Wrestling and Rasslin' are different sports.

Wrestling – the kind we learned in phys ed -- has roots in Ancient Greece. It links

us to Plato, Archimedes, Euclid, and Socrates.

Rasslin' is the spectacle on TV. It shows fake fighting and encourages cheating.

Rasslin' brings us Hulk Hogan, Mighty Igor, and Undertaker.

It is sad that the US Secretary of Education is a billionaire Rasslin’ promoter who was assigned by Trump to dismantle the federal Department of Education.

Congressman Ben Cline recently tagged along with Secretary McMahon visiting

Winchester schools, showing his support for MAGA education policies. The theme

of the visit was “Returning Education to the States.”

Special education moved to Health and Human Services. The transfer is especially troubling for students with autism. DHHS Secretary Kennedy believes, contrary to science, that childhood vaccines cause autism. His deliberate ignorance guarantees that students will not receive adequate services. DHHS just released a 336 page plan promoting unreliable, unscientific treatments for autism.

Increased responsibility for protection of students’ civil rights transferred to the Department of Justice. Critics expect DOJ to demand adherence to the Trump

administration’s policies on transgender students and DEI.

Heather Cox Richardson describes on Substack how Republican educational “reform” efforts transferred millions of public dollars to the private sector.

In the 1950s, when states controlled education, some racist Virginia localities closed public schools, defying court orders to admit Black students equally with whites. Is this what “returning education to the states” means?

Your children and grandchildren will be poorly served by the Trump administration’s changes in education policy. Ben Cline follows the orders of his MAGA masters, and will not help students.

Beth Macy, now running for Congress, grew up in a poor family, and used her education to build a successful career in investigative journalism and teaching. She understands the problems of working families and the economic benefits of education. "LBJ said it best when he introduced the Higher Education Act of 1965, declaring that the answer to all the problems of the world comes down to a single word—education."

Beth Macy taught writing for more than a decade to Community College students at Virginia Western and tutored Liberian refugees on reading and lifestyle skills.

Photo by Josh Meltzer

Reese Bull