Trump Chooses Betsy Devos to Head Education

She is a businesswoman, philanthropist, and education activist and is married to Amway heir Dick DeVos. She and her husband also head up the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, which has supported projects like the West Michigan Aviation Academy, a public charter school in Grand Rapids and the Compass Film Academy, a Christian film school in Michigan. “She has lobbied for failed schemes, like vouchers — which take away funding and local control from our public schools — to fund private schools at taxpayers expense”. Here’s some of what they had to say. In 2000, they unsuccessfully ran an effort to amend the state constitution to allow vouchers, or public dollars going to private schools. Now you have someone who has long experience with private school choice, so hopefully the details of his plan would be coming pretty quickly.

He said: “I wouldn’t consider her to be right wing”. -Jonathan Butcher, education director at the Goldwater Institute. Lamar Alexander said the Senate’s education committee would move swiftly on the nomination in January.

Trump pledged that her appointment will “break the bureaucracy” that is holding children back and guarantee choice for all young people. “[T] hat’s what good philanthropy is about, and Betsy is a good philanthropist”. “Since he is elected and appointed her I presume she will be trying to promote some of those alternative perspectives with regard to how education should be delivered”.

And they’re a bit – feel a bit angry and betrayed because Betsy DuVos has made some statements in the past and sits on the board of an education group that has supported Common Core.

DeVos is the second woman Trump has tapped to fill a cabinet position. “Her and her organization have pushed for educations changes that I think will raise the bar for all students and I’m excited to see what she can do on the national level”. On Wednesday, DeVos tweeted she did not support the standards, but anti-Common Core groups aren’t buying it.

He has found one in Betsy DeVos.

In addition to her background as an education reformer, DeVos led the Michigan Republican Party for more than a decade and has been actively involved in conservative politics since volunteering for Gerald Ford’s election campaign in 1976. Add into the mix the new Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaces No Child Left Behind, and its restrictions on the federal government interfering with how states determine their education standards, and Trump and DeVos may have even less ability to affect Common Core than anyone thought.