Is it worth giving up on the dream of real equal access to education?
The Trump campaign ran on an education policy grounded in re-routing federal education funds from public to private schools. The Trump educational problem statement was this: "How do we spend less on public education and improve student test scores simultaneously?" The President-Elect is following through and answering that question by selecting billionaire Betsy DeVosof Michigan for Education Secretary. Betsy DeVos has been a leader in the anti-public school funding movement; she has the experience and the contacts to alter the flow of federal funds away from public schools (which focus on normalization of educational standards) to private schools allowing for differentiation in educational strategies for students of various locals. The taxpayer and the American manufacturing sector can, and many are betting will; benefit from this change. But to what ends?
Here are two examples of how this change may affect two distinct student bodies:
1) The Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD)-Arizona - SUSD boasts some of the highest ranked public schools in the nation. They have well received academic, sports, and arts programs. The population in this district also have a relatively high percentage of students from affluent families attending even higher ranking private schools. When the new program (of DeVos) is enacted, and SUSD loses much of its federal funding, the community will step in to pick up the cost locally as it is a wealthy tax base. A second effect is federal dollars will now be flowing into the local Scottsdale high-end private schools – allowing a higher percentage of local students to attend schools aimed at preparing students for elite universities - all very good for the Scottsdale area. The new program will not harm, but overall benefit the Scottsdale community.
2) The second example is a rural Arizona school district. Arizona rural school districts rank toward the lower end of the national spectrum. These are districts which have cut their arts programs to keep academics afloat and fund some of the most ‘important sports’ such as High School Football. The students in these areas have a relatively low percentage of students attending private schools. When the new program (of DeVos) is enacted, and the rural schools lose much of their federal funding, the community will not have a tax base to step in to save their public schools. These schools that are currently receiving Cs and Ds when ranked nationally will drop to Ds and Fs. There are little to no private schools located in the economically challenged areas to help. However, now DeVos will have the funding to open new “Trump” style private Elementary schools, Jr. High, and High Schools. Trump has already told us what these new schools will focus on “Test Scores.” The schools will de-emphasize STEM and the arts; these programs are too expensive and quite frankly there are already enough college bound students from wealthy school districts such as SUSD that focus on STEM and the arts to hold up the economic growth in these areas. These new rural ‘Trump’ schools will train our new American blue collar working class, quickly and efficiently. Programs such as band, and history are not feasible, in the spirit of thrift, for the rural kids. Rather our economic future requires a large group of students to focus on level 1 and 2 math, computer usage skills, proper language and communication. The Trump economy requires a base of workers to be proficient in plugging a number into an algebraic expression, convert fractions to decimals and finding the average or arithmetic mean. However, this same economic growth does not require funding the base worker to study chemistry, physics, biology, self-awareness, or master a violin and study the math of harmonics.
The Trump/DeVos educational system will work to improve manufacturing productivity in America– it is designed to do this. The plan, if enacted by Congress, may create a well-trained blue collar workforce; returning America to the global manufacturing leader. But is it worth giving up on the dream of real equal access to education? To accept DeVos; is to accept government-sponsored class based education programming – labeling it with the euphemism of ‘school choice.'
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