Conservative attempts to control our schools

There is a clear trend across the United States for selfanointed educational ‘expert’ Conservative parent activists to wrest control of the daily running of public schools away from elected school boards and highly-trained school district professional staff.

While commentator George Will attacks the Biden Administration for its attempts to keep public Charter Schools accountable for their public funding, the clear underlying issue here is the educational end game of Conservatives = voucher schools, where school vouchers give parents the freedom to choose a private school for their children (including religious and non-religious options), using all or part of the public funding set aside for their children’s education.

In Will’s attack on Biden’s proposed handling of Charter Schools, he cites these “sordid, tawdry, contemptible, pettifogging” rules: “must serve a ‘diverse’ population”, “must prepare a ‘community impact analysis” demonstrating an ‘unmet demand’” for the Charter School; “must supply plans for ‘racially and socio-economically diverse’ staff” and “should collaborate with at least one traditional public school”. These ‘sordid’ descriptions actually describe the mandate upon our public schools, which is exactly why George Will and others of his ilk are attacking them.

As the 4-year tenure of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos painfully demonstrated, her support had been in private and charter schools, and as an education activist, she had largely prioritized the interests of these schools over public schools. She’d long been an advocate of school choice, which often takes money from public schools and gives it to for-profit, private schools.

— Mark S. Gailey, Chico