Samuel Freeman: The votes of teachers can make all the difference

Certainly state Sen. Roland Gutierrez is correct when he says Republicans (at both the State and national level) do not have the backs of teachers. Republicans have been waging a war against education since Reagan was elected Governor of California. They want to privatize education to make it more expensive and to put billions of dollars in the pockets of for profit education companies who own and operate “charter” schools. Research consistently proves “charter” schools perform no better than public schools despite being much more expensive. The Republican objective is to price poor and working class children out of education so only children of the middle class and rich are able to receive an education. Trump has made it clear, if he is the Republican nominee and is elected President in 2024, he will be very aggressive in gutting the Department of Education and trying to destroy public education in the U.S. This poses a grave threat to our children who already are suffering severely from the Republican war on education.

Since the war on education began with massive cuts in state funding for education, implementation of state imposed mandated curriculum, and ceaseless standardized testing putting millions of $ in the pockets of testing companies, teachers have been forced to “teach the test”, which is “monkey see, monkey do education”. Our children are graduating from high school with out strong writing abilities, nor strong abilities in analytic and critical thinking which would enable them to think for themselves rather than being lead around by the nose by Republicans who care not one bit about them.