U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called for redefining all forms of education as “public” education, an idea with potentially catastrophic implications for educational liberty and true school choice.
The rhetoric was especially troubling in light of DeVos’ efforts to provide federal funding for government-controlled “choice” under the guise of “school choice.” Her brazen dishonesty relating to Common Core, as well as her inking a globalist deal on education with fellow G20 education bosses, should also alarm anyone concerned with freedom and real education.
The speech in question, given at the Reagan Ranch while speaking at the neoconservative-leaning Young America’s Foundation on May 17, sparked alarm among educators and education researchers. And it is easy to see why.
“Let’s stop and rethink the definition of public education,” she said. “Today it is often defined as one type of school funded by taxpayers, controlled by government. But, if every student is part of the public, then every way and every place a student learns is ultimately of benefit to the public,” DeVos continued. “That should be the new definition of public education.”
Of course, if every form of education is “public” education because it benefits “the public,” it follows that “the public” is entitled to some say over that allegedly “public” education. And that is exactly where DeVos and others pushing this agenda are going.
And DeVos has been a leading advocate of phony “school choice,” which would see federal tax dollars going to fund private schools and potentially even homeschoolers. The dangers of this unconstitutional idea are hard to overstate.
Consider: With federal funding comes federal control. And just as state funding such as “vouchers” has resulted in formerly independent schools having to ban the Bible and teach Common Core, so too will this DeVos-backed “choice” result in government hijacking all education. The Supreme Court has agreed that what the feds fund, they can regulate.
The dictator-controlled United Nations “Human Rights Council” passed a resolution in 2015 demanding that governments worldwide crackdown and regulate non-government education, even calling for the same “standards” to be imposed on both. That is the real agenda.
Last year, The Newman Report exposed DeVos’ agreement with mass-murdering regimes and other G20 governments to facilitate the ongoing “internationalization” of education. The same deal also purported to commit the signatories to advancing the totalitarian ideology of “sustainable development” through “education.”
The staggering implications of DeVos’ statements and schemes must be understood clearly as a direct assault on educational freedom. It is past time to shut down the unconstitutional U.S. Department of Education and get the feds out of schools completely. Advocates of true school choice must turn up the heat or risk losing educational freedom in the years ahead.
