Public education has been a cornerstone of United States society since its conception. The institution has been good, bad, ugly, and triumphant. It has long been a safe place for children with difficult, abusive, or impoverished home lives. Teachers are role models, mentors, and sometimes stand-in parents. I can’t lie and say that everything public schools provide is rainbows and butterflies, but public schools are a place for children to gather and learn as one cohesive group. Yes, there are different difficulty levels of classes but the student body is generally unified. Students are free to learn and love and be around people who are different and the same and somewhat similar. Hard-working faculty and staff tirelessly try to provide a positive community for these children.
The new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, believes that the best way to relieve the issues of public schools is to privatize them. I beg of you all: Please do not let this happen. Privatization of public schools spells disaster for an already dividing nation. Aside from DeVos’ atrocious track record of education reform in Michigan, the practice is divisive and discriminatory. Allowing families to choose to defund public schools in favor of private schools is a microcosm of the race-to-the-top culture in the United States. Schools with the most money will attract the best educators and be academically superior, leaving behind low-income families, as they will be unable to pay tuition at more expensive schools. That is, unless their child is considered “gifted,” under which circumstances they would be given assistance. Privatizing a historically public institution will fuel socioeconomic elitism and further divide the nation. Public schools will eventually become the stereotypical slum centers that Hollywood sometimes portrays; with all the academically gifted students and best instructors at competitive private schools, public schools with be left to house the below-average achieving students, poor students, and students with disabilities. Charitable instructors will likely stay in the public system for as long as they can, but if they must go private to provide for their families I cannot fault them for that. Public schools will become extremely large resource rooms. The notion that those who do not achieve at school are lesser human beings will be reinforced. These young children will be categorized by their differences from the norm and above average. Children will only be around children that the market determines are “like them”. How will students learn to love and work with people who may be different? Their peers will shame them because they need to go to public schools; the stigma will rival that of food stamps. Can’t pay for food? Can’t pay for school? How many students will be accepted into college with public high school diplomas? I don’t know that I want to hear the answer.
Sure, we must design our education to optimize outcomes for our children, but we must also keep in mind that integrating students together has been a long-fought battle with amazing results and to allow parents to destroy that progress is terrifying and heartbreaking. We must be fighting to unify our future by creating a cohesive, loving society that is knowledgeable and experienced in working with all types of people. The United States badly needs to invest in public education; the country is falling fast in global educational statistics. The solution is not to foster a small group of elites. The idea is to have an educated, critically thinking society. As soon as the people of this nation cease brutalizing their own brothers and sisters for a damn first place trophy, we may begin to succeed as a whole.
