The Attack on Public Education

From Betsy DeVos to Donald Trump, the institution of public education is under attack by right-wing leaders across the United States.

Right-wing conservatives are taking up the cause to privatize education under the guise of parent choice. Frustrations over COVID policies helped to fuel this push, but as lockdowns and mask mandates were lifted, the attack shifted to the LGBTQ community, with a targeted focus on school board races, bans on books, and curriculum discussing race and LGBTQ identity (Media Matters, 2022). 

Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist,  is often cited as a main driving force behind the overall charge against public education.  According to Time, Rufo recently gave a lecture in which he pushed for a universal voucher system to replace public education, saying “To get universal school choice you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.”

Read more here about the playbook used to attack public education.