By John Ubaldi, “Ubaldi Reports”

In preparation in fulfilling a campaign promise Joe Biden is prepared to nominate not only a teacher but the head of a teacher’s union to be the next Secretary of education.

While campaigning for president, Biden stated that if elected president he stated that “You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House. And if I’m not listening, I’m going to be sleeping alone in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

The two candidates most often mentioned are American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and former National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García.

It’s interesting Biden would possibly nominate two candidates who have spent their entire lifetime fighting against any meaningful school reform and dramatically opposed to unlocking the strangle hold the teacher’s unions have on the nation’s public-school system.

“Appointing either Weingarten or García would be the biggest union payback since Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education in 1979,” says Jeanne Allen, who is founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform and worked in the Reagan Education Department. “It’s a sign that the teachers unions now own him lock, stock and barrel.”

Are these the two best choices to lead the U.S. Department of Education? Do we really want these individuals elevated to run the nations school system?  Does the country really want someone to be the next Secretary of Education who is dramatically opposed to any school choice for parents of children trapped in failing schools?

It now shows how far Biden has come since he gave a Senate floor speech in 1997, where he spoke about the plight of children “presently caught in a failed public school” as he was contemplating about reconsidering his votes against “against private-school vouchers.

This seems to be in Biden’s past as he is now firmly aligned with the nation’s teacher’s union and against school reform, or school choice for families stuck in the nation’s failing public schools.  It’s ironic that Biden had the choice to send his two sons to a prestigious private Catholic high school, but then denies that choice to others.

The perplexing question is why would you nominate two individuals who are dramatically opposed to any school reform considering the dismal record of U.S. public education?

Last month the federal educational test results were released, and it wasn’t good.   During the period of 2015 through 2019 American high school seniors’ failed to improve in math, and reading.

This highlights a continuing disturbing trend facing students across America. The nation’s broader failure  in education as reading scores have not improved at all since the early 1990’s. An equaling troubling statistics is that the gap between the highest and lowest performing high school seniors is widening, and this portends the same for fourth and eighth graders.

The teacher’s union and their supporters always cite the argument that we need more funding to improve the nation’s public schools, but is this the real problem?

The argument is support for more educational funding fails to account for examples across the country showing a far different outcome. The city of Baltimore has one of the highest per pupil spending in the country, placing it third among the 100 biggest school systems during fiscal year 2017. Unfortunately, it also has one of the greatest educational achievement gaps in the country.

According to the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 18 percent of black fourth graders are deemed proficient in reading and 19 percent in math. It’s even more disturbing that in the same city of Baltimore, which consistently maintains one of the nation’s highest per-pupil spending levels, but yet six schools do not have one student who tested at a proficient level in either reading or math. Not one when each of the six schools listed has student populations over 3,000!

This dismal statistic is not only confined to just Baltimore but is replicated across the country. California, one of the most progressive and pro-union states in the country, often heralds its various policies that help low income and people of color has 70% of black and Hispanic children deficient in English and math. It’s worse now because of the effects of the lockdown from the coronavirus.

The State of California spends billions on education, which equates to around 45% of the state’s budget going toward education but fails in its oversight on how that revenue is spent.  Every year the powerful California Teachers Union and its Democratic surrogates successfully fight back against any meaningful school accountability or school choice for children trapped in failing schools.

Ironically, the Democratic governor of California Gavin Newsom is dramatically opposed to school choice but sends his children to in-person learning at a private school. This comes at a time when many of the over six million children who attend public school in California are forced to study at home because of the closures due to Coivid-19 restrictions.  I guess one standard for the elites and one for the peasants!

Examine the state of New York which spends 50% more per pupil then California, but according to the latest batch of National Assessment of Educational Progress were almost identical to California- both are subpar.  Many states spend far less than California and New York but have better scores.  Both the States of California and New York spend enormous sums on education and have strong public teachers unions but still have 70% of black and Hispanic children deficient at grade level in both math and English.

This dismal statistic is replicated across America.

The state of Minnesota has been in the national news for months since the death of George Floyd.  Duplicating what has been reported in other states, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis issued a report in October of 2019, showing that of all the African-American and Hispanic students in the state only around 30% were proficient at grade level in Math and English.

This means that 7 out of 10 blacks and Hispanic Students in the state of Minnesota could not read or do math to grade level, far below white and Asian students.

Why do these same individuals that condemn racial discrimination reject vouchers and charter schools that would help underserved children to attend a better-quality school.

During the 2020 Democratic presidential primary Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren while campaigning proposed ending all federal funding for public charter schools, banning for profit charter schools, increasing regulations for all charter schools, and making it more difficult to start new charter schools.  Warren also advocated ending private school choice programs.

Warren like Biden has always been strong advocates for public schools, and then it was revealed her children had attended a private school.  Even former President Barack Obama a strong advocate for public education, except for his children. His children went to a prestigious private school in Chicago before he entered the White House, and then had his children attend the Sidwell’s Friends School which is reserved for the wealthy elite.

One of the first official acts as president, Obama ended the D.C. voucher program that allowed underserved children to attend a private school of their choice through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.  President Trump re-instated this program that would allow underserved children of color an opportunity to attend a better-quality school.

Even liberal political analyst at Fox News Juan Williams, called the decision to end the program, “Obama’s outrageous sin against our kids.”

Williams also mentioned that, “The National Education Association and other teachers’ unions have put millions into Democrats’ congressional campaigns because they oppose Republican efforts to challenge unions on their resistance to school reform and specifically their refusal to support ideas such as performance-based pay for teachers who raise students’ test scores.”

It strange those advocating strong support for public education always seem to send their children to private school.  Why do the elites have choice but not everyone else?

Are the two choices Biden potentially is going to make as the next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education the best choice considering the dismal track record of the teacher’s union against any meaningful school reform?

Don’t our kids deserve better?