On Thursday, March 20, President Trump, accompanied by a group of schoolchildren seated at prop desks, signed an executive order effectively crippling the Department of Education. The Trump administration has always intended to reduce learning opportunities for the working class by privatizing education and making it available only to those who can pay for it. We must call this order what it is: a fascist attack on the poorest, most disabled and marginalized groups of the working class to keep them impoverished, immiserated, and vulnerable to exploitation.

Children are meant to learn, not earn. Free quality public education should be made available to every child no matter their race or socioeconomic status. Attacks on public schools serve to widen class divisions, limit access to quality education to a privileged few, and reduce public education to nothing more than job training for working class children.