Plattsburgh school board opposes Trump’s pick for education secretary

“We expect a return in our investment”.

She is clearly unqualified to be Secretary of Education.

Critics say the choice of DeVos belies President-elect Donald Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp” and bring new faces to politics and policy in Washington.

DeVos and her family have donated tens of millions of dollars to legislation and politicians who seek to weaken the power and influence of unions, yet almost 1.6 million public school teachers belong to the American Federation of Teachers union.

Awkwardly, though, much of DeVos’s campaign money has gone to the very senators now screening her nomination. “As secretary, she will be able to implement the new law fixing No Child Left Behind just as Congress wrote it, reversing the trend to a national school board and restoring to states, governors, school boards, teachers, and parents greater responsibility for improving education in their local communities”. Trump has called her a reformer who will take on special interests that stifle debate. “Over the course of our friendship, I have admired the passion with which she advocates for students, particularly as it relates to school choice”, he wrote. The department’s “About Us” description points to the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite as a driving force behind increased aid for USA science programs.

And again, DeVos effectively profited from the water crisis she helped create. The address in the PAC’s itemized receipts for Walton is the same for Walton Enterprises in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Yet the DeVos family influence has certainly been evident in Nevada, a battleground state for school choice.

DeVos, whose husband is the heir to the Amway marketing fortune, has for decades used the family’s influence and wealth in home-state MI to advocate for charter schools and promote conservative religious values.

“She has a long record with the voucher movement, with funding right-wing organizations”, Baldwin said.

MI has one of the least-regulated charter programs in the country and critics point to Detroit’s troubles as one outcome of that. Furthermore, private schools often are not subject to the same transparency requirements that are applied to our public schools, which further exacerbates the imbalance between public and private schools. As with any presidential nominee, he said, “some things you will agree with and some things you will not”.

Over a week ago, for example, Senator Elizabeth Warren released a 16-page open letter which included a series of questions she has for DeVos that she will likely not have the time to ask during the hearing. I am thrilled by her nomination and I urge the U.S. Senate to confirm her quickly so she can get about the important business of raising the bar on education in America and preparing our kids for success in college, their careers and in life.

We strongly urge you to vote against the confirmation of Ms. DeVos as US Secretary of Education.

“President-elect Trump and I know it won’t be Washington, D.C. that unlocks our nation’s potential, nor a bigger bureaucracy, tougher mandates or a federal agency”, DeVos said.

On Friday Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves also expressed his support for DeVos.

Republican Lamar Alexander (TN), the chairman of the committee, met with DeVos last week and said he she will make an “excellent” Secretary of Education.

Touching briefly upon higher education and college affordability, DeVos will emphasize that while college debt can not magically disappear, transferring that debt to “struggling taxpayers without first addressing why tuition has gotten so high” would be a “mistake”.