By Frances Bryce, February 13, 2020 — The President gave his speech on the State of the United States recently. He quoted figures on how much progress the country had benefitted since his administration was the officeholders: more sales, the stock market [is] higher, and the poverty rate had decreased. He also had people in the chamber to honor, for example, the 101 Tuskegee Airmen, [one of the members who is] 93, and his grandson, who aspires to be a pilot. Rush Limbaugh was given a medal for his civic contributions that was pinned by the president’s wife.
There was a young girl who was given a scholarship to attend a school of her choice. Note, this child was not in a failing school, it was later learned that the Vice President appeared with the parent and child at a school that was a Catholic school, where most of the children had scholarships. This was the V.P. site to promote school choice, which means that funding was the goal to pay for private school choice, which depletes funds from public schools. The Secretary of Education has been credited to pay for the child’s scholarship that the President announced in the State of the Union Address.
My point would remind us that the Secretary of Education would better serve more children if [there was] a plan to upgrade each school, so no child would be in an underserved school, instead of the parents seeking a school that ensures that each child would receive the level of education as any other school that was performing according to state standards. No matter what income level of the child and his parents — resources and teachers would be available to see that their standards would be the rule, not the exception.
