*The following is an opinion column by R Muse* One of the downsides of investigating, observing, and opining on the state of American politics is the relatively rare case of uncontrollable rage; not at what’s happening, but that it is happening precisely as no small number of opinion columnists and commentators warned incessantly it would….
DeVos has the potential to undermine progress by diverting resources and failing to uphold government’s responsibility to protect the needs of students.
Clinton promises to be a champion for education by not taking advice from people interested in breaking unions and privatizing schools.
A new nationwide poll shows the American people overwhelmingly agree that public education should not exist to enrich and profit the charter school privatization movement and they are demanding strong regulatory laws to “rein in documented fiscal malfeasance by private charter schools.”
Although Republicans have not had as much success transferring taxpayer funding for public education to corporations at the federal level, Republican governors have made raiding public education a bonanza for corporate charter and private religious schools.
It is obvious that the owner of a professional sports franchise, say a National Football League team, would only hire a hair-stylist who detests, and has never played, the game of football as a general manager and head coach if they wanted their team to fail miserably. That is an absurd idea, but it is precisely what two religious Republican governors who want to decimate their state’s public education system did in appointing evangelical anti-public education fanatics to run their state’s public school systems.
If, as privatization “reformers” in Republican, corporate, and Obama Education Department claim that America’s public schools are dire failures, then America’s wealthy public schools with unionized teachers, and tenure, would be failing and not at the “top of the international charts.”
Even if some Americans do grasp the concept of Republicans as the ultimate takers, they likely fail to comprehend that the GOP are ultimately monumental givers; it is that spirit of generosity that drives their habit of robbing the people.
Republicans, privatization advocates, religious extremists, ALEC, and anti-union fascists contend that America’s public schools are failures, but for the first time in American history the national high school graduation rate surpassed 80% in 2012 and is projected to reach 90% by 2020.
Recently, isolated successes in charter schools have gotten big headlines, masking the numerous issues they present including undermining public education