Tweet
Trump picks billionaire Betsy DeVos, school voucher advocate, as education secretary
The Washington Post
by Emma Brown
11/23/2016
Excerpt:
Betsy DeVos is hardly a household name, but the Michigan billionaire and conservative activist has quietly helped change the education landscape in many states, spending millions of dollars in a successful push to expand voucher programs that give families taxpayer dollars to pay for private and religious schools.
Now DeVos is poised to spread her preference for vouchers nationwide. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named her as his nominee for education secretary, a pick that suggests he aims to follow through with campaign promises to expand the movement toward “school choice” — including vouchers and charter schools — in an effort to break up a public education system that he has called “a government-run monopoly.”
Trump’s pick has intensified what already was a polarized debate about school choice. Advocates for such choice see in the Trump administration an extraordinary opportunity to advance their cause on a national scale, whereas teachers unions and many Democrats fear an unprecedented and catastrophic attack on public schools, which they see as one of the nation’s bedrock civic institutions.
Jim DeMint, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, cheered DeVos on Wednesday, saying that “the school choice movement will have a champion in the Education Department.” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said that Trump’s pick “makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.”
Here are the people whose names have been floated for Trump’s Cabinet View Graphic
As a billionaire Republican power broker with no professional experience in schools, DeVos is an unconventional choice to lead the federal education bureaucracy. And while her views on choice are well known, it is unclear how she would lead a department with responsibilities that sprawl from administering student loans to enforcing civil rights in schools.
She has said little about Common Core, for example, and her ties to organizations that support the K-12 academic standards — including as a board member of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, started by former Florida governor Jeb Bush — raised concern for Trump supporters, who saw her nomination as a sign that the president-elect is wavering on his vehement opposition to the standards.
Content from JaguarThe pristine world of jewelry will never be the same again
How one artist is disrupting her field with chaos and serendipity.
From her Twitter account Wednesday, DeVos linked to a website where she wrote that she had initially believed in the standards but became disenchanted with them as they “got turned into a federalized boondoggle.”
.................................................. ......
View the complete article, including image, at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...dd3_story.html
The Washington Post
by Emma Brown
11/23/2016
Excerpt:
Betsy DeVos is hardly a household name, but the Michigan billionaire and conservative activist has quietly helped change the education landscape in many states, spending millions of dollars in a successful push to expand voucher programs that give families taxpayer dollars to pay for private and religious schools.
Now DeVos is poised to spread her preference for vouchers nationwide. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named her as his nominee for education secretary, a pick that suggests he aims to follow through with campaign promises to expand the movement toward “school choice” — including vouchers and charter schools — in an effort to break up a public education system that he has called “a government-run monopoly.”
Trump’s pick has intensified what already was a polarized debate about school choice. Advocates for such choice see in the Trump administration an extraordinary opportunity to advance their cause on a national scale, whereas teachers unions and many Democrats fear an unprecedented and catastrophic attack on public schools, which they see as one of the nation’s bedrock civic institutions.
Jim DeMint, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, cheered DeVos on Wednesday, saying that “the school choice movement will have a champion in the Education Department.” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said that Trump’s pick “makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.”
Here are the people whose names have been floated for Trump’s Cabinet View Graphic
As a billionaire Republican power broker with no professional experience in schools, DeVos is an unconventional choice to lead the federal education bureaucracy. And while her views on choice are well known, it is unclear how she would lead a department with responsibilities that sprawl from administering student loans to enforcing civil rights in schools.
She has said little about Common Core, for example, and her ties to organizations that support the K-12 academic standards — including as a board member of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, started by former Florida governor Jeb Bush — raised concern for Trump supporters, who saw her nomination as a sign that the president-elect is wavering on his vehement opposition to the standards.
Content from JaguarThe pristine world of jewelry will never be the same again
How one artist is disrupting her field with chaos and serendipity.
From her Twitter account Wednesday, DeVos linked to a website where she wrote that she had initially believed in the standards but became disenchanted with them as they “got turned into a federalized boondoggle.”
.................................................. ......
View the complete article, including image, at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...dd3_story.html