School Vouchers – An Enduring Racist Practice
By Amanda Menas
When listening to the rhetoric from the Trump administration, a single vision for our schools is presented: privatization. For the past four years, Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have touted ineffective and harmful voucher schemes, and attacked educators and educator unions, only putting more strain on our students. DeVos, however, has used her wealth from long before then, when she lived in Michigan and left schools in tatters with her voucher and for-profit charter schemes. Bringing her privatization agenda with her, DeVos now attempts to siphon off much needed funding from public schools to private institutions that only benefit a small group to the detriment of the 90 percent of our students who attend public schools. During a global pandemic and months of protests against racial injustice, her voucher proposals support racist institutions that only benefit wealthy, white Americans.
The historical origins of vouchers come out of a Virginia county shutting down its public schools and opening white academies to avoid adhering to Brown v. Board of Education. It should escape no one’s attention that vouchers all too frequently have been used to further segregation and promote discrimination. Given their attempt to wrap their privatization initiative in the rhetoric of civil rights, it is particularly evident that the Trump administration is oblivious to that history.
DeVos and this administration have used the coronavirus pandemic to further their profit driven agenda by funneling relief funds from public schools to wealthy private schools, and advocate for a $5 billion voucher program in the next COVID-19 relief package, DeVos has shown all of her cards. She has proven that she only cares about some students and parents, not those who need public education, but those who can fund her pet projects. The proposal came on the anniversary date of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a reminder that this administration never understands the history of civil rights in America.
Following the Supreme Court ruling in 1954, states such as Virginia began to cut funding to CONTINUE READING: School Vouchers - An Enduring Racist Practice - Education Votes
