Someone please tell me why [DeVos] is the right choice to lead the public school system of the United States of America.
Her BA degree in political science and business administration isn’t enough to place her in a classroom, but suddenly, she occupies the top job.
Ms. DeVos doesn’t love public education and clearly doesn’t know the first thing about public education in the United States. Our teachers had to take a class on the history of education just to be considered for admission to the teacher education program.
To be certified as a high school teacher in Missouri, she must take classes on how to write a test, how to incorporate multicultural education, classroom management, assessment, the integration of school and society, educational psychology, alternatives for exceptional students, working with foundation-level learning, analysis and correction of difficulties in literacy, understanding how to teach her subject matter, and more. She’d spend less money if she dropped the education requirements, and probably graduate sooner, but let’s ignore these facts for a moment.
She must observe real teachers in action, be mentored by a successful classroom teacher, and spend a semester supervised by a teacher as she makes the classroom her own. She likely won’t be able to work during that semester, so she’ll have to figure out how to do things like pay for food and shelter, but hey, she’s rich. Presumably, that wouldn’t have been an issue for her, right?
She must pass the MOGEA test and the Praxis II.
Once hired, the mentoring doesn’t stop. More, teachers are encouraged to seek a masters in teaching to further their development. She’ll pay for that masters herself, carving time out of her busy week to take a class or two a semester. As consolation, her school district might boost her pay a few hundred dollars a year. In thirty or so years, she just might be able to justify the cost.
While on the job, she must learn how to balance long hours to educate students with her personal life lest she lose sight as to why she does the job in the first place. She must endure politicians both national and local lamenting how teachers don’t do enough, yet claim our school systems are “flush with cash,” while perhaps working part time at Barnes & Noble to make ends meet. She must accept less pay than other graduates because she is on the public payroll. She must learn to have a politically acceptable answer to, “You must love teaching because you have the summer off!” despite the research, planning, and reading - oh, God, the reading - she’ll need to do to keep her classes fresh.
She needs to experience the elation of developing an idea regarding how to teach a lesson, only to discover that the money to buy the materials she’ll need must come from her own pocket. She has to learn to smile through parent/teacher conferences where unknowing but well-meaning parents demand she raise a grade despite hours of planning, countless extensions of the deadline, and a lost weekend of grading. That smile must continue when the district tells her that they’re increasing the size of her classes because they can’t afford to hire another teacher. The public just didn’t go for that bond issue again this year. Tough luck.
To support her school, she will have to carve out the time to advise an organization or tutor students in need after the teaching hours end as the school can never really close. She will have to balance special plans for select students so she doesn’t inadvertently leave anyone behind, but be flexible and open to minute changes in graduation requirements, serve on countless committees, sit in frequent department meetings, and much more.
To work in public education, one must love public education. Teachers do it because, sometimes, one student suddenly smiles and says, ‘Because of you, I was accepted to college/got this job. Because of you, I learned something.’
They do it because they love it.
Ms. DeVos, I challenge you to serve one year in front of a classroom at a public school - a length of time shorter than would grant you tenure, a position as chair, or to become a principal - and then maybe can tell us how to run a school.
Oh, that’s right, you’re not qualified and are afraid of grizzly bear attacks. My bad.
I guess I’ll ask you, Senator Roy Blunt and those who voted to confirm this unqualified person to lead our beleaguered but honorable teachers:
Why was she the right choice?
2087
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