Will November Election Bring an End to Betsy DeVos’s War on Public Education?
In the midst of the most politically chaotic month I can remember, it seems important to imagine something worth hoping for. Consider this: If Donald Trump is defeated in the November election, after January, Betsy DeVos will no longer be the U.S. Secretary of Education.
DeVos does not believe in public education: She once declared: “Government really sucks.” And she has consistently attacked the idea of “a system” of public schools: “This isn’t about school ‘systems.'” she declared. “This is about individual students, parents, and families. Schools are at the service of students. Not the other way around.” Betsy likes school choice via school privatization at public expense.
DeVos’s U.S. Department of Education is, of course, responsible under law for something very different: Its purpose is to administer many programs supporting public schools and protecting the rights of the 50 million students enrolled in public schools across the United States. Her department administers Title I compensatory funding for the schools serving concentrations of poor children, funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and a host of other functions supporting, for example, programming for English language learners and American Indian children in public schools. While, through the Office for Civil Rights, her department is responsible for protecting students from racial, gender, and sexual orientation bias in their public schools, her record for investigating punitive discipline violations and protecting the rights of transgender students, for example, has been lacking.
Betsy DeVos, a lifelong supporter of private and religious schools and the expansion of tax- CONTINUE READING: Will November Election Bring an End to Betsy DeVos’s War on Public Education? | janresseger
