Should A Teacher Be Secretary of Education
This is part of the value of having a clown car full of candidates for a Presidential primary: the contest becomes a primary of ideas, and certain notions gain traction by spreading across the field of candidates. Not that gaining traction means those ideas will ultimately prevail (a widespread notion among the 2016 GOP field was that Donald Trump was unfit to be President), but it's still an intriguing process.
 |
| If I were Ed Secretary, I could stand up all day to talk to people |
One up-and-coming education policy idea that was first proposed by Elizabeth Warren, but has now garnered wider candidate support, is the notion that a teacher should be the next secretary of education. At last count, four major candidates were supporting some version of the idea. It's an arresting and appealing idea. Betsy DeVos is widely seen as a controversial opponent of public education, and in many education circles, predecessors like Arne Duncan were not much loved, either. Many teachers feel that the folks in D.C. just don't get it, so the idea of someone from the trenches who would, presumably, get it--well, it's an attractive idea. Now we have to ask--is it a good idea?
The devil, as always, is in the details. The idea has been expressed variously as appointing an educator, a public school teacher, or "someone who comes from public schools." That may seem pretty straightforward. It isn't. "Educator" is a loose umbrella term to cover anyone who has held an education-adjacent job: teacher, administrator, education advocacy group member, school bus CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Should A Teacher Be Secretary of Education
