Why Latinos should support Betsy DeVos nomination

According to a new poll conducted by a Democratic-leaning pollster, Hispanic parents feel that they should have greater choice when it comes to deciding their child’s education. It makes sense. After all, who better than a parent to know what education setting works best for their child?

Unfortunately, not all feel this way and are determined to fight tooth and nail to maintain a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach that is incredibly out of touch in an increasingly choice driven society. What makes this incredibly disheartening is that some of the groups purported to speak for the Hispanic community are among those fighting to prevent Latino families from having greater choice in education.

Many prominent Hispanic leaders are taking their cues from special interest groups that are more interested in ensuring job security for the adults working in our school system than making sure that children are reading at grade level. And for a community that is still struggling to catch up and close the racial educational achievement gap, this is inexcusable.

What’s needed is greater choice and customization in education. Just as we have the ability to choose from a vast array of Internet and phone providers to the way we can choose to shop at different supermarkets, parents should have greater choice when it comes to deciding where to send their child to school.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. For most working class parents that live in areas of need, their only choice may be the local public school. In some cases, the local public school may work great, but in other cases, that school may have high incidents of crime and violence. Or in other cases, it may not just be the right fit for the student.

Empowering parents with more options is common sense and Hispanic parents poll agree. But among those leading the charge against more choice includes Lily Eskelsen Garcia, a Hispanic educator that leads the National Education Association (NEA), one of the most powerful teacher unions in the country with over three million members.

The NEA has been one of the most vocal critics of educational freedom and spends millions of dollars every year to to punish politicians and policymakers that don’t support their policies. With the election over, the NEA has now set their sights on blocking the confirmation of president-elect Trump’s pick for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, a champion for educational freedom.

In a recent television interview, Garcia said that the DeVos nomination is a “horrible pick” because she is a supporter of charter schools. According to Garcia, charter schools are bad because they unaccountable. A premise that does not hold up to scrutiny considering that charter schools are by definition public schools that are held to higher standards of accountability for greater autonomy. In the interview, Garcia challenges the interviewer when he questions why increasing per-pupil spending in recent years has failed to raise academic performance in public schools. According to Garcia, what’s needed is even more money.

Here again, Garcia is incorrect. A large body of research consistently finds that despite spending billions of dollars at both the state and federal level on education, far too many of our children are not graduating in time and not keeping pace with students in other developed countries. Among the students that are most being left behind are Latino students.

Despite this, Garcia and other prominent Latino leaders are prepared to maintain to protect the status quo and determined from waging an all out war to prevent Betsy DeVos from being our country’s next Education Secretary.

Perhaps Garcia could listen to voices like Maria Salazar, an immigrant from Peru and mother to Nydia that recently submitted a letter to the Editor of her local newspaper. Salazar writes:

“Betsy DeVos’ work helped low-income Arizona children access tax-credit scholarships. Nydia was able to attend a college-prep high school, graduate this year with honors and go on to college. …I don’t claim to know Betsy DeVos personally but her work to provide opportunities is very personal to me, and I know my daughter’s success is very personal to her.”

These are the voices that more of our Latino leaders need to listen to. There are millions of Hispanic families that are directly benefiting from increased educational freedom, including having access to high quality public and private charter schools. Thanks to these opportunities, many Hispanic students are becoming the first in their families to attend college.

Why would anyone – especially those that claim to fight for our rights – get in the way of these opportunities? The fight for Betsy DeVos is a proxy battle for the future of education. On one side are those like Ms. Garcia that are fighting to protect what’s in the best interest of their members. And on the other side are people like Ms. DeVos that are fighting for parents like Maria Salazar that are looking for the best type of education for their children.

Israel Ortega is a Senior Writer for Opportunity Lives, an online news publication. You can follow him on Twitter: @IzzyOrtega