Education Watch

Last night the confirmation hearing for the Secretary of Education occurred. For those of you not keeping up with politics these days President-elect Trump has chosen a woman named Betsy DeVos as his pick for Secretary of Ed. More on her resume later but before I continue I suppose I should tell you who I am. I am NOT an expert on education, I don't even play one on TV (shout out to my dad who always makes those jokes :-))! I am a product of public education and a public university. I also spent 2 years as a teacher in the public schools of North Carolina. One of those years I spent teaching students with emotional and behavior disabilities in a separate setting with only 8 students. I currently  work in an Early Childhood Center, and early childhood education has become a major passion of mine.I have never taught in a private or charter school and don't have a lot of knowledge about them but I continue to learn from my teacher-friends around me. I know many people who have attended private schools both religious based and not, I also know many people who teach in them as well as teachers in charter schools. I also understand that while it may not have been my parents choice to send me to a private school there are many benefits to that environment (smaller class sizes and more individualized attention to name a few).


Betsy DeVos prides herself on being a "supporter of great teachers" but I question whether that means great teachers of all types of schools or just those that she believes in? I have several issues with this nomination choice but the first of which is an important one: SHE IS NOT A TEACHER! Her degree is in business and politics. I strongly believe that the Secretary of Education should have some form of education knowledge beyond that of financing charter schools. What the world of educators need in this country right now is a Secretary who can say "I understand, I know the struggle and I am committed to doing everything I can to help you through the struggle!" When you have never been on the "front lines" of a classroom you can not make such promises. You do not know that there are teachers everywhere who spend their own money on tissues, whiteboard markers, pencils, and extra supplies for students who can't afford it at the beginning of the year. Teachers are teachers because they love what they do, not because it makes us a lot of money. In my house there are two teachers, we both bring our work home with us and sometimes we just want to go to bed but we know that we can't until the work gets done. When you have 20+ children in your care for 8 hours a day with very few breaks there are never enough hours in the work day to get it all done.

Before we take a look at Betsy DeVos' resume, I think we should review John King, our current Secretary of Education's credentials. First and foremost he spent three years as a teacher. He also co-founded a preparatory charter school where he spent years working on curriculum and policies, during this time the school's students received the highest scores on the state exams out of any urban middle school in Massachusetts! From there he served on an education commission in New York before being appointed to the position of United States Secretary of Education. The key here is first and foremost, Mr. King could related to the people he was serving because he had been there and experienced it for years.

When I look at Betsy DeVos' credentials the first and foremost difference is no teaching experience. I am not sure what she meant when she said she "mentored" in the public schools (See video of Tim Kaine questioning her below where you can also find her saying this) but I can assure you that tutoring, or serving as a volunteer in a public school paints you a completely different picture of what goes on there. Spend any amount of time sitting with the teachers in the lunchroom, during specials when the kids are away and after school and then maybe you may come to really understand their experiences. Serving as a financial contributor to a charter school hardly gives you a picture of the struggles that take place in that school.

While we are on the topic of charter schools, I want to clarify that Charter Schools are in fact public schools with the same requirements and guidelines as those in the public school district. Charter schools can not hand pick their students, which means any student with an IEP (Individualized Education Plan, guidelines for how to best meet the needs of a student with a disability) who applies to the school must be provided those services as they would in their regular public school. Charter schools are not the same as private schools. Private schools are not required to meet the same guidelines as public schools. Many private schools are not required to take the state issued standardized tests.

Watch the video below where she struggles to answer any of Senator Kaine's questions straight on, yes or no. Although much of the video caused me to do a severe *face palm* the next to last one (at about the 3:55 minute mark) really struck me. Senator Kaine asks: "Should any school with federal funding be expected to meet the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act?" and she replies: "I believe this is a matter best left to the states." Well, I hate to break this to you, currently IDEA is a FEDERAL law, meaning all states are expected to meet these requirements. This is a federal law which under a different name has been in place since 1975. This law is fundamental to special education because it requires schools to provide a free and appropriate education to every student whether "a typical learner" or not. I understand that changes may be coming down the pike as we come into this new administration however, it does not mean I have to like it. As teachers, as humanity we CAN NOT and SHOULD NOT let our government take steps backwards when it comes to protecting our children and their education especially when it comes to our most vulnerable students!

Betsy DeVos is a supporter of school choice which mainly happens through a voucher program. Parents receive vouchers which provides money to help pay for tuition at a school of their choice. Although I believe that private schools, cyber schools, Montessori schools etc have a place in our country, for families who chose to send their kids there. I also believe that perhaps the solution to our broken public school system is not simply providing ways for families to chose not to send their children to the "broken" schools but instead working to fix what is broken. Instead of cutting state budgets to where schools can't update their 20 year old textbooks (especially in the schools of cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles) perhaps we need to spend more money, and time focusing on how to change these schools for the better. It is after all in cities like this where many families don't have the financial ability to send a child to a private school because they know the public school system isn't great. It is also in cities like this where the teachers work even harder, make even less and commit so much more to doing what is right for those students. I have to imagine that for teachers in struggling cities (I think so much of my friend Dani who teaches Special Ed in Chicago) where they know their students have very little at home, they work even harder to give their students everything they can. This again means, more out of pocket spending for those teachers, not to be seen as a hero but to do what is right for their students. Why are we punishing these families for not being able to afford a better education for their children? I believe this would be a better solution than changing the way education works altogether.



I'm not sure what conclusion I want this blog to have. I am not sure that today, as we stand 2 days away from President-elect Trump's Inauguration Day that there is a solution. Things are about to change and although I have very little interest in politics my passion has been and continues to be that of educating our country's children. We have to be the voice of the children in our lives: our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews (and students for some) in our lives. This world will become theirs before we know it and how we educate them will play a role in what our world looks like in 20 or 30 years. I have so much more I could say on Betsy DeVos' pending approval for Secretary of Education so you can rest assured this is not the last that you will be seeing of me on this blog. If you are an upset educator leave a comment and share with us what frustrates you the most from the hearing. In the meantime all we can do is brace ourselves for the changes and for those of us lucky enough to be important in a child's life continue to spread the messages of tolerance and acceptance that we know to be right despite people like DeVos wanting to turn something like IDEA into a state decision.