Park Forest, Schools

Meet Trump’s Education Nominee: Her Only Experience is Trying to Destroy Public Education


NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–November 29, 2016

By Laura Clawson

BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP, NJ - NOVEMBER 19: (L to R) president-elect Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos  pose for a photo after their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 19, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey. Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration.  (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Disqualified and unqualified are similar words that mean two different things, as Donald Trump’s cabinet picks are constantly reminding us. Jeff Sessions’ racism disqualifies him from being the nation’s top civil rights enforcer. Nikki Haley’s total lack of foreign policy experience renders her unqualified for the role of United Nations ambassador. (Which is not to say Senate Republicans won’t confirm both Sessions and Haley.) Unqualified means you don’t have the qualifications. Disqualified means something about you renders you unfit. But Trump’s pick to head the Department of Education is extra special, because Betsy DeVos is both unqualified and disqualified.

DeVos is unqualified in that she lacks qualifications like, you know, having any training or experience in education. Her qualification is that she is extremely wealthy—the daughter of an auto parts magnate and wife of a pyramid scheme heir (Amway, specifically)—and has spent a lot of money undermining public education.

And that’s where she’s disqualified. Here’s how the New York Times introduced her:

It is hard to find anyone more passionate about the idea of steering public dollars away from traditional public schools than Betsy DeVos, Donald J. Trump’s pick as the cabinet secretary overseeing the nation’s education system.

Should the person in charge of the nation’s public schools be the most passionate about taking money away from them? In fact, she and her husband have put big money into taking money from public schools.

 In 2011, Rachel Tabachnick detailed how they:

… spent millions of their own fortune promoting the failed voucher initiative in Michigan in 2000, dramatically outspending their opposition. Sixty-eight percent of Michigan voters rejected the voucher scheme. Following this defeat, the DeVoses altered their strategy.

Instead of taking the issue directly to voters, they would support bills for vouchers in state legislatures. In 2002 Dick DeVos gave a speech on school choice at the Heritage Foundation. After an introduction by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett, DeVos described a system of “rewards and consequences” to pressure state politicians to support vouchers. “That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible,” stated DeVos. He described how his wife Betsy was putting these ideas into practice in their home state of Michigan and claimed this effort has reduced the number of anti-school choice Republicans from six to two. The millions raised from the wealthy pro-privatization contributors would be used to finance campaigns of voucher supporters and purchase ads attacking opposing candidates.

DeVos is especially passionate about vouchers to send kids to private schools, including religious ones, but she’ll take charters, too. In fact, her husband started a charter school. It “educates far fewer special education and [Limited English Proficient] students compared to the other schools in the region,” is staffed with inexperienced teachers, and spends an unusual amount of money on salaries … without paying its teachers more than other schools.

This all may be the perfect qualification for a Trump education secretary, but if you care about the idea that all kids should be entitled to a high-quality, well-funded education, Betsy DeVos is terrifying.

Source: http://dailykos.com


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