UPDATING: Trump Names Anti-Public School Activist Betsy DeVos to Become Secretary of Education

Trump Signals Commitment to Further Strangling Public Education

Betsy DeVos, an anti-public school activist who has spent years advocating for school voucher programs that deplete tax dollars that should go to public schools, to be his Secretary of Education. DeVos, a conservative Republican active in Michigan politics, chairs the Windquest Group, and the American Federation for Children. She also is chair of the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, a faith-based non-profit.

“The status quo in education is not acceptable,” DeVos said in a statement announcing her nomination. “Together, we can work to make transformational change that ensures every student in America has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential.”

She has donated millions to conservative politicians and causes. 

DeVos has “zealously worked” to expand school voucher programs “on a state-by-state basis for decades,” education website Chalkbeat reported Tuesday.

“When Michigan lawmakers this year were considering a measure that would have added oversight for charter schools in Detroit, members of the DeVos family poured $1.45 million into legislators’ campaign coffers — an average of $25,000 a day for seven weeks. Oversight was not included in the final legislation.”

The DeVos influence is one reason that Michigan’s charter sector is among the least regulated in the country. Roughly 80 percent of charters in Michigan are run by private companies, far more than in any other state. And state authorities have done little up to now to ensure that charter schools are effectively serving students, eliciting concern from current federal authorities.

“There are a lot of schools that are doing poorly and charter authorizers do not seem to be taking the necessary actions to either improve performance or close those underperforming charters,” current U.S. Secretary of Education John King told Chalkbeat about Michigan last month.

The DeVos family fortune – the family is among the wealthiest in America – comes from Amway. Her husband, Dick DeVos, is an heir to the DeVos billions, which various members of the family have used to oppose the civil rights of LGBT people.

Raw Story reports “Betsy and Dick DeVos also led the effort to place an anti-marriage amendment on the Michigan ballot and gave more than $200,000 to the successful effort to change the state constitution.”

Here’s a map of the DeVos family and their relationship to groups like the anti-gay Focus On The Family and the ultra-conservative FreedomWorks and American Enterprise Institute.

UPDATE I: 3:28 PM ST –
Joe.My.God. notes that Betsy DeVos’ “family is one of NOM’s most massive contributors.” He points to this 2012 ABC News article that reports Betsy’s husband Dick’s parents’ foundation “donated $500,000 to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), an anti-gay marriage group that was one of the leading advocates against same-sex marriage initiatives in eight states.”