Category: Education

Defunding American Public Education — by expanding religious schooling

On By KeithBevacquaIn Education

This past week during the State of the Union address, President Trump paid special attention to an elementary school student from Philadelphia named Janiyah Davis. Trump used the occasion to announce that Davis would be receiving an “opportunity scholarship” so she could learn at a quality school of her family’s choice. That announcement would prove to be (at best) a muddling of the truth. The Department of Education later explained that the “scholarship” in question would be personally paid for by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos; the tuition money supposedly coming from DeVos’ salary. Why was it worth it for the president to lie about a fake scholarship in front of the entire nation? Trump used this grandstand moment to promote a policy at the heart of both Janiyah Davis’ future and the future of American schooling: education tax-credit scholarships. To better understand this seemingly sweet moment during the State of the Union we have to look closely at an extremely important case currently being deliberated in the Supreme Court and its connection to religious school funding.

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What is the PSU and what does it have to do with Chile’s economic inequality?

On By KeithBevacquaIn Chile In Crisis, Education

The PSU (or University Selection Test in its English translated acronym) is a national level test taken by high school seniors in order to study at one of Chile’s top universities. Taken by nearly 300,000 students each year, the PSU is similar to the SAT or ACT in the United States, but the stakes are much higher. The test is used as the main admissions metric for the 30 plus members schools of the National Council of Rectors (CRUCh), which are often referred to as “traditional universities”. Most of the CRUCh universities are public, jesuit or private schools created before Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup and the subsequent reworking and large scale privitizing of Chile’s national education system.

The universities that utilize the multi-topic PSU are often thought of as the “best of the best” and offer a clearer path to higher economic status inside Chile’s stratified economy, compared to newer, less prestigious schools created post 1973. As in most developed countries, the more prestigious the university a person attends the more opportunities for work and social advancement that person is afforded. In the midst of Chile’s on-going social crisis high school students have challenged why the PSU exists and what function it serves in Chilean society.

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Learning in Chile — and the Impact on American Education Reform

On By KeithBevacquaIn Education

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors.” — Terry Pratchett

After spending seven years working at a for-profit education services company I have decided to shift gears and refocus my energy on what I have come to believe is one of the most pressing changes in American (and global) public life — the reform and privatization of public education. My goal is to provide educators, policy makers, students, their parents, and the general public with the information and motivation to make informed decisions on the forms of schooling they want in the US.

My main focus is on the interaction between private companies (especially education media companies) and public schooling systems. To begin this journey I have decided to travel outside the US and provide myself, and hopefully my readers, with some perspective on how things work in other parts of the world. I have come to Santiago, Chile to better understand how the Chilean voucher system works and doesn’t work for families, educators, and other stake holders. More specifically, how private education companies work within and exploit the Chilean national education system.

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