DCZards wrote:dckingsfan wrote:The problem is - that great equalizer is failing us badly. I hear you on Brown v. Board - that will stay. But we can't just double down on things that are failing. We have to have competition too.
Yes, there's much work to be done to improve our public schools, especially in the inner city. But putting Betsy DeVos in charge of public education is like hiring the fox to guard the hen house. For DeVos it's never been about improving the public schools. It's always been about finding and supporting (with taxpayers' money) alternatives to public schools.
There is literally nothing the federal government has done that has help public schools. The courts, yes.
But there has been much that the federal government had done that has inhibited improvements on public schools - including Common Core Costs (Bush's stupid foray into K12 Education). What we need is a Education Secretary that stops this foolishness.
The problem is the definition. Public Schools are the monolith that supports public jobs. Not the correct definition: Public Schools are the method to get the best education to each child.
Those monolith schools by definition do a poor job educating those outside the first standard deviation. Instead of acknowledging and embracing this - the fight it. The teachers and the administrators have too much invested in their near-term interests to change.
The schools are broken and they can't be fixed without competition. It isn't that there is much to be done, it is that it can't be done.
I ask you this. Who voted for Clinton? You want more college educated voters and that isn't going to happen with the current state of schools.
And the guaranteed loan issue out of the federal government is one of the worst disasters to happen to higher education - ever!
Over the last 30 years, we literally would be in a better position if there was no U.S. Department of Education.
So, Fox in the hen house is fine by me.
