CURMUDGUCATION: USED Pitches Privatization To Wyoming

CURMUDGUCATION: USED Pitches Privatization To Wyoming

USED Pitches Privatization To Wyoming

Mitchell Zais, Deputy Secretary of Education, last week visited Wyoming to stump for school choice. He wrote for the Wyoming Parent his version of the department's sales pitch for Betsy DeVos's Education Freedom vouchery program. Wyoming parents (and taxpayers), this is a bit of a snow job. Let me explain.

He opens by recognizing that humans are individuals, so that he can say this:

So why does American education group students by age, and expect them to learn the same material, on the same schedule, pretty much in the same way?

This guy

The answer is: they don't. In fact, they so much don't that about a decade ago some folks launched an audacious plan to make everyone learn the same stuff (you know-- kind of a common core) on the same schedule and the education establishment hasn't stopped kicking back about it since. Zais knows this-- he opposed the Common Core when he was head education honcho in South Carolina, and if he already thought that everyone in education was operating in lockstep, why would he bother? No, walk into any school and even in the Core era, you'll see differentiation and tracking and a host of ways to accommodate the individual nature of students. Perfect? No-- but then the private schools that he's touting here aren't known for broad ranges of tolerance, either.

Then he launches into that old favorite-- US schools are failing and costs too much. And test scores.

"Costs too much" is an interesting critique from a guy who's background is military. But the rest is CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: USED Pitches Privatization To Wyoming