Wendy Lecker: As public education stumbles, democracy falls
There is a disturbing trend in American policy where a powerful few use government to benefit themselves at the expense of the many. The most recent example is Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s proposal to implement a $100 billion tax cut that would primarily benefit the 0.1 percent of earners, including himself. Simultaneously, there are proposals to impose punitive work requirements on SNAP and Medicaid recipients, hurting mostly children, the elderly and the disabled.
This pattern extends to state policy. The American Federation of Teachers reports that more than half the states invested less in public education in 2016 than they did in 2008, even as most of these states enacted tax cuts during that period. The poorest districts are the hardest hit, as they cannot recoup lost state funding with local revenue.
Scholars Jamila Michener and Sally Nuamah have found that when government is unresponsive to the most underserved, e.g., erecting barriers for Medicaid recipients or closing public schools over community objections, those communities disengage from political participation. When government serves the privileged few, democracy also suffers.
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos views her role in government as advancing the interests of the few. While accelerating privatization of public schools by expanding charters and vouchers, she has declared: “we should be funding and investing in students ... not in institutions, not in systems.” She commodifies education, likening it to Uber, cellphones and Blockbuster video. DeVos prioritizes “parents’ fundamental right to choose” over equity.
As the political theorist Benjamin Barber noted, private choice cannot be a surrogate for the public good. “(A)ggregating our private choices … yields an inegalitarian and highly segmented society in which the least advantaged are further disadvantaged.” Indeed, school choice has accelerated segregation and the diversion of funds from public schools. Charters and vouchers also often exclude the neediest, leaving public schools to serve them with fewer resources.
Barber also observed that choice is an illusion: “the real power... is in the determination of Continue reading: Wendy Lecker: As public education stumbles, democracy falls - StamfordAdvocate
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