Mills: Walker’s plan for the schools.
Access to a quality public education should be the right of every American. The more aware we are of our world and how it works, after all, the more able we are to resist the rise of petty tyrants who would otherwise use our ignorance against us.
Education — comprehensive, multifaceted learning that encourages critical thought — is the key to a vibrant and sustainable community.
It’s no secret that our public school system is in danger. Where that danger originates and how best to address it are, however, major points of contention. Right now, at the state and national levels, people who advocate for a system that diverts taxpayer money from public schools into far less accountable and often religious and/or for-profit enterprises are ascendant.
Newly anointed Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has never attended or worked for public schools, sent none of her own children to public schools, and has spent considerable sums of her family’s Amway fortune lobbying for so-called school choice.
Public schools are struggling in many parts of the country. Massive disparities exist, especially for students from poorer districts, students of color, LGBTQ students and students with disabilities or special needs. Absolutely, then, we must use our big brains to explore every possible option that might help fix those gaps. Education helps fight poverty, racial injustice, religious intolerance and boosts innovation. Who wouldn’t want that?
The answer, unfortunately, is that far too many people who’ve climbed the ladder to their own places of power and wealth and, in looking back down at those still struggling on the rungs, reach for their knives instead of offering a hand up.
In short, folks who’d rather children received their education with a heavy dose of bias toward a particular ideology, or just as a means to make a quick buck, have spent decades working to sabotage public schools with inadequate funding and attacks against teachers and teachers unions. Once public support and funding is well enough eroded, the schools suffer, and these folks can swoop in with their fabulous “solutions.”
Gov. Scott Walker just introduced a budget that includes a major boost in state aid to schools. It’s a good thing, but of course it comes with strings. Per student spending is mandated to be flat from district to district, ignoring the fact that some areas are in much greater economic need than others. It also comes with the caveat that, in order to receive their share of the aid, districts must require school employees to contribute to 12% of the cost of their health care plans.
Basically, he’s demanding a pay cut for many already cashand resource-strapped school staff in exchange for student aid. It’s a cruel position to put our educators in. These are folks who already often have to dip into their own pockets in order to make sure students have adequate supplies and support, folks who arrive early and stay late (without overtime pay), and who go above and beyond for our kids on a daily basis while being called “lazy” and “greedy” by their own representatives and neighbors.
If Walker, DeVos, and others like them really do want to improve our school system so that it can better serve children and prepare future generations to be more informed and active citizens, then the answer is to work
with teachers and teachers unions to find practical, workable solutions — not against them.
In an age when we need informed and critical thinking citizens more than ever, we should be throwing everything we have into ensuring the health and sustainability of our public schools.