Where is Betsy DeVos? The Education Secretary is under fire for demanding schools reopen while not giving them the assistance they need to protect students, teachers, administrators, and staff, yet she is working remotely from her “sprawling” 22,000 square foot “waterfront estate with a round-the-clock security detail paid for by taxpayers,” NBC News reports. That security cost taxpayers $25 million over the past year.
DeVos “insists that it isn’t her job to help localities determine how to [re-open] safely.”
The Education Secretary’s’ public schedule “has been mostly empty for the past several weeks, including no events on her public schedule for this week,” NBC’s Heidi Przybyla reveals.
Yet DeVos “has been holding events not listed on her public calendar, including several sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, according to Federalist Society postings. She has also participated in a few events related to private schools and advocacy for vouchers, including a roundtable July 23 at a private Christian school in Ohio and two events in the Carolinas with Vice President Mike Pence.”
Przybyla says DeVos is “not touring those public schools that she’s demanding reopen.”
The Education Secretary also “declined to appear at a House coronavirus subcommittee hearing on safely reopening K-12 schools ‘so she could explain why she is pressuring schools to fully reopen, despite the risks,’ James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat, said Thursday.”
Here’s what some are saying: