As a professional, I try to keep my political beliefs outside of my professional realm but when political policy and rhetoric threatens the well being of our children and the educational system, I am compelled to make a statement.
I chose not to watch the Presidential inauguration, and preferred to read the transcript so I could focus on the words, not the emotion of the moment. Within his speech, President Trump stated,
"...But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential."
Last time I checked, if a school was flush with cash, it was not because of government, state nor local county funds, but rather the communities which support their local schools through their own private funds. If fact, in 2016, federal funding of education made up only 3% of the total budget, with a much larger portion of state budgets going toward education. President Trump and Betsy DeVoe, have proposed a re-structuring of the allocation of Title 1 funds to vouchers for private schools. In my opinion, this will only create a wider gap than that which is already present between the "haves" and "have nots". Diverting funds from schools which have been identified as at risk due to lower socio-economic student populations, will not solve the problems these schools face and will, in fact, exacerbate them. Cutting funding will mean a loss of teachers and materials necessary to address the issues children from lower socio-economic situations come to school with. Or, it could also mean an increase of funding at a state level which would, in turn, most likely call for an increase in taxes at a state level. Either way, the only profiteer is private schools, who would begin to receive federal funds but would be autonomous from the federal regulation of education within our country.
I would charge the nominee for Secretary of Education, as well as our President, to assess the bigger picture and address social issues such as poverty and discrimination before pouring federal money into private businesses pockets. Additionally, I ask you to consider the following- we are part of a leadership program to develop the skills we will need to be effective, innovative school leaders. Georgia State and the professionals responsible for developing our program acknowledge that this can only be done through experience and application of the skills they have identified as necessary for school leaders. Our state mandates that we have experience within the field which we are seeking certification and overwhelmingly, we all agree with these assertions. Following this logic, then shouldn't our nominee for Secretary of Education, need to have the same qualifications? So to, shouldn't he/she need to be educated within the area they are leading? Should they not have had experience within the public education domain? The thought that a person can become Secretary of Education with no experience in the area of public education can be equated to a school system promoting a person with no experience in the area of education nor leadership, principal of a school. The community would be outraged, as we, as educators, should be at the nomination of Betsey DeVoe as Secretary of Education.
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