Trump's Education Secretary Pick A Good Choice
My colleague (we both blog) and Facebook Bud, J.D. Tuccille, looks at Donald Trump's latest cabinet position pick. From a libertarian viewpoint, Betsy DeVos, nominee for Secretary of Education, looks like a good one, believing in parents having control of their kid's education and, thus, school choice. No, she's not a big fan of government schools but, as the article points out, there's a good reason for that.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 2:26 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Fred, as much as I can respect a libertarian viewpoint, Betsy DeVros is not a good choice by any stretch of the imagination. Her idea of "school choice" is that your kids should get just as good an education as you are able and willing to pay for. Period. She's a strict free-market ideologue that would open the floodgates to for-profit education con games with no oversight. She wants to kill off all public education and all oversight of education.
What will that result in? A country where only the wealthy can afford a decent education and which will simply re-inforce the already growing dichotomy between the haves and have-nots. That path leads to unrest and the decline of anything resembling civilization.
A strict libertarian view should include equal access to high-quality education regardless of the ability to pay, shouldn't it? Or are you taking an economic libertarian approach rather than an individual one?
This is looking up!
Even economically it's looking up. Instead of sending billions to DC, counties will once again be able to spend most of what they collect. Win win.
I've got to agree with 3:48 PM.
What's best for our country is for us to educate all our children. Not just the ones whose parents can afford to send them to a good school.
If we ever are to break down the racial divide that so damages our country we've got to bring everyone into the economy. The best way to do that is to give children the foundation that they will need to be a success later in life.
If anything we should be doing the opposite of what people like DeVros wants to do. We should go into our least successful communities with our best teachers and most resources.
Sorry, I just can't get behind the libertarian philosophy of "I've got mine, you're on your own". We're all in this together and we need to make every one of us successful as much as possible.
Even lefties agree that parental participation in their child's education is important. This lady recognizes that, although perhaps taking it further than they would like.
The article points out how poor government run education has been overall through the years. Nothing wrong with moving away from that. You suggest education would then be only available based on education class. Yet, I've read that the country was actually more literate before public schools came into being.
I'm reminded of a letter William Bonney (Billy The Kid) wrote to Governor Lew Wallace back in the day. While we might consider Bonney an uneducated outlaw- which he might have been- look at the writing and spelling in his letter. Impeccable penmanship and spelling, likely the result of private or locally run schools of the time:
http://tinyurl.com/ja2n4dw
I've also read that efforts to build up government schools at the time weren't aimed at failure of private schools, but failure of the first government schools.
I see little to fear from someone wanting parents more involved in their children's education.
I've heard that the Moon is made of green cheese.
Government schools are not going to be as good as they should be if we starve them. And many of our schools are being starved.
Let's be honest here. All this private school, charter school stuff started when schools were ordered to integrate. It's all about some white people wanting to keep their children out of integrated schools.
And the more money we throw at the schools, the more they say they need. To me, that's throwing good money after bad.
Fred, why don't you visit your local schools and see how they're coping with the task of educating our children while being under funded?
If we want good schools and good education for all our children we will have to pay teachers decent salaries, keep class size reasonable, and keep the buildings in good condition.
If we don't then we won't get quality teachers. Our schools will continue to drop in quality. Our children will be less able to earn a decent living. We will drive our country into the ground.
Being libertarians and just take, take, take doesn't work, Fred. We have to give back. We have to pay forward.
Just stopping the revisions of all books would save them a fortune. Forcing schools to exchange revisions every year is seriously messed up. Go back to pre 1913 educational material, save a mind, save a country.
Just do away with books altogether.
Students could spend their days singing praises to our Great Leader.
Good info. Truth about $ & public schools.
https://fee.org/articles/the-failure-of-public-schooling-in-one-chart/#0
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