OPINION: A+ FOR TRUMP: F for public education

By Mark Scheinbaum

REPUBLICAN Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine broke ranks with their party but it was of no consequence when the Vice President (who sits as President of the U.S. Senate) Mike Pence cast the historic tie-breaking 51-50 vote confirming Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education.

Never in U.S. history did we need a Veep’s vote to confirm a nominee.

Set aside for a moment whether this is an A or an F for the future of free public education in the USA, because it is an A+ for the political strategy of new President Donald Trump.

The core of the GOP held firm to support a cabinet nominee chastised by The Left, and lame Democrats could do little more than filibuster all night in a futile attempt to find one more centrist or even moderate Republican to defeat the wife of the Amway “multi-level marketing” founder with her own agenda of educational policies. The victory means the Trump voters who share her views on homosexuality, sex education, charter schools, teacher salaries, creationism, evolution, and much more have their values allegedly ensconced in Washington.

Out in the cold
The DeVos victory also means that two recent soldiers of conscience and respect in the GOP no longer feel they can fight the Administration’s policies and people and remain popular and/or re-electable.

They are Sens. Rubio and Graham.  Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had failed in a presidential nomination bid and stated he was retiring from the Senate after his current term, but listened to popular support and GOP strategists by running and winning another term last November.

A bigger surprise was the moral cave-in of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Long-serving military reservist, moderate mediator of Congressional squabbles, and Constitutional expert going back to his Watergate Committee staff days—he, too sought the presidency and lost, and will no longer defy the White House.

It is disappointing that of all the Trump Cabinet picks, the GOP “went to the mats” and muscled any opponents to confirm DeVos. It is a disappointment because one might make a very persuasive case for the elimination of Education as a Cabinet level department. Because education is not important? No, because in the United States education is too important to be left to bureaucratic curriculum pundits and manipulators in Washington.

Whether you like or dislike the School Board policies or the Superintendent of Schools in Raton, NM or Boca Raton (Palm Beach County), FL., is not the point. Thousands of county and municipal school boards are under tight state guidelines, or looser local decentralized regulations as dictated by the citizens and voters of New Mexico, Florida, Indiana or any other State.

It always confounded me how educational “experts” of the fundamentalist right and the socialistic left seemed to spend more energy debating “core curriculum” and minute administrative and funding rules rather than investigating the larger question of the merits of local control.

Why do students in Iowa or Falls Church or Montpelier perform differently in academics than those in Mississippi, Nogales, or Reno? Or do they perform differently?

Measuring sticks
Are the measurements of “success” themselves dictated by the filters of Washington bureaucrats who bring their own ethnic, religious, or intellectual preferences to evaluations?

The sadness of a DeVos confirmation is not primarily about her personal views of what is good or bad education.

Let’s face it: for generations, wealthy party contributors have been named ambassadors, cabinet members, and even replacement Senators when one dies suddenly.

The sadness for someone who is a parent and educator is that someone with a comprehensive lifelong commitment to evaluating the classroom and its outcomes, and regulators supervising education at local, state, and national levels, is not leading the evolution or devolution of the U.S. Department of Education.

Cinema and pop culture, from your cell phone to the Super Bowl tells you “MONEY is Power.” Voting in Congress is proving this true.

Yet, as a high school student, I recall the one and only essay question I was given to eventually win one of the minor Board of Regents college scholarships in New York State. We all had to comment on the phrase: “KNOWLEDGE is Power.”

Mark Scheinbaum, MA has taught political science at three universities and is managing director of Shearson Financial, LLC in Boca Raton, FL. He is a regular contributor The opinions  expessed are his own.