When it comes to education cuts, for Trump it’s not the economy, stupid; it’s just mean stupidity

Remember President Donald Trump’s State of the Union addresses last February and in particular in January 2018 amid a wave of teachers’ strikes? Can you recall the talking points he elaborated on the need to support public education?

No?

Well, that’s because since taking office he’s uttered barely a word about our at-risk public education system or the sharply waning fiscal support for public higher education which has led to skyrocketing tuitions as well as exacerbated a student debt crisis that is deleterious to the economy overall.

The sounds of Trump’s silence on public education are audible to the point of being deafening. Indeed, when in 2018 teachers from West Virginia, Arizona, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Colorado effectively engaged in mass strikes the likes of which our nation has not witnessed since the 1930s, Trump said not a word to acknowledge or in any way address both the lagging teacher salaries in those states or the woefully low levels of funding for public education which was also a major impetus behind the teachers’ mass actions. This year has witnessed massive teachers’ strikes, already, in Denver, Los Angeles, and Oakland for similar reasons.

Trump’s recent proposed budget for 2020, however, loudly announces his administration’s objective to undermine public education, especially public higher education, calling for a deep and brutal cut of 7.1 billion…