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I am a Conservative and Here is Why I Oppose Betsy DeVos
Earlier today, Betsy DeVos was officially confirmed as the next Secretary of Education in a historic tie breaking vote by Vice President Pence. Republicans everywhere are rejoicing in the glory that another one of President Trump’s nominees have been cleared. I, on the other hand, am not.
I have been one of the most vocal and avid supporters of the Trump Campaign, and now, the Trump Administration but I refuse to be a yes woman to the administration. The accountability of the Trump Administration takes precedence over my support for them. Betsy DeVos is a poor choice for the Secretary of Education and I feel it imperative to explain why.
First and foremost, DeVos is a poor choice to lead the Department of Education because there should be no Department of Education. Under the constitution, there is no legal basis for a Department of Education at the federal level. As in 1979, when the department was established, it is unconstitutional in the eyes of those who fight for the liberty of the American people. To give the federal government power over our schools and our children is the antithesis of what we believe as conservatives and constitutionalists. It is an unnecessary and illegal federal bureaucratic intrusion into local affairs. The 10th amendment gives control of education, amongst other things, to the state and local governments. Safety, access, opportunity, etc. is to be left to state and local governments as mandated by our constitution. The federal government is unconstitutionally involved in education and has been since the Carter Administration. The first step to solving education is to eliminate the unconstitutional Department of Education.
According to the Department of Education’s website, their purpose is to “establish policy for, administer and ommonoordinate most federal assistance to education, collect data on US schools, and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.”
Donald Trump, during his campaign, promised to cut the Department of Education in its entirety. By appointing, not just DeVos, but anyone to this position is representative of a broken promise to the American people.
Betsy DeVos believes strongly in school choice, but school choice is no choice. When it comes to school choice, students get vouchers, which are also referred to as opportunity scholarships, are state-funded scholarships that pay for students to attend private school rather than public school. Private schools must meet minimum standards established by legislatures in order to accept voucher recipients. This means that when the federal money follows students through the vouchers, the liberty is taken from the parents and the school officials that they elected, and given right back to the federal government. Most public schools are run by a school board made up of duly-elected members from the community. The school board is accountable to that community. Residents have the right to be present at votes and debates, have a right to access public documents about how tax money is being spent, etc. This is not the case for voucher or charter schools. They are run by executive boards or committees that are not accountable to parents. If you don’t like what your public school is doing, you can organize, vote for new leadership or even take a leadership role, yourself. If you don’t like what your charter or voucher school is doing, you have no say in it.
Pundits and profiteers love to spout euphoric about how well charter schools teach kids. But there is zero evidence to back up that claim. That is a marketing tactic. It’s like when you’re in a bad neighborhood and walk past a dive that claims to have the best cup of coffee in the city. Will you actually get the best cup of coffee? Maybe… But probably not. Surely, some charter schools do exceptionally well. However, most charters and almost all cyber charters do perform below that of their public school counterparts.
We have real problems. Over half of public school students are living below the poverty line. They are already several grade levels behind their non-impoverished peers before they even enter kindergarten. We need to invest our time, energy, and resources into things that combat this – tutoring, counseling, wraparound services, proper nutrition, etc. The predicament is even more complicated by the way schools receive funding. Throughout the country, poor districts get less money than the wealthy and even middle class ones. The students who go to these schools are systematically being cheated out of resources and opportunities. And instead of helping them, we are playing a shell game with charter and voucher schools. The problem isn’t that parents don’t have several excellent choices. If they’re poor, they often don’t have one and school choice is not supported by grassroots movements, it is supported by billionaires.
The idea of school choice a lot like socialism — it sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t work. By granting certain students admission into “better” schools, we are ignoring the bigger problem and its a zero sum game. As students move from one school to one they deem is better, the quality of the superior school becomes depleted. This is very simple to understand. Usually when something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If we really want to ensure every child in this country gets an excellent education, the answer isn’t school choice. Instead, we need to commit to supporting our public school system. We all need to be in this together. Yes, our schools should look at the needs of each child and tailor education to fit appropriately. But that shouldn’t be done in parallel school systems. It should be done under the same umbrella. That way, you can’t defund and defraud one without hurting all. It can’t just be about your child. It has to be about all children.
That’s the only choice worth making.
The post I am a Conservative and Here is Why I Oppose Betsy DeVos appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.
Source: http://www.teapartytribune.com/2017/02/07/i-am-conservative-i-oppose-betsy-devos/
