I was preparing lesson plans for junior English when the alert hit my phone – a report that the Department of Education is weighing a plan to allow schools to use taxpayer money to buy guns for teachers. It’s a bold proposal: lawmakers in Congress have worked to ensure education dollars are not used for guns, and the school safety bill passed in March specifically stipulated that the money could not to be used to buy weapons. This move to arm teachers with federal money — led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos —would circumvent that Congressional mandate, by pulling money from a different pool, one that’s supposed to be used to “improve students’ academic achievement.”