For some unknown reason, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was invited to deliver the commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University. In a predictable reaction, the graduating seniors stood, turned their backs, and booed her. This was after delivering a petition signed by over 50,000 people that requested her invitation be withdrawn.
DeVos was invited to speak at this HBCU despite her having dismissed the 100 years of American racial apartheid between 1865 and 1965 by saying black colleges and universities are examples of [voluntary] school choice.
What would Mary McLeod Bethune, the legendary founder of Bethune-Cookman, say? Perhaps the following, one of her many quotes:
“If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything … that smacks of discrimination or slander.”
Let’s be clear. DeVos’ primary educational policy, the privatization of public schools through voucher programs and charter schools, discriminates. A recent study, “Dollars to Discriminate: The (un)intended Consequences of School Vouchers,” confirms that voucher programs discriminate on the basis of religion, disability status, sexual orientation, and possibly other factors. They can exclude people they do not wish to educate.
The authors, Julie Mead and Jessica Ulm, of the University of Wisconsin, remind us that the first voucher schools were publicly funded “choice academies” established to get around the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision.
Basically, the voucher and charter school movement takes money out of a state’s education budget and provides funds to private schools that are unregulated. That would be objectionable even if these schools provide better education than the regular public schools; however, they do not. A new report from the Center on Education on Policy finds no research support for the idea that students benefit from taxpayer-funded vouchers allowing them to attend private schools.
The report, “Keeping Informed about School Vouchers: A Review of Major Developments and Research,” examines 27 studies of voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, Washington, D.C. and Florida. Authors Alexandra Usher and Nancy Kober write that the studies “have generally found no clear advantage in academic achievement for students attending private schools with vouchers.”
Hence, these publicly supported private schools suck funds out of the states’ budgets for personal gains. Please note that many charter schools are for-profit businesses.
Betsy DeVos has used her vast wealth to carry out the outrageous idea of the noted economist Milton Friedman (proposed in 1955). His idea was to end public schools and give every family vouchers to purchase their children’s education on the “education market.” It is interesting that this idea was first proposed by Friedman the next year after the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court ruling and at the beginning of publicly supported, segregated, white academies across the South.
According to the Detroit Free Press newspaper, DeVos’ advocacy and funding support of various elected officials in Michigan, have been instrumental in the State spending one billion dollars a year on charter schools. She has also supported political campaigns against the regulation of charter schools.
So why did the Bethune-Cookman administration invite DeVos? Some observers suggest it might be because the President of Bethune-Cookman has been offered, or is seeking, a position in the U.S. Department of Education. That might be the case; however, there is one more obvious reason. The Trump administration was seeking a means of legitimizing DeVos to African Americans and to the wider society. They offered DeVos and the Bethune-Cookman administration bit.
Whatever our heroes have done to effect racial progress, one thing is clear; they have always had to do so despite the stumbling blocks placed in their paths by black appeasers excessively willing to “go along to get along.”