We Don't Need No Education! No Wait - Actually We Do

Dear Donald,

Good morning! I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. I hope you don’t mind that I wasn’t in touch over the weekend – I worked the whole time, and really wanted to spend the time I had at home with my family. I would have loved to have the holiday off, but at least we had some good saves at the hospital this weekend. If you worked, I hope that your time was similarly productive for our country.

So at long last, we’re going to have that chat about education that I promised back in the beginning of our correspondence. Your nomination of Betsy DeVos has raised some concerns, and I think it’s high time we had a frank and candid discussion of the direction that things are heading here.

First, let’s get one thing straight: education is one of the most important issues of your presidency. You cannot afford to screw this up, Donald! Education is the single largest determinant of socioeconomic status in our society – more than any other factor, education is what separates the “haves” from the “have-nots.” Your own voter base was drawn largely from the rapidly diminishing blue-collar middle class. This is a group that could once make a good living in manufacturing and other industries, but now they’re struggling. American industry is shrinking, jobs are moving overseas, and technology is changing the way we do business. These voters are SCARED. You resonated with them because you promised them better lives, and education is the key to making good on that promise. Education opens up job opportunities and increases earning potential, which is exactly what your voters want. It’s what we ALL want. And if America is to remain a superpower, we need a well-educated workforce that brings knowledge and skill to the table, and is prepared to face the challenges of the changing global economic landscape.

So back to Betsy. I’m concerned about her qualifications. We talked about this issue earlier with regard to other cabinet nominations, but it seems that I didn’t quite make myself clear. Donald, I want you to be a great president, and I am trying to help you achieve that goal – but let’s face it: you don’t have any government experience. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. So you NEED cabinet members who have solid expertise and experience in their respective areas, because you’re going to be more reliant on them than the average president would need to be. Their qualifications must compensate for your inexperience. So choosing a Secretary of Education with no formal training or experience in education is…problematic. Betsy DeVos has no degree in education, and she has never worked in schools or school systems. All of her education “experience” is based on philanthropy and advocacy conducted through her family’s foundation, for which her primary qualification is having inherited a crap-ton of money.

Anyway, what’s done is done – just think about these issues in the future. What we need to address now is how Ms. DeVos is going to shape education policy in America. Based on her track record, I think you’re going to need to sit her down and have a heart-to-heart before she takes on her new role, because there is real disaster potential here. I realize that some of the internet memes circulating about her are considerably exaggerated (note to self: don’t get news from memes!). However, her longstanding advocacy of the “school choice” movement is fully substantiated, and it’s troubling.

As an aside, I hate quotation marks. Quotation marks should only be used when denoting that you really mean something different than whatever you put inside them. Much like the embattled apostrophe, people use them incorrectly all the time, and it REALLY irks me. However, I defend my use of them in this case, because “school choice” doesn’t mean school choice - it means “public subsidization of private education that will have the inevitable effect of reducing educational opportunities for the most vulnerable members of our society.” Doesn’t sound quite as catchy, does it?

“School choice” refers to use of government-issued vouchers or tax credits used to pay for private school tuition – the “choice” element suggesting that the parent can pick whatever school they want for their child. This sounds pretty enticing, and limited voucher programs in several states have actually demonstrated positive outcomes in terms of graduation rates and academic achievement. However, the choice is really a “choice.” Vouchers typically don’t cover the full cost of private school tuition, meaning that the “choice” of using them is only available to parents who have the means to pay out-of-pocket for the remainder. Poor parents don’t have this “choice,” so educational opportunities for their children become even more limited relative to those of wealthier children. This worsens the divide between “haves” and “have-nots” even further – which is exactly the opposite of what we want education to do.

And what happens to the public schools? Well, the voucher money has to come from somewhere. So for every “have” who receives a voucher to pursue private education, money is taken away from public schools and placed into the private sector. So the “have-nots” who can’t take advantage of the voucher program are now stuck in public schools with even fewer resources than they had before. Vouchers effectively defund the public schools, stacking the decks against our poorest children. These are the very children who need education the most, as it represents their best (perhaps only) opportunity to better their socioeconomic status.

Education isn’t a privilege, Donald – in our country, it’s a right. I realize that our public schools need work, but offering “choices” that further disenfranchise our most vulnerable students is not the solution. “School choice” will inevitably make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and it will NOT make America great again. Make sure the Betsy DeVos knows that that you intend to realize your voters’ vision of a better life by making educational opportunity equally available to all Americans.

Sincerely,

Jules