‘THEY DESERVE SO MUCH’: SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER ON WHAT DEVOS MEANS FOR STUDENTS
The confirmation of charter school advocate and businesswoman Elisabeth DeVos as US Secretary of Education was arguably a massive blow against public education—with absolutely no background in education, 59-year-old DeVos, whose brother is the notorious mercenary Erik Prince, founder of US security firm Blackwater, will likely wreak havoc on a public education system in desperate need of hardened support.
Shadowproof spoke to Taylor Faustino, a 25-year-old education specialist for students with mild to moderate disabilities, about his struggles, how perceptive his students are of the stifling political climate, as well as what DeVos means for educators.
Faustino actively manages cases and accommodates learning for students with what the system describes as “mild” to “moderate” learning disabilities, and speech and language disabilities, as well as with those who do not have individualized education programs.
His first teaching job was in Watts, California, at Markham Middle School for summer school with the Los Angeles Unified School District, after which he was hired at an elementary school where he worked for two years.
“I work in the inner-city in one of the poorest schools in our district,” Faustino shared. “Like the elementary school I worked at, near 100 percent of my students qualify for free breakfast and lunch. The school and surrounding community is about 75-80 percent latinx, 15 percent black, with about equal parts black American and African immigrants/refugees—[especially] from the Congo and Somalia—and 5-10 percent Asian. There are also some students that are refugees from Afghanistan.”
While Faustino is only in his third year of teaching, he said he feels like he has “jumped into a bubble just waiting to burst”.
“There is constant talk amongst teachers about the conditions we work in, about increasing privatization, about [former President Barack] Obama’s “Race to the Top” being bad, even though Obama himself is very popular amongst teachers to be honest, about charters taking our students and funds, and about a growing frustration that we are not being supported.”
Faustino described having to struggle with situations much similar to teachers across the U.S., including being Special Education Teacher: What DeVos Means For Disabled Students: