Today, the US Senate will vote, and likely confirm, Betsy DeVos as President Trump’s Secretary of Education. It’s fair to say that no nominee of the President has attracted more whoops and hollers than this one and, for the life of me, I don’t know why Democrats have so little confidence in public schools.
Yes, that’s right. These left wing zealots base much of their opposition to DeVos based on their absolute fear of giving parents a choice of schools to which they can send their children.
This is no inconsistency on the part of Democrats. They don’t like choices. They want government to tell you what school your children will attend. Their health care plan doesn’t give you any choice of doctors or available plans, since most to many “marketplaces” for Obamacare are down to a single option. On the issue of abortions, their misnomer of “pro-choice” only respects the choice of abortion, as the banning of “pro-life” group from the woman’s march and the lack of pre-natal care at Planned Parentood indicates.
But you would think that the supporters of public education would feel a bit more confident in the quality of public education if they are so frightened that some parents might actually take few kids to a different school.
Watching the fevered accusations that DeVos would “destroy public education” by supporting choice makes me wonder why no one questions these activists.
Ask how allowing mothers and fathers to choose what school their children attend results in public school destruction, and you get one of two things: a dumbfounded stare or a complaint about money.
Let’s address the stare. These come from people who usually are well-meaning and simply repeating what they’ve been told. They seem to think that everyone knows school choice hurts schools, but never questioned it. In a Demolition Man sort of way, they don’t seem to think that quality suffers if “all restaurants are Taco Bell.”
Some honest ones have told me “Brian, if more of the smarter kids can go to private schools or charter schools, that’ll make public schools’ job tougher, because they have to take everyone.”
That’s when I have the dumbfounded scare, because I have public education supporters basically calling public school students stupid, which they immediately deny and start attacking me.
My basic question usually is this: “Why do you assume that if public schools had to academically compete with private schools, public schools would lose?”
That unleashes a tirade of deflections, usually that private schools would only take the best and brightest, and their parents would be more involved and able to send kids to school “ready to learn” and besides that, the Russians rigged it (ok, maybe not).
Here’s where that falls apart. School choice funding opens up choices to those who otherwise can’t afford it.
Here’s another radical vision. Imagine if public schools are of such high quality that no amount of choice would result in much enrollment disruption at all.
I expected supporters of public education, especially teachers, to say “Public schools do such a great job that I say to school choice advocates, ‘Bring it on!'”
But no, public education supporters universally insist that public school quality is so poor that any chance given to send a student elsewhere will be taken.
Personally, I would never want someone running, or even involved, in public education who believes that. But there seems to be more than plenty.
If you’d really like to start a fight, you can tell school choice opponents, “Well, you always said you wanted smaller class sizes.”
But you know you’re debating an insider when their opposition to choice is all about money. The biggest fear they have is that “scarce resources would be diverted away from public education at a time when funding is critical.”
Funding always seems critical, isn’t it?
But let’s explore that for a moment. If the dollars spent per pupil remains constant, what’s the problem? Certainly if the numbers of students rose in a significant way, the first thing public education advocates would demand is additional funding. Why isn’t the reverse true?
Certainly private schools must operate this way. Fewer students means less money to operate. Why would public schools demand the same or more dollars to teach fewer students?
Sounds to me like public schools would have a great motivation to excel.
Of course, most private schools don’t have giant administrative costs that remain constant regardless of school population numbers. If Betsy DeVos does anything, perhaps she can trim down regulations from DC that result in such administrative bulk.
But back to choice.
I don’t expect today’s vote to end this fear mongering. But I wish it would end the lies about all the destruction and havoc that would ensue of parents could pick schools instead of city demographers.
Maybe if public education focused more on quality and less on quantity, the students would be better off.