Trump Picks Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary

President-elect Donald Trump tapped Betsy DeVos, a MI school choice advocate, billionaire philanthropist and prominent Republican donor, to head the federal Department of Education. He ran unsuccessfully for governor of MI in 2006, spending more than $35 million of his own money in a losing bid to unseat Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate”, Trump said Wednesday in a statement.

DeVos is a prominent supporter of the school voucher system, in which the government distribute education funds directly to parents in the form of vouchers, allowing the parents to send their children to the school of their choice. “We have, and will continue, to fight for all students to have a great public school in their community and the opportunity to succeed no matter their backgrounds or circumstances”. As New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore recounted, “Dick DeVos was one of the early proponents of the rhetorical trick of undermining support for public schools by relabeling them “government schools”.

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, was quick to criticize Trump’s pick.

Hours earlier, Trump had announced that he would fill the USA ambassador to the United Nations slot with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising Republican star and daughter of Indian immigrants who has virtually no foreign policy experience.

Rabbi Jack Moline, president of the Interfaith Alliance, called the pick “deeply disappointing. Homophobia should have no place in our nation’s schools”.

DeVos, a four-time Michigan GOP chairman who has never held a job in the education field, has been a vocal advocate for expanding charter schools and school vouchers across the country, particularly through the American Federation for Children, which she serves as the chairman of and which is funded primarily by her family’s fortune. Her children attended private Christian schools.

“Her support for extremist policies like vouchers makes her a risky person to lead the Department of Education seeking to undermine public schools”, Dromm, a former New York City public school teacher, said.

The School District of Philadelphia, long and chronically underfunded, experienced the closing of 28 schools in 2013. Some 80 percent of the state’s charters are run by private companies.

Trump likely chose DeVos because of her support for public/private partnership charter schools. Some have already decried the choice of Devos, including Susan Berry writing for Breitbart News, which was formerly headed by Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon.

The announcement was made on the Presidential transition team website which described her as a “highly successful education advocate, businesswoman, and philanthropist”.

President-elect Trump rightly slammed Governor Jeb Bush for his support of Common Core on the campaign trail.

But some Trump backers are not convinced. “This is indeed a dark day for public education in America”.

SANCHEZ: Finally, there’s the Common Core standards.

“As an educator what worries me is that she’s not connected to public education at all it’s all private schooling and she wants to privatize public schools. Actions speak louder than words”, Vander Hart told NPR.

-As a member of the DeVos clan of west MI, she is one of the top Republican fundraisers in the state.

Organized labor will not like this appointment because she basically is seen by them as anti-public education.

She actively campaigned for Trump’s rivals during the Republican primaries.