C-Falls teachers wear red in support of public schools

Several teachers at the Columbia Falls Junior High wore “Red for Ed” last week. The Red for Ed movement supports public education and public schools, and is also against President Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.

DeVos is a billionaire who supports the expansion of public charter schools and private school vouchers and has lobbied successfully for them in her home state of Michigan.

The junior high teachers who particiapted in the day have the support of School District 6 Superintendent Steve Bradshaw.

“I’m real worried about DeVos,” Bradshaw said Monday.

Bradshaw noted he was out sick for several days last week and he didn’t know how many teachers wore red, but he said they had the right to do so as long as it didn’t impede with student education, and there was no indication that it had.

“They (the teachers) have freedom of speech just as anyone else,” he said.

Bradshaw said he’d watched DeVos’s confirmation hearing and as teacher and administrator for decades, he said the problem isn’t public education — it’s poverty.

Even in School District 6, there’s plenty of poverty, he said.

“We’ve got students living in cars,” he said. “Unless we can figure out how to solve the poverty problem, we’re not going to solve the education problem.”

The Red for Ed campaign on Facebook has more than 27,000 likes.

“There’s real concern in this country on privation of public schools,” Bradshaw said.

Columbia Falls has been making gains in its graduation rate. The high school is just under 89 percent.

Bradshaw claims that standardized tests which were first brought under the No Child Left Behind Act look at proficiency instead of growth. Proficiency, he said, compares one child to the children of previous years, while growth gauges a child’s progress over time.

He favored the growth over proficiency, because growth encourages creativity and creative thinkers are what the nation needs.

“Education is what keeps a nation going,” he said. “Educated people won’t stand for anything less than freedom or democracy.”

Having said that, Bradshaw still notes that schools can improve and schools have to do a better job than just teaching to tests. We need schools that encourage kids to think on their own, he noted.

“That’s the kind of school district that will knock their socks off,” he said.

But Montana’s senators are split on the issue.

Republican Steve Daines supports school choice and has introduced the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act, which would allow private schools to receive federal funding.

Jon Tester, a Democrat and former school teacher, openly opposes DeVos.

“After meeting with Mrs. DeVos, seeing her confirmation hearing and hearing from hundreds of Montanans, I cannot in good conscience vote to confirm her as Education Secretary,” Tester said in a release. “As a former school board member, teacher, and as a graduate of public schools, I know how fundamental public education is to our democracy. Strengthening our public education system for all students should be the goal of any Education Secretary and it is clear to me that Mrs. DeVos prioritizes private schools over public ones. That would put our students, Montana’s rural communities, and our very democracy at risk.”