President Donald Trump’s most recent administrative budget was largely focused on the reallocation of public school funding towards private education. Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration’s’ Secretary of Education promotes the reallocation of funding for core curriculum like science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) towards private education. This decision to cut down on public school funding to boost private education factions will result in a dismantlement of democratic educational standards.
Public education is the driving force guiding individuals of the state to fulfill their personal potentials. The state is to set non-biased standards that allow for the equal education of individuals regardless of religion, race and economic standing. Specialization in the form of privatized education will, for the elite who exempt themselves from public education using DeVos’ proposition, result in deviation from a democratic way of thinking. Private education standards are set differently and specialized with certain goals and ways of thinking in mind. DeVos’ encouragement of parents who choose to put their children in religious schools violates the student’s opportunity to be submerged in various perspectives, cultures, and religions. The use of government funding for religious private schools is also a violation of the separation of church and state. Students are denied an inherently democratic education system in private schools. The state set education system, while separate from other parts of the country, is a broader reflection of the cultural and physical aspects of the given society that each individual who graduates from public schools must assimilate into. The state set education is also based on a standard set by the region, making it more democratic than a private education.
To privatize education for certain individuals in specialized sectors would result in elitist thinking practices that may instill individualistic mindsets in students which will hinder their contribution to society as a whole beyond this education. For example, if they graduate and decide to join the public workforce.
In contemporary society the financial strains that public schools face are great. Many public schools are already subject to state cutbacks and lack of funding. According to DeVos’ privatization proposal, $1.4 billion of money allocated for education will be spent towards funding in the form of “private school vouchers” for “school choice”/privatization, aside from the $9 billion budget cuts already being made.
Those who choose to participate in private education might do so with the intent to separate themselves from public education however, they are still impacting the public education system by taking a large portion of this funding. The decrease in funding towards public education will take a toll on those who participate in public education.Therefore, those who choose to take part in private education systems are not isolated and are in fact impacting a larger segment of their community by choosing private education.
The removal of much-needed funding towards public education to further establish private institutions is a clear example of elite individualization negatively impacting a community or larger society.
The Trump administration should shift their focus towards reforming the education to a democratic and collective environment rather than shifting towards individualistic privatized institutions. Thus allowing the majority of the population reach their individual freedom through social interaction.