betsy devos really didn't have a chance to get my support. not because she was nominated by trump. i actually like a couple of his picks (obviously not the ones for energy or epa tho), but devos is herself an all-encompassing representation of why billionaires shouldn't be in charge. because they hire other billionaires who have often donated massive amounts of money to whichever political party, that person often knows little to nothing about what they're going to be in charge of and are usually placed there because the department is expected to get drastically cut or rapid changes are expected, and if those changes don't go well, that person is elected to fall on the sword. that's devos without a shred of doubt.

i would love to see a lifelong teacher or someone with an education degree as education secretary, but instead we, not surprisingly, got someone with experience in republican think tanks focused on educational reform, such as the implementation of school vouchers and charter schools if i was able to have a vote, betsy would never have mine. but i can't say that i'm sold on the thought that charter schools or voucher programs are all bad or that they're hot beds for corruption. what worries me most are the teachers i've read expressing so much concern. so if there are any on my facebook that could share more granular insight into the effect of this appointment on schools in America, please speak up. i'd like to know your thoughts. here are my thoughts. for those reading this who may not know, a charter school is a publicly funded school that must establish and maintain terms of a "charter" with local, and most likely state, officials. it could be things like standardize testing to judge the students and teachers abilities relative to other schools or there could be terms set based on what type of charter school it is. an argument against charter schools from the democratic side have been that students in charter schools are doing worse than kids in public schools. fair argument, as all the data i've seen does say that from a bird's eye view, students at charter schools do worse on standardized testing. however, to really know precisely why, we'd need to be much more granular in our understanding of how those students are measured. say, if a charter school is specifically for kids with dyslexia, but the state the school is in uses the same standardized test used to grade kids in a public school, it is not appropriate to expect the same results, charter schools have received F grades for this and have been in jeopardy of losing its charter because the tests were not fair. i've known public schools to focus pretty heavily on standardized state tests. but if a student needs extra attention because of his or her dyslexia, and the charter school is able to offer it, the state should recognize that the tests should be tailored more to the learning expectations of a child with dyslexia. this is extremely difficult for a state and especially hard for a local district to do. and a parent may think their child is making excellent progress in a charter school as opposed to falling behind in a public school, but to a state that has standardized testing, that looks at numbers rather than actual progress, this is grounds for loss of charter. aside from loss of charter if the state doesn't properly test, a charter school offering more individual attention to students that need that personal attention could be a great thing. but what about the ones that aren't focused on learning disabilities. the push for charter schools obviously means a push away from public schools, and that affects all students. charter schools hope to offer parents and students more "choices". if i'm being wholly honest, i want my future children to be in a school that teaches precalculus and computer science by 6th grade and if a charter school offers that, i'm all in. but at what point do i need to stop looking at this from the consumer mindset, the "i want the best for me and mine" mindset, and start recognizing that for a society to push forward in markets like engineering and technology, we need well-established massively-circulated curriculums that ARE standardized based on emerging job markets. and if charter schools become the primary school for American children, will we see a loss of standardization and will we see a decline in Americans impacting emerging markets if the many charter schools can't keep up? what if a school loses its charter? kids are scattered, teachers are left looking for positions. can charter schools have the same stability as public schools and still offer the education parents want for their kids? this, i'm sure, is a huge worry, not just for parents, but for teachers. i've seen teachers salaries. teachers are the most underpaid of any profession in my opinion. they have to baby-sit some really cruel kids, they're responsible for standardized test scores as well as meeting parents expectations, and more and more they are responsible for all sorts of accommodations for students with behavioral issues, focus issues, learning disabilities and that could be multiple kids out of six 30 kid classrooms they teach in a day. not being paid enough already, then knowing they're forced into a working environment that is much less stable, i can't say that's a good thing. there are talks of charter schools being "cash cows." more than 10 percent of charter schools are for-profit, if charter schools become "good business," there will be more, which means we now have to ensure our financial oversight committees for charter schools aren't corrupt. at what point will we start seeing corporations/conglomerates running multiple charter schools and funneling money into those oversight committees while lining the pocket books of politicians to stay mum? history would advise the answer is "not long." and the biggest question for me is the one of resegregation. this one, i could write for hours about, so i'm not going to say anything other than to urge people to think critically about this possibility. a student's "choice" of charter school could well become the charter school's "choice" of student when students and parents are left with limited options for schooling. that could drastically affect future generations of Americans. like i said before, i'd love to hear from teachers if there are any that know a bit about the subject one way or another. i really don't know too much about charter schools other than what i've read from think tanks pressing for charter schools and other think tanks telling me why they're the wrong way to go. but even though i didn't support devos, many other Americans must've, and i hope we made the right choice for our country's sake.