Your tire is flat.
For the fourth time this week, you run over that pesky pothole driving down the street. You brace for the clunking noise that is sure to follow. Instead, you hear a horrifying popping sound; it can’t mean good news for your pocketbook. You need your tire replaced, so you call the plumber.
Wait, the plumber?
It wouldn’t make much sense to call the plumber, who is inexperienced in fixing tires. Calling the mechanic, whose aptitudes and skill sets are oriented around fixing tires efficiently, would be a more logical decision.
Just as you wouldn’t call on the inexperienced plumber to patch a hole in your tire, you wouldn’t call on the inexperienced billionaire to run the national education system.
Betsy DeVos has no educational degree, no experience teaching in schools and no clue what it means to be an educator. She is a renowned supporter of “school choice,” a euphemism for the privatization of schools. The programs she supports redirects critical taxpayer dollars away from public schools into private hands, many of which are not held accountable to standardized, public teaching policies. Still, she was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s education secretary.
What does that say about the importance of education to this cabinet?
Growing up, education was a priority in my house. My mother, a public elementary school administrator, continually emphasized learning as a means of discovering the world. She believed in equal opportunity for every child, regardless of their family’s income, status or race.
I watched her spend hours each night curating lesson plans according to her students’ needs like any great teacher would. She spent her time and energy on her students and created an authentic, provocative learning environment because of it.
You can’t turn education into a big business.
Teachers should be in a classroom because they care about the wellbeing and advancement of their students, not because they are contracted by a company. There should be heart in education, not greed. When education is seen as business, it fails to adequately serve the needs of children.
Teachers care because education matters. Education has the power to build character while fostering critical thinking, decision making and interpersonal skills. Education is the first step to building cross-cultural proficiency. It all begins with the public education system.
“You don’t kill public education without killing something that’s very important to our sense of the public good, our civic responsibility,” said Diane Ravitch, historian and critic of vouchers and charter schools, told the Washington Post.
DeVos is in favor of a voucher system, which allows parents to use taxpayer dollars for their children’s tuition at their private school of choice, including religiously affiliated ones. Ironically, this system gives families less of a “choice” in their child’s education, as private schools ultimately decide if a student is admitted.
These voucher program schools aren’t required to provide parents with information regarding the school’s abilities to meet the needs of the child. Schools under voucher programs often aren’t required to publish curriculum, test students or meet other educational standards.
Public education fosters diversification, where voucher systems encourage religious, economic, racial and ethnic stratification. Attending public schools teaches children how to interact with a variety of individuals, not only those who look and act like them.
Legally, fundamentalist Christian academies are allowed to teach creationism versus evolutionism, promote controversial ideas about the role of women in society and question gay rights.
But that doesn’t mean the American taxpayer should have to fund it.
The voucher system is simply a cover-up for a massive underlying issue. Inadequate funding, curriculum changes and teacher training are public education issues that demand attention. If revitalizing public education means using taxpayer dollars to educate the most impressionable, vulnerable members of society, so be it. No other institution should be more protected than the public education system.
Neglecting the 50.4 million students in the United States who attend public primary and secondary schools surely won’t make America great again.
Alaina DiLaura is a 20-year-old international studies and mass communication sophomore from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.