DeVos said something interesting: "Look, American investment in education is a promise to students and their families. If schools aren't going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn't get the funds, and give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise,” she said.
But it also underlines what the plutocratic part of the Republican party has always thought education was for: to produce an ongoing supply of trained and socialized new bodies to staff whatever economy provides their wealth. In industrial times, they wanted factory workers educated and disciplined enough to run the machines. Today they are less sure what they want, though they'll reward some young people for becoming comfortable having their lives and minds regulated by computers. And for working for the privilege of such desiccated learning.
The pandemic has highlighted another function DeVos and the GOPers want from schools: schools free up parents to provide what we've learned to call "essential services" (this used to be just "low-wage work") to themselves and a more favored slice of the workforce. If this expensive childcare apparatus can't do that job, Trump and Republicans become unwilling to pay for it. Why not just dump the middlemen -- the vast public education bureaucracy?
I read Heather everyday. She is awesome!
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