This week, Donald Trump announced that he would be picking billionaire and private school advocate, Betsy DeVos as his Secretary of Education.
Betsy DeVos is an advocate of “school choice,” essentially meaning that she favors private education and charter schools over public education. Trump himself has proposed allocating $20 billion to school choice initiatives so it comes as no surprise that he chose DeVos for the position. She has also proposed providing government-issued vouchers to parents wishing to send their children to private school who cannot afford it. This would mean that tax dollars would, in many cases, be going to religious private schools- a proposition that many have criticized as a violation of the constitutional law separating church and state.
In response to DeVos’ appointment, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke out about DeVos’ political career in Michigan.
“The sum total of her involvement has been spending her family’s wealth in an effort to dismantle public education in Michigan. Every American should be concerned that she would impose her reckless and extreme ideology on the nation,” said Weingarten in a prepared statement.
Evidence of the faults in DeVos’ ideology can be found in the Detroit charter school system. DeVos is considered to be the main driver of Michigan’s school overhaul- her influence was especially heavy in Detroit. After getting her way in nearly every chartering policy she proposed, the charter school system in Detroit ended up being the worst-performing system in its assessment group based on scores from The National Assessment of Educational Progress. The New York Times says that in DeVos’ political efforts “she devised Detroit’s system to run like the Wild West” wherein little supervision was given to charter schools and they were allowed to enroll new students despite dismal student performance.
Another concern many have about DeVos are her involvements with questionable nonprofits and political activism organizations.
DeVos served on the Board of Directors for the Acton Institute, a conservative nonprofit, for ten years and also donated thousands of dollars to the organization. This is troubling considering the Institute recently published an article which called child labor “a gift our kids can handle.” While some argue that DeVos’ involvement with the organization has decreased, the Institute did have a post congratulating DeVos on her new position on their homepage.
The Douglas and Maria DeVos foundation is a charitable organization funded by Betsy DeVos’ brother-in-law that gave $500,000 in donations to the National Organization for Marriage which used the money to fight against the legalization of gay marriage in many states.
DeVos and her husband also led the way in amending the Michigan state constitution to ban same-sex marriage in 2004, donating over $200,000 to the campaign that was eventually approved by Michigan voters. While this amendment was nullified after the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage, it is certainly a frightening decision from DeVos.
Given DeVos’ previous actions towards the LGBTQ+ community, many fear that she will rescind the Obama administration’s directive to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice. If DeVos were to rescind this directive, which has been described as “a lifesaver” by the director of the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and HIV Project, it could have an effect on an upcoming Supreme Court case regarding transgender rights.
This case involves a transgender teen suing his school district for the right to use the bathroom corresponding with his gender identity and has the potential to set a legal precedent for trans rights. However, if DeVos were to rescind the directive, it is very likely that the Supreme Court would send the case back to a lower court, eliminating the possibility of legislating federal protections for trans students.
In a released statement, The National Education Association summed up Trump’s pick the best. “By nominating Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration has demonstrated just how out of touch it is with what works best for students, parents, educators, and communities.”
