President-elect Donald Trump will name Betsy DeVos, Michigan-based Republican donor and a prominent supporter of school vouchers, as his secretary of education, the transition team announced Wednesday.
President-elect Donald J. Trump will nominate Betsy DeVos, a brilliant and passionate education advocate, as Education Secretary.
— Transition 2017 (@transition2017) November 23, 2016
“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” Trump said in a statement. “Under her leadership we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families. I am pleased to nominate Betsy as Secretary of the Department of Education.”
The statement said that DeVos had accepted the position.
“I am honored to accept this responsibility to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again,” DeVos said. “The status quo in education is not acceptable. Together, we can work to make transformational change that ensures every student in America has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential.”
DeVos is known both for her philanthropy and her involvement in Republican politics, particularly on education policy. She backed a failed 2000 Michigan ballot measure to expand school vouchers in the state. Afterwards, she and her husband founded American Federation for Children, a political action committee that supported candidates in favor of expanding charter schools and school vouchers.
The DeVos’ fortune stems from the businesses of the father of Betsy’s husband, Dick DeVos, according to a 2014 Mother Jones profile of the couple. Her father Edgar Prince founded the social conservative group the Family Research Council and her brother is Erik Prince, founder of the the security firm Blackwater.
ANY, and I mean any and all nominees need to be blocked vigorously by the Dems. This family couldn’t be any more against ordinary Americans if she were an actual card carrying Nazi. They will hollow out public schools even more than they are now. This is the kind of scummy patronage that reflects on Rump.
We must, must not sign onto this. The DeVos family is anti worker, anti family, anti democracy - anti American.
Is she a member of the DeVos family who owns Amway?
You’re all thinking it, but let me be the first
@jootjoint Sadly yes
Vouchers are the “sanitized” way to segregate schools by subsidizing religious school tuition. It’s really happening, folks. If you’re not raging against the machine yet, now is the time. (edited to change desegregate to segregate)
I knew all along public school teachers and administrators were terrorists. Maybe now they can be put on a registry and denied boarding commercial aircraft.