Editorial

Betsy DeVos threatens the education of America’s youth

When the U.S. Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education, it dealt a damning blow to the education of all students in this country.

DeVos has no experience with education. She brings no qualifications, no degrees, and no field experience to her new position. However, she does bring radical new ideas. Radical new ideas which will set this country on a spiral of devolution.

DeVos has a history of fighting public education. As a lobbyist for privatization of education, she is not only exactly what President Trump claims to dislike, she is also by consequence opposed to the idea of egalitarian public education. What DeVos is in favor of is thoroughly un-American; a plutocratic system which puts the right of education as a privilege to only be enjoyed by the elites.

The problem with DeVos is that not only is she unqualified, but her positions are dangerous. Public education being waylaid in favor of private education? First of all, despite the idea that charter schools seem to outperform public schools, there are many statistics that show this is not the case. Charter schools are often shown to not only merely equal regular public schools, but in many cases their performance is shown to be worse, due to a variety of reasons, including lack of oversight, corruption, over-administration, and lack of resources.

Furthermore, if one sends his or her children to a public school, the parents have no obligation to pay for vouchers for someone else to go to private school. The obligation does, however, apply in reverse, because public schools are an inherited responsibility of a community. Furthermore, a voucher to a private school often does not help the low-income families who are most in need of economic assistance; although vouchers may cover most of the cost of education, they frequently do not cover all of it, and even the partial cost of private education may be beyond the reach of many.

Finally, the concept of “school choice” is a complete misnomer, used to rally political support through a catchy slogan. The fact of the matter is that we already have a choice between private, public, and to apply for charter schools; if anything, Betsy DeVos will remove a choice by making public education unviable or even completely extinct in some places.

In conclusion, many of The Crier editorial board members are related to or have close connections with educators in America. They are responsible for safeguarding and rearing America’s future. What DeVos seeks to do is to undo all of the progress of public education that has been made in the past 150 years, and turn yet another necessary service in America into a pay-to-play service for the rich.