before you make laws regarding it.

Stop supporting rich kids only; stop advocating for the destruction of one of this country's greatest achievements, public education; listen to teachers and students.

Adequate financial support. Especally as in Baltimore where the kids ad to sit on the floor in their coats because there was no money to fix the heating.

Resign from your post, Devos. You have no meaningful experience with education and have no idea what real people in the United States have to go through.

MORE MONEY for Public Education. STOP funding religious schools with public money.

No consideration for students and their futures. She's not fluent in pedagogy so doesn't have the first clue about teachers. Student loan forgiveness has declined, DACA is being destroyed and college sexual abuse no longer has a voice because she doesn't care. She's screwing up education and doesn't care. She also just doesn't do her job.

The whole system needs to be redesigned to meet the need of students, not the needs of private enterprise.

stop siphoning money to her student debt collection company. stop putting sham for profit colleges ahead of student needs for quality education.

I need my students to have access to continuous funds and resources for continual growth both in school and at home. Some come to school hungry and scarf down their breakfasts, so they need all the financial assistance they can get in order to become fruitful learners and contributors to our future society.

She should visit Title 1 schools and see how disadvantaged those schools are. She should have to teach a class were there is 30 or 40:1 and see the daily stresses of a teacher.

Advocate for public schools with policies and funding.

I just need to be supported so I can give every student the chance to succeed.

Heat would be nice. Removing the AC monitor with no education background as well.

I am a community member. Large donations to education does not make Betty Devos knowledgeable of education

I'm a special education teacher in a high poverty school. We need an Ed Sec who will strongly strive for equity in terms of race and disability, especially in the areas of funding and school discipline.

Money for more learning support for different learners

$ Respecting our voice and knowledge. A decent place to teach. Alternative education. More technical curriculum i.e. electricians, cosmetology carpenters etc

Attract more staff/teachers by paying competitive wages.

Stop undermining public school by diverting funds to private and charter schools. Set aside your bias and actually look at public schools that are performing well and find out how to replicate it.

Demand full funding for public schools and abandon your elitist, profit driven belief in charter schools.

We need an informed secretary who even has an interest in our public schools. For those who have served in this position in the past, their heart-felt interest in our public school system helped them to make necessary changes to support our students and educators. We don't need a secretary whose main focus is making money off of charter and private schools and ignore the fact that 90 percent of our students are in the public school sector.

Stop advocating for school choice. Public education is one of the last great equalizers.

Support our public schools by fully funding the Department of Education. Stop pushing vouchers for schools that are not working - not all charter schools are successful. Educate yourself on Title IX and understand that ALL of our children deserve equal access to education.

Please show respect for the great job so many public schools do.

Better pay for teachers and more funding for more creative classes. Tech ed!

FUNDING!!! Starving schools of basic funding does not make them perform better. We also need you to step down so that someone qualified can fill the position.

Our whole school system needs funding so teachers don't have to supply basics like pencils and paper for their students.

Many of my students (97% free and reduced lunch) had needs outside of the classroom that impacted their ability to learn. We needed more and better support for those students. It's hard to teach in a class that's being disrupted. Inevitably, when you learned the sad, sad stories behind the behavior you empathized with the student, but the behavior was still disruptive.

Students with special needs need a full continuum of care with the federal government actually doing some of the heavy lifting.

Resign! We need a Secretary of Education that supports public schools and appropriate education for all students. We need a leader who will hold charter schools accountable.

We need students to be treated like people, not members of corporations. We need proper and equal funding for all students so publication remains fair and free. Lastly we need her to abandon the notion that privatizing public education will improve it. Education is not a business!

Our public schools need everyone's support. The "choice" should be FOR public education not against it. The DOE should promote public education. When education is for profit and non-secular reasons, we are selling our children's and country's future and crossing the line between separation of religion and state.

We can be supported by simply getting return emails and phone calls when we reach out to her office. The Pleasantville School District needs someone to come listen to the teacher, etc. Not administration.

She needs to advocate for full funding of our schools.

More funding, more teachers`

More scholarships and funding for underprivileged students

More funding for all aspects of public education, especially for teachers' salaries and training.

Fair and equitable funding. More emaphsis on technical training for future jobs that may exist soon!

Inclusive classrooms for students with disabilities are needed across the state of NY

She should Quit or be Fired.

access to technology, equipment and facilities that most wealthy suburban schools have

Funding. We always have plenty of money for the war machine.

Obviously, funding is number one for without proper funding, public schools and more importantly, students, will suffer and they will begin to fall back on their education. The safety and proper education of our children is essential to the well-being of our country, and unless we continue to have the necessary support programs and educational programs in place, they will suffer.

My classroom, like most in this country, is vastly underfunded thanks to policies that promote privatizing and therefore commodification of education, a right and not a privilege.

More Title I funding to keep ensuring that ALL students get a fair chance!!!!

Students could be better protected from sexual harassment. Charter schools should not receive federal funding.

We need a Department of Education that puts our public schools first. Educators working conditions are student learning conditions. They need funding and they need to be trusted as professionals.

Our schools need to be lifted up and supported, not denigrated and defunded.

make funding a priority so the kids have the lastest in technology. This will better prepare them for college and for entering the work force with creative ideas to enhance the world. The students of today are the future !