To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Preserving Public Education
President Obama,
Don't outsource public schools to for-profit businesses unless you want to further erode our country's democracy and middle class. Public schools, alone, will not fix poverty. When Arne Duncan advocates the dismantling of public education, he rarely extols the reality of Chicago: 40:1 class sizes, limited art and physical education for poor children, and no books to study.
Don't outsource public schools to for-profit businesses unless you want to further erode our country's democracy and middle class. Public schools, alone, will not fix poverty. When Arne Duncan advocates the dismantling of public education, he rarely extols the reality of Chicago: 40:1 class sizes, limited art and physical education for poor children, and no books to study.
Why is this important?
Having spent more than 25 years working in public education I am concerned that the "reforms" championed by US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, will ruin public eduation while opening up the "market" to privatization. Follow the money. Who benefits from producing tests, evaluating tests, and publicizing test results? Who stands to suffer? Is this reform? A NY State child now starts the year being tested by her teachers in every subject so as to "prove" that the child knows little in order to create a favorable comparison for the end of the year. Is our goal to improve drop-out rates of students and teachers?