on Trump's cabinet nominees.

And the hearings have raised important questions

about each of them.

For instance, is Rex Tillerson too loyal to oil?

Jeff Sessions-- is he down with the brown?

(like Carson): And will be Carson be good for the hood?

You see, it's 'cause "hood," we're trying to make-- anyway...

Uh, but of all Trump's picks, none seem to be less prepared

than the one we saw yesterday.

Which brings us to our continuing segment,

Profiles in Tremendousness.

I have the most dedicated people.

I have the best people.

Meet Betsy DeVos,

Trump's nominee for secretary of education.

She's a billionaire businesswoman from Michigan,

she's a major voice for conservative education reform,

and-- a lot of people don't know this--

she's the cofounder of the '90s R&B group,

-Bell Biv DeVos. Yeah. -(laughter)

Uh, yes, they had to kick her out, because...

-♪ That girl was poison. ♪ -(laughter)

But her illustrious history aside,

the big question is...

is Betsy DeVos qualified

to lead the education department?

Well, yesterday the senate sat her down

to test her on her knowledge of education stuff.

And right away you knew there was going to be a problem

when she couldn't answer a simple yes-or-no question.

Do you think that schools that receive...

K-12 schools that receive government funding

should meet the same accountability standards...

...equal accountability in any K-12 school

or educational program that receives federal funding,

whether public, public charter or private?

-I support accountability. -Equal accountability

for all schools that receive federal funding?

-I support accountability. -Okay, is that a yes or a no?

That's a... I support accountability.

Do you not want to answer my question?

I support accountability.

(screaming)

Sorry, sorry.

(screaming)

I'm sorry, I just-- when I watched that,

I had a flashback to every single time

I called tech support, you know?

When they just keep saying the same thing and it's just...

(screams)

Accountability. (screams)

I'm surprised Tim Kaine didn't start screaming,

"Operator, operator!

I just want to talk to a human."

Now, now, the reason Betsy's ducking that question

is because she wants to take taxpayer money

from public schools and send it to private schools,

without holding the private schools to the same standards.

Which means the taxpayer could be paying for schools

with less qualified teachers, crappier curricula,

weaker testing and worst chicken nuggets in the cafeteria.

Yeah. You know that off-brand

where every once in a while you're like,

"Oh, there's a crunch. I don't know why

there's a crunchy thing in a nugget."

You know those? Yeah.

Now, now one of Betsy DeVos's main jobs

would be to improve student performance.

Now, some say you should measure that by what students know,

as in proficiency.

Others say you should measure it

by how much students improve: growth.

Betsy DeVos, she says, "Wha... ?

I would like your-your views on the relative advantage

of measuring, doing assessments,

and using them to measure proficiency,

or to measure growth.

If I'm understanding your question correctly,

around proficiency, I would, I would also, um,

correlate it to competency and mastery,

so that you-- each student is measured

according to the, um, advancement that they're making

in each subject area...

-Well, that's growth. -It's, uh...

That's not proficiency.

Proficiency is if they've reached a--

like, third grade level for reading, etc.

No. I'm talking about the debate between proficiency and growth.

I was kind of, uh, surprised--

Well, I'm not that surprised

that you did not know this issue.

(laughter)

(applause)

Damn.

Uh...

I would like to enter that shade into the record.

Yeah. Immediately after,

he said that all the other senators were like,

(exclaiming)

So, okay, okay, okay.

Uh, so Betsy did not do well

on the verbal part of Franken's questioning.

How did she do on the math?

You said that student debt has increased by 1,000%?

-Since 2009. -980% in eight years.

-I'm sorry. -980%.

-That's not-- that's just not so. -That's almost a thousand.

-It's increased 118% in the past eight years. -Hmm.

Damn.

Yo. Can I ask a question?

Why don't they ever fight back in these hearings?

She should have just been like, "Oh, yeah?

I forgot to carry the one."

She should just do that.

I mean...

But here-here's a question I have.

How do you put this person in charge of America's education?

It's like hiring an Amish person to run NASA, you know?

(with Amish accent): All right, let's strap some of the horses

to the space shuttle,

and take it to heaven.

I don't, I don't even know if that was a good

or bad Amish accent.

No, I mean it's not like they're gonna watch the show

and complain, so I mean...

I don't know.

Did you see what Trevor Noah said?

Me neither.

So one-one of the hearing's most revealing moments

was, uh, when Senator Chris Murphy,

who represents Newtown, Connecticut,

the site of the Sandy Hook shooting,

he asked DeVos about guns in school.

You can't say definitely today

that guns shouldn't be in schools?

Well, I-I will refer back to, uh, Senator Enzi,

and the school that he was talking about

in Wapiti, Wyoming.

I think probably there, I-I would imagine

that there's probably a gun in the school

to protect from potential grizzlies.

Get the (bleep) out of here, man.

Should schools have guns?

And you say, yeah, they should have guns

because maybe grizzly bears?

Let me, let me tell you something, and this is true.

We called the school in Wyoming she's talking about.

And a bear answered the phone--

No. Uh, we called the school...

We called the school and they told us

that they don't have a gun,

because they have a fence and bear spray,

and that works fine.

Like, here's another question.

Like, you-you're trying to justify having guns in school.

What do you think there are more of in America?

School shootings or school bear attacks, huh?

In fact, I would argue, every school should have a bear

to protect them from guns, that's what they should have.

(growling)

So after a day of hearings,

we learned Betsy DeVos clearly has no clue

about how to run the education department.

So, uh, the question is,

why is she being nominated in the first place?

Mrs. DeVos, there is a growing fear, I think,

in this country that we are moving toward, uh,

what some would call an oligarchic form of society.

Would you be so kind as to tell us, uh,

how much money your family has contributed

to the Republican party over the years?

I wish I could give you that number. I don't know.

SANDERS: I have heard the number was 200 million.

Does that sound in the ballpark?

It-it... Collectively,

-between my entire family? -Yeah, over the years, yes.

That's po... that's possible.

Do you think if your family

has not made hundreds of millions of dollars

in contributions to the Republican party,

that you would be sitting here today?

Bernie!

Bernie, we miss you, Bernie.

Why didn't we listen, Bernie?

Oh, Bernie.

But he's right.

She's gonna get confirmed even though she failed everything.

Every subject she got at the hearing--

failed, failed, failed, failed.

Except donations 101.

And that's why I feel like this hearing

was a perfect metaphor for the worst

of the education system in America.

Here's a student who's clearly not proficient

in the required subject matter.

But because of the system,

we know they're still gonna get pushed through.