What Betsy DeVos Does Not Know About Public Schools and Probably Assumes About Private Ones
Yesterday, Alyson Klein, pointed out that Betsy DeVos, the nominee for Secretary of Education,
would be the first person to head the department in its more than 35-year history who hasn't either attended public schools or sent her own children to them. . . . And DeVos, a school choice and voucher advocate, sent each of her own children to private schools as well, Truscott said. . . . "She believes all parents should have access to the same choices her children had," said Matt Frendewey, a spokesman for the American Federation for Children, a school choice advocacy organization that DeVos chaired until recently. . . . She'd also be one of only a few secretaries entering the job without experience teaching in a K-12 school, or college; running a university, school system or state education agency, or overseeing public education as a governor, or governor's education aide.
As a counter, some have pointed out that President Obama is primarily a product of private schools and has sent his daughters to private schools. From my perspective, this counter does not help DeVos much. First, Obama's two Secretary of Education appointment did have significant experience in public schools, which shaped their views tremendously. Second, there are plenty of critiques of Obama's education policy to go around. Obama's first term may have fractured support for traditional public schools more than any before, although I do not believe that was necessarily the intent.
Regardless, DeVos vision for education and her general operating principle of expanding choice are private market ideas. These ideas, if not properly tailored to public values, are antithetical to public education itself. As I argue here, these private ideas undermine the very justification for public education itself if pursued to their logical conclusions. Public education is not a private commodity and it serves ends well beyond the interests of individual parents or students. Public education, of course, would be of little good if it did not also produce significant benefits for individuals, but it also produces benefits for overall communities, states, and societies. Hence, we all pay taxes and all have a voice in the ends and values it should pursue. If that balance shifts too far to individuals, it ceases to be public education and worthy of the same level of public support. It begins to look more like housing, transportation, and other aspects of society. In these areas, government support and regulation is more limited. Public policy supporting them comes from a confluence of interests between the public and private, not from a public interest per se.
DeVos' ideas threaten to move us in this direction. Her lack of public school experience may, moreover, lead her to discount the distinction between private and public education, not out of malevolence but ignorance or naivete. Because private choice has worked for her and those who can afford to carry its burdens, she may incorrectly Education Law Prof Blog: