US President-elect Trump nominates Michigan Republican DeVos as secretary of education

Effrem told Sunshine State News her group and other anti-Common Core groups weren’t pleased over the nomination, but explained it was partly expected.

The DeVos influence is one reason that Michigan’s charter sector is among the least regulated in the country. “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”. “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”, she stated. “In Massachusetts, the best place in the country for education, an overwhelming majority of kids are in public schools”. NPR’s Claudio Sanchez reports.

Within minutes of being named Donald Trump’s choice for education secretary, Betsy DeVos pledged to oversee a “transformational change” in US education, something the wealthy Republican donor has pursued in her home state of MI and beyond as an advocate for school choice.

DeVos said she was ready to help Trump “make American education great again”. For too long, the educational status quo has failed too many children.

SANDY KRESS: I thought that’s who the pick would be all along. “It’s about a transfer of power from the system to the parent and child”, DeVos said at the 2015 American Federation for Children Summit. She is not a Trump loyalist. And he wants to invest some 20 billion in federal money toward choice programs for low-income students. She backed Michigan’s first charter-school legislation, which passed in 1993, and she’s been working in the privatization mines ever since.

“I still have reservations about him as a person”, she said in July at the Republican National Convention, which she attended as a MI delegate. She also has a Florida tie, having served on the board of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: My gut reaction was, oh, my God.

But the selection of a billionaire conservative activist with no classroom experience, and a history of advocating for charter schools and private-school vouchers infuriated the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions.

“Have organizations that I have been a part of supported Common Core?”

On Wednesday, Trump said of his United Nations selection: “Gov. Haley has a proven track record of bringing people together regardless of background or party affiliation to move critical policies forward for the betterment of her state and our country”.

In the past, DeVos has been linked to Common Core learning standards that are derided by many conservatives and Trump supporters. The American Family Association earlier this week called it “alarming” that Mr. Trump might appoint a Common Core supporter to the position. Sandy Kress predicts that debate will die down soon enough. His first appointments included chief counselor Steve Bannon, who previously led a website popular among the alt-right.

SANCHEZ: And that will be DeVos’ marching orders from day one.