I’m sure you all remember the fuss Senate Democrats made over the nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. Some of the most commonly voiced criticisms stemmed from DeVos’ lack of personal experience with public schools, either as a student or professional educator and her personal advocacy for charter schools and school vouchers.

You’d think that Democrats and other leftists would be champions of charter schools and school vouchers. Instead, one of the first things Barack Obama did as president was to end the voucher program for Washington, D.C., students, despite evidence that the program was improving performance. The Democrat-controlled Congress was silent.

It’s not that Senators don’t love private schools. In the 114th Congress, 26 of 100 Senators attended private high schools, compared to about 8% of the general population. Six of ten Democrats who questioned DeVos in committee prior to her confirmation vote were, themselves, the beneficiaries of public school educations, chose private schools for their own children, or have grandchildren attending private schools. In 2009, 45% of Senators elected to send at least one of their own children to private school.

Why is it, then, that Democrats and leftists are so opposed to charter schools and school vouchers? It could be that they’re just that beholden to the National Education Association.

Or it could be this:

Wealth has it’s privileges and those privileges are not for you and especially not for your children. If allowed a superior education*, the next generation of riffraff might presume to compete with the children of the upper crust to become the power brokers of tomorrow and that cannot be tolerated.

The Democrats and their leftist masters rely on a permanent underclass to maintain their power base. Anything that challenges that must be stopped by any means possible and than includes sacrificing future generations on the altar of public schools.

* Another advantage of the most elite private school education is the opportunity to build networks among the already-advantaged.

[This post first appeared here on the author's personal blog.]