An open letter from teacher to Betsy DeVos goes viral: You are 'the elephant in the room'

Patrick Kearney is an educator in Iowa. His focus and his family’s focus for decades now is the cultivation of public education for children.

He spent 25 years as a band director in private and public schools of Iowa, and is a past-president of the Iowa Bandmasters Association and past co-chair of the Iowa Jazz Championships. He was also a founding board member of the Jazz Educators of Iowa.  His wife teaches in the Des Moines Public Schools and his son is studying education at Drake University.

With Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos for the Secretary of Education position, Mr. Kearney and millions of other educators have had to take deep and calming breaths. DeVos is a privatizing, charter school-pushing billionaire. She isn’t interested in public schools as much as she’s interested in creating a private system that bilks money out of taxpayer pockets and gets to go to other billionaires. DeVos’s education resume includes her work in Michigan to send public education backwards both economically and socially—and with declining reading scores. Mr. Kearney’s letter addresses all of this and more.

Here is Mr. Kearney’s full letter below the fold, reprinted with his permission.