Dominic Bordenaro is a freshman political science major and writes "Dominic's Politics" for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Dominic at dabordenaro@bsu.edu.
About 90 percent of students in the United States attend public schools and the Trump administration is now at war with every one of those students and their families.
Recently, Betsy DeVos was nominated by Donald Trump to be the next Secretary of Education.
She is simply not qualified.
Betsy DeVos has arguably never set foot in a public school and has certainly never received public education. Her children attended private schools. She has never even had to take out a loan for college.
She is not an educator, or an education leader. Her expertise is not school curriculum or governance.
In fact, she is more of a lobbyist. She has used her and her family’s millions of dollars to influence places, such as the state of Michigan’s education system.
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In a country that is built on the separation of church and state, she wants to bring religion back into public schools.
She has invested billions into the charter school industry, even though that industry continues to fail.
Again, she is simply not qualified.
She recently stated she would not be afraid to defund public schools. Over 50 million children attend public schools. This shows she is out of touch.
The fact is, charter schools favor the wealthy. They provide a choice, yes, but a choice for the highly privileged. Charter schools take funds away from public schools and deprive them of much-needed resources. Charter schools are not even held to the standard of public schools, and her family donated $1.45 million to the Michigan Republican Party after they derailed a measure that would have ensured more oversight over charter schools.
As a private citizen, Betsy DeVos can hold whatever opinion or belief she wants. However, as Secretary of Education, she would have a duty to protect public schools and to make sure they are improving. With her work in Michigan, there is zero evidence to suggest she is capable of doing just that.
If you still think Betsy DeVos is qualified, go watch her committee hearing. Watching that hearing, especially the questions given to her by Senators Warren, Sanders and Kaine, made me embarrassed for this country. She could not directly answer the most basic questions. She didn’t even seem to know what her job would entail. In the hearing, she even stated that we need guns in schools to protect us from bears.
It is also unclear where DeVos stands on Common Core. She served previously on the Board of Foundation for Excellence in Education, which supported the extremely unpopular standards.
What this country needs is better teacher pay, lower tuition costs, better access to technology in public schools and more freedom for the teachers. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have private or charter schools, but we should be in full support of our public schools. No taxpayer dollar should go to anything but public education.
You can like Trump. You can agree with his populist message. But please, call or write your senators and tell them to vote “no” for Betsy DeVos. We can do better.
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