There's a paper out west of some size and note that's trumpeting its editorial horn about its six-part editorial series calling the president of the United States out for being a complete bore. As if that were news. Or brave, considering the paper is in California, which Hillary Clinton won by a Secretariat margin. The new president hasn't been in office three months yet. Where are all the opinionators--right, left, editorially undecided--who said we should give the new president a chance? Apparently only some of us meant it.
Say what you will about Donald Trump, he did promise to surround himself by the best people. (Fabulous, great, very very great people.) When it comes to his Cabinet, that's a promise he's keeping.
We continue to be impressed with the woman he chose to lead the Department of Education. She's the best education secretary since, well, Arne Duncan, the last president's man at the helm. Secretary Betsy DeVos was asked to give a speech at Brookings the other day and, knowing her audience, spoke on school choice. (Sunday's Perspective section published some of the speech.)
"I am in favor of increased choice," Secretary DeVos said, "but I'm not in favor of any one form of choice over another. I'm simply in favor of giving parents more and better options to find an environment that will set their child up for success."
This, Gentle Reader, is what passes for a controversial statement among our betters in the education bureaucracy. No doubt her words were booed in union headquarters all around the nation. For if children and their parents have choices, then they may pick a public school down the street--and out of their zone or district--and somebody's going to lose money. Or maybe the child picks a charter school, a public charter school, and the traditional school district loses money. Or maybe the child's family picks a parochial school, and the public system loses money.
You'll notice a pattern here. It's all about the money. Whether the child learns in his local school is beside the point. Or would be without leaders like Betsy DeVos.
Another controversial statement by the secretary: "I'm opposed to any parents feeling trapped or, worse yet, feeling that they can't offer their child the education they wish they could."
She could be talking about central Arkansas. There are thousands--thousands--of families on waiting lists to get into charter schools. Many of them are minority families and families without the means to move to better neighborhoods. Yet charter schools have limited space, and it takes luck in a lottery to get a desk. Still, whenever charter schools try to open or expand in this state, the usual suspects show up at various meetings to protest. How they sleep at night, we're sure we don't know.
Secretary DeVos told her audience that the previous administration spent $7 billion on the School Improvement Grants program, and in the last days of the Obama presidency, it issued a report showing the money had made no impact.
"At what point do we accept the fact that throwing money at the problem isn't the solution?" she asked.
"If we can identify a school turnaround model that shows promise, I want to learn about it. If we find a solution that demonstrates consistent results, I want to support it. But waiting and hoping for a miracle while blocking efforts that can help millions of children immediately is simply not something this administration will abide."
But she will face rabid opposition. She was courteous enough to explain why:
"How many of you got here today in a Uber, or Lyft, or another ride-sharing service? Did you choose that because it was more convenient than hoping a taxi would drive by? Just as the traditional taxi system revolted against ride-sharing, so too does the education establishment feel threatened by the rise of school choice. In both cases, the entrenched status quo has resisted models that empower individuals."
Charter schools might not be the right choice for every student. Maybe home schooling is best for some. Or virtual schools online. Or maybe there's a choice nobody's thought of yet but will be all the rage in 2018.
Secretary DeVos, and her boss, seem to understand that most parents know best. Or at least better than a one-size-fits-all, everybody-in-the-same-school education bureaucracy. In the very least, government shouldn't be in the business of keeping kids down, and in failing schools, generation after generation.
This, Gentle Reader, is what passes for a controversial statement in some quarters.
Editorial on 04/13/2017