Teachers hit back at Education Secretary Betsy DeVos after she used stock photos to make a claim about how classrooms in public schools are currently structured.
DeVos tweeted an image of an older classroom next to what appears to be a stock photo of a current classroom, with the caption, “Does this look familiar?”
“Students lined up in rows. A teacher in front of a blackboard. Sit down; don’t talk; eyes up front. Wait for the bell. Walk to the next class,” she tweeted. “Everything about our lives has moved beyond the industrial era. But American education largely hasn’t.”
But teachers quickly fired back at DeVos, sharing photos of their own students to show that their classrooms weren’t structured in the way she claimed they were.
“Don’t you know that stock photos aren’t real? How many classrooms have you visited in the past year? Classrooms don’t look like that anymore. Students don’t work like that anymore,” one teacher tweeted at DeVos.
“Rows and lectures are NOT the norm in public school,” another user replied to the secretary.
The United States’ two major teachers unions have repeatedly criticized DeVos since her confirmation.
The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association were among groups that attempted to deliver report cards with “failing” grades to DeVos last month to mark her first year as secretary, but were blocked from entering the building.