The American left saved most of its fire for Betsy DeVos who is the Republican nominee for secretary of education. There is a good reason. She is Donald Trump’s most qualified and powerful Cabinet nominee, and she can transform American education – which could transform the nation. Finally, the children and parents of this country have an advocate.
It all comes to a head on Monday.
The numbers are stark. American education continues to sink. We are now 39th in math and 27th in science, having fallen dramatically under the last two presidents, a Republican and a Democrat. And the news only gets worse. Some American students, especially students of color, are now falling hopelessly behind world numbers. New studies show that the top performing countries see fewer than 5 percent of their 15-year-old youth scoring at the lowest levels of PISA for math, reading and science. Compare that to the United States, where the numbers reach 29 percent.
Arguably, the teachers unions insist that there has been modest improvement in some of the testing and scores, but unfortunately the educational improvements in other countries have left us in the dust, leaving us further behind in worldwide comparisons.
It is a vivid contrast to 2009, when newly elected President Barack Obama promised to be the “post-partisan” education president. National politicians united behind his choice for secretary of education, Arne Duncan. Former Republican secretary of education Sen. Lamar Alexander called Duncan “the best.” Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton actually took a national tour together to tout the Obama plan. Jeb Bush openly praised the program.
Obama sounded more like Betsy DeVos in those days. He took on the entrenched teachers’ unions and touted charter schools. But all of that slipped away when the teachers’ lobby brought its power to bear. Barack Obama could send his own kids to private schools. That was OK. But that was the end of it. From then on, he would have to say and do what the teachers’ union demanded.
Now, they are demanding that Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine vote against Betsy DeVos and support the status quo. And it appears that the two obedient senators have agreed. This will force the Senate to take on this issue Monday, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the deciding vote.
The horror stories coming out of American schools are legion. If an American student is lucky, he or she will be subjected to years of propaganda promoting a leftist sociopolitical agenda. They will see open drug use in the halls and classrooms and be subjected to violent attacks in front of teachers who will not report the incidents to authorities. While less than 1.9 percent of them will be Muslim, they will be allowed to wear a hijab but will be openly ridiculed for manifesting any Christian beliefs. And, usually, teachers will not be fired. In Brooklyn, a teacher who admitted to sexually abusing a sixth-grade female student was kept on the school payroll.
Meanwhile, the American elite send their own children to private Christian schools. This includes the Obamas and the Clintons. Since 1906, no president of the United States has ever sent his child to a public school, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, who quickly backed out of the arrangement.
Betsy DeVos, herself, was criticized by senators for attending a private school as a child. But she is not alone. Most of America’s presidents attended private schools, including in recent years – Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The latter attended the New York Military Academy.
Donald Trump’s bold choice of Betsy DeVos sends a clear message that it’s time for the hypocrisy to end. It’s time to fire teachers who are incompetent or even criminal. It’s time to end the sociocultural experimentation and start teaching our children how to read and to teach them math and science. It’s time to end the government abuse of children and empower parents to find the best schools for their own sons and daughters when those options are available.
Read the story of Donald Trump as a student at the New York Military Academy.
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