Madison.com Editorial: Wisconsin Knows Betsy DeVos Is a Horrible Pick for Education Secretary
Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos has sought for years to undermine public education as an advocate for irresponsible and discredited schemes to steer money away from the programs and the public school students that need them most.
She’s a special-interest power player who has used her money to warp the politics of Wisconsin and states across the country in order to advance an education agenda that is as unworkable as it is irresponsible.
Now, President-elect Donald Trump wants to make DeVos his secretary of education.
Trump could not have chosen a worse nominee than DeVos, who American Federation of Teachers President Randy Weingarten identifies as “the most ideological, anti-public education nominee put forward since President Carter created a Cabinet-level Department of Education.”
Weingarten, who has worked closely with teachers and parents in Wisconsin and states across the country, objects to DeVos because of the billionaire’s advocacy for an agenda that the AFT president says would put the focus of the Trump administration on “privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.”
But Weingarten also notes another problem with the DeVos nomination: “DeVos has no meaningful experience in the classroom or in our schools. The sum total of her involvement has been spending her family’s wealth in an effort to dismantle public education in Michigan.”
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