The Richmond Free Press enabled me to take a swipe at Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education, and for that I am grateful. For better or worse, I’m a product of public schools and state university systems. The value of decent public schools is no abstraction for me. Living in Richmond has only reinforced this. Virginia’s twin legacies of “massive resistance” against integration of schools and of the white flight that accompanied desegregation are yet to be resolved. It, moreover, is a sad reality that many state-of-the-art liberals mouth support for public education but then epiphanously discover that it’s a poor fit for their own brood – elegant hypocrisy – while still deeming it fine for everyone else’s children. You people know who you are and you should be ashamed.
Neoliberal takeover and plutocratic meddling have made the terrain that public education must traverse yet more challenging. The right’s impulse to privatize all things manifests itself in propagandistic assaults on public education, especially demonization of teachers. And then there was Bill Gates, who aimed his money cannon at a regime of oversight and testing that unfortunately drew public resources in its wake and has yet to yield positive results, a plutocratic deformation of educational policy that squandered a decade and was foisted on the county by an individual with no discernible expertise in education.
Betsy DeVos is the high priestess of the neoliberal besieging of education. Her contempt for public schools was barely concealed, when concealed at all. In a just world, she would peddle Amway and Bibles door to door for her remaining span on this mortal coil.
Holly Rodriquez, “School Culture Change Needed with New Superintendent,” The Richmond Free Press, 25-27 May 2017, A7 (http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2017/may/26/school-culture-change-needed-new-superintendent/).
Associated Press, “School Choice To Be Expanded By Feds,” The Richmond Free Press, 25-27 May 2017, A7 (http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2017/may/26/school-choice-be-expanded-feds/).
“Beware of Some Education Solutions,” The Richmond Free Press, 1-3 June 2017, A9 (https://issuu.com/richmondfreepress/docs/june_1-3__2017_issue).