No Betsy DeVos, I Don't Want You Running My School
After watching Betsy DeVos’s interview on 60 Minutes, then rewatching to ensure that I wasn’t having a nightmare, I am utterly disappointed that such an unqualified and incompetent person is in charge of my education and my future. Her ineptitude was conspicuous as she failed to answer basic questions about my education system. Watching the interview, it is apparent why a woman who has never had any connection with a public school is unable to make sense of the ever-increasing need for funding in public schools -- where 90% of the nation’s students go to school. This comes as her fellow party members have taken action to initiate big cuts on the education budget.
I’m a sophomore in high school, and -- up until this past summer -- for 10 years, I went to a school district whose graduation rate floated around the 70% mark. My school district consisted of predominantly Hispanic and black children coming from broken households. The district, over the course of my 10 year period, did little to support these underprivileged children, often having little funds to allocate necessary materials to teachers. As a result, these children became confined to a system that impedes them from seeing new doors that will usher them out of their current predicaments. It is precisely schools like these that Ms. DeVos has “intentionally” avoided visiting.
And now, Secretary of Education DeVos wants to pull even more money out of poorly-funded districts like my previous one in order to ultimately prioritize wealthier, conservative families. Don’t be mistaken, Ms. DeVos’s proposition of school choice is a racist, discriminatory argument that puts an immense amount of children -- like those in my previous district -- at risk for futures that offer little opportunities to make it out. She claims that it enables parents to put their children in better schools, but she fails to understand the inherent nature of her arguments: institutionalized racism and the deprivation of a child’s basic right to an equal and quality education.
If Ms. DeVos’ school choice plan was to be carried out, our education system would be primarily divided by race. Wealthier white families would be able to afford high-end private schools, while struggling minority families would either have to remain in inadequate public schools or lower-level private and charter schools. Ms. DeVos and Mr. Trump have touted that vouchers would guarantee that displaced children would be able to attend private schools regardless of their socioeconomic status, but vouchers almost never take care of full tuition and private schools maintain the right to admit only those that they chose and remove those that they deem to be disruptive (which can tend to equate to being not wealthy or white). Consequently, these families would be unable to obtain a high-level education for their child, resulting in struggling minorities staying in the dark while power remained in the hands of whites. Moreover, for the minorities that moved on to private and charter schools, they would find themselves in a culturally-challenging environment, as much of the nation’s private schools are composed of white, Christian student bodies that are perceived as exclusive by many of my peers and me. For any minority student, this would pose the issue of being forced to embrace a white-dominated world with values that contradict their own.
The beauty behind the principle of public schools is that it -- ideally -- creates an environment in which my peers and I, regardless of socioeconomic status, have equal opportunities to high-level education. While a student’s home environment does undoubtedly impact his or her measured success, well-functioning public schools cultivate their entire student bodies without boundaries. This promotes the education of a minority student just as much as it does a wealthy, white student, leading to the possibility of the minority student having equal opportunities as the white student. This, however, can only be seen with proper funding to public schools, which Ms. DeVos plans to deny.
By denying this funding, Ms. DeVos is letting our education system rot. Students like many of those in my previous school district are offered little to attain a quality education in a conducive environment. They remain without obligatory materials, updated literature, enhanced technologies, developed support programs, research and further study opportunities, and extracurricular tracks. Instead, they stay trapped in a system that discourages students from coming to school or causes them to become bored, give up easily, create havoc, and turn to violence and drugs. This is the reality of many public schools today, creating an unambiguous disparity between the minority student and the wealthy, white student.
If Ms. DeVos continues to advocate for school choice, education will no longer be about quality opportunities to learn on an even playing field that has it basis in hard work and a love for learning. Instead, many of my peers and I will be compromised, becoming inferior to the wealthy, white student. Without proper funding, an education discrepancy will emerge with greater intensity, contributing to greater racial and socioeconomic divisions in the US for future generations. Ultimately, my peers and I deserve better commitment from those in power in order to ensure that all of us have an opportunity to advance ourselves and realize our aspirations of the American Dream.
Betsy DeVos shouldn’t be in charge of my education, but the least she can do is start with a visit.
