From the Broward Palm Beach New Ties, by Erica K. Landau
Jeb Bush took to Twitter Monday night to accuse Matt Damon of limousine-liberal hypocrisy after the actor told the Guardian he would not be sending his children to public school.
Jeb Bush took to Twitter Monday night to accuse Matt Damon of limousine-liberal hypocrisy after the actor told the Guardian he would not be sending his children to public school.
The former Florida governor and possible presidential hopeful linked to a Breitbart.com article which highlighted the actor's well-known and impassioned speech at the "Save Our Schools" rally two years ago in Washington, D.C. In it, Damon, a vociferous opponent of tying teachers' pay and employment to standardized test scores, said he would not trade his public-school education "for anything" and lamented that the previous decade had been "horrible" for teachers.
"The next time you're feeling down or exhausted or unappreciated or at the end of your rope," he told the educators in the D.C. crowd. "The next time you turn on the TV and see yourself being called 'overpaid.' The next time you encounter some simple-minded punitive policy that has been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything, please, please, please know that there are millions of us behind you."
Damon said ultimately he made the choice to send his four daughters to private schools because he wanted them to have an education that mirrored his own. "That kind of progressive education no longer exists in the public system," he said.
But Bush left anyone who was conscious in 2002 scratching their heads. That was the year he opposed an amendment to Florida's state constitution limiting class size in public schools. A small student-to-teacher ratio wasn't necessary to educate kids, he insisted,despite tons of evidence to the contrary. The rub? He did so while sending his own children to the prestigious 8-to-1-student-to-teacher ratioed Gulliver Prep in Miami.
Maybe, instead of criticizing Damon, he should take look at his own record and his own charter school, which was closed in 2008 after falling more than $1 million in debt. And instead of penalizing teachers, how about a grading scale for the fatally flawed corporate education reform movement?
Rumors are swirling about Bush running for president in 2016. If that happens, Bush's incredible disdain for public schools will surely be an issue.
