Perspective: Betsy DeVos wants to resurrect an old — and failed — model of public education
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks at the Education Writers Association conference in Baltimore on May 6. By Adam Laats Adam Laats Bio Follow Adam Laats is professor of education at Binghamton University and author of"Fundamentalist U." and"The Other School Reformers." May 16 at 6:00 AM Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently proposed a “new definition” of public education.
Viewed through that lens, DeVos’s plan is not an innovation, but rather a step backward into the dysfunctional ideas out of which our current public-school system evolved. The problem was that the funding was never enough. As that same New York reformer concluded in 1825, too often these schools had “inadequate means, and [were] managed by incompetent hands.” As a result, reformers fought for decades to create our current system of public-school funding and control.
At first, New York City’s school leaders made the same assumptions. In 1819, a group of well-heeled elites operated the Free School Society for the benefit of the public. Students from low-income families received free education and the city benefited from a reduction in crime and an increase in economic productivity. To pay for it, the Free School Society collected funds, as members explained, from “the donations and Legacies of charitable Individuals, the bounty of the Corporation [i.e.
To make ends meet, school leaders had to cut teacher salaries. Predictably, their best teachers left for greener pastures. They cut student programs, too, starting with an extra early-morning class for talented young students. They increased class sizes and cut out prizes for student accomplishments. In protest, parents threatened to keep children at home. The schools limped along, but they lacked the optimism or ambition of their earlier years.
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