Peter Greene describes the leading foe of public education and teachers in Pennsylvania. He is John Eichelberger. He is chair of the Senate Education Committee. Everything he proposes is toxic to public schools.

“In 2011, when Betsy and Richard DeVos were looking to finance a push for vouchers in Pennsylvania, Eichelberger was just the man to take point. Taking point included pushing the narrative that Pennsylvania’s schools were a terrible, failing mess. (It’s also worth noting that the DeVos push for vouchers included allies who were explicitly in favor of shutting down “government schools” entirely.)”

Recently, Eichelberger proposed an end to sick days for teachers. He thinks that they should get sick during their summer break. If they get sick during the school year, tough.

“Eichelberger also revealed that he would like to look at getting rid of some state universities, with Clarion and Cheney likely targets for “the chopping block.” Why does he think they are unnecessary? Because now we have lots of community colleges, and those should be good enough. Besides, enrollments down. When asked if he saw any correlation between lowered enrollment, slashed state support for the university system, and increased tuition to make up the difference, he said no, that didn’t look like a meaningful connection to him.

“Oh, but it gets even better,

“Eichelberger also took the occasion to complain about “inner city” education programs that were trying to get minority students into colleges where they just failed anyway, so let’s just put them in a nice vocational program instead and be done with it. Yes, that’s right. In 2017 an elected state senator is suggesting that there’s no point in trying to get black and brown kids to succeed in college, because you know how Those People are.”

Eichelberger must have majored in Neanderthal Studies.

He should be voted out of office. At the next election.