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Betsy DeVos
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Michigan's contribution to the Donald Trump cabinet, apparently believes in brain training. Her family owns a company, Neurocore, which offers services in that area. She resigned her seat on the company board after the joined the Trump team, but still has millions invested in the firm.
Ulrich Boser , author of “Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything,” and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, tried out the service at Neurocore and wrote about in The Washington Post.
He was not impressed, concluding that it is "a Trump University for people with cognitive struggles. By wrapping weak science in sleek packaging, by promising something that it cannot fully deliver, Neurocore offers false hope to people who need honest help."
He writes:
Neurocore’s claims that it can help you “train your brain to function better” — addressing problems as diverse as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, anxiety, stress, depression, poor sleep, memory loss and migraines. “Unlike medication, which temporarily masks your symptoms, neurofeedback promotes healthy changes in your brain to provide you with a lasting solution,” touts a Neurocore overview video. “. . . We’ve helped thousands of people strengthen their brain to achieve a happy, healthier, more productive life for years to come.” The company currently has nine offices in Michigan and Florida, though there’s been talk of making a national move...
Neurocore training relies on a combination of two biofeedback strategies. The approach the company emphasizes — neurofeedback — seeks to help people “optimize” the electrical impulses of their brains; the second approach aims to slow their breathing rate and steady their heart rate.
After trying it and talking to experts, he writes:
What Neurocore and similar operations are doing, then, is simply misusing science. By making claims based on flimsy research, they’re misleading people...
SO WHAT DOES IT SAY that our education secretary is backing Neurocore?
For one, it seems that feeble science doesn’t bother DeVos. The budget document released by her department on Tuesday emphasizes that education decisions should be informed by “reliable data, strong research, and rigorous evaluations.” But like her boss, President Trump, DeVos apparently isn’t one to let evidence get in the way of what she wants to do. A recent study of school vouchers by DeVos’s agency showed that one program dragged down math scores by as much as seven points. Still, DeVos champions voucher programs, dismissing her opponents this past week as “flat-earthers.”
We don’t yet have any indication that DeVos intends to introduce neurofeedback into the nation’s public schools. But her enormous investment in Neurocore is ethically inappropriate. It means she has a financial stake in a particular approach to education.
