Dear Ms. Devos,

I guess I should congratulate you on being officially confirmed as our nation's Secretary of Education. Do I really want to do this? No, and here's why.

I am on the road to becoming an educator. I have the objective of impacting a child's life in a public school. I want to pass on the passion that my previous teachers instilled in me to my future students. As an aspiring educator, we are looking to people of authority like yourself to represent us well, and when we saw you were confirmed; we all became very scared.

You have never set foot in a public classroom from a student's perspective. You always took advantage of our tax dollars to attend everywhere but a public school. You kept that tradition alive by not sending your children to public schools either. You never experienced a day in the life of a child in "normal" school. How do you expect to improve something that you never experienced yourself? As someone who wants to experience this every day, we are afraid you will never understand.

We don't encounter solely the borderline genius, and wealthy students every day. We encounter the children who are the slowest readers, the ones who are shoved in their lockers, and the children who had to sleep in the backseat of their parent's car because they got evicted from their home the previous afternoon. We encounter the children who strive for straight A's, the children who turn in everything on time, and the children who ask the most intelligent questions. Regardless of a student's race, background, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, public schools are the places that always accept everybody. We believe in giving our future generation the best possible chance at succeeding in life, and we hope that you'll take this into account once you start making executive decisions on our behalf.

We are afraid you're going to turn the schools we plan to teach at into profit. Schools aren't meant to be an assembly line that create robot profit-makers for our country. We are becoming the nurturers that our future generation needs, and, while they won't be attending college (hopefully) while you're in office, you set the foundation, Ms. Devos. The decisions you make directly affect our schools and the faculty within it. Why are you trying to turn the one place that accepts everyone into a selective place that requires you to pay an arm and a leg to attend?

When I decided I wanted to major in education, I was proud to enter into a major full of challenge, distinction, and adventure. I knew I was walking into many exams, practice teachings, and paying for an obscene amount of certifications. Ms. Devos, do you even know what the Praxis Tests entail? Are you an expert in general pedagogy? Do you have the credentials of knowing the education system and its standards? I didn't think so.

While I am not an expert in the education world yet, I am aspiring to be. I plan to be as certified as my colleagues which will amount to much more certification than you will ever obtain. We're obviously not in this for the money, but you keep on using your wealth to "reform" our education system with your lackluster ideals.

You don't care about our children as much as the profit you're going to get by sending them through your idea of public schooling. I know as much as the next guy that leading something with wealth rather than good intentions is never a good thing, so why will this be any different.

With this I leave you with one thing: if you burn our public school system to the ground, destroy our passion to teach, and/or rid our country of the ability to receive a well rounded education while you're in office, screw you. Our children deserve the best, and you're not it.

Congratulations? Not until you convince me otherwise.

Sincerely,

An Aspiring Educator