Vice President Mike Pence tipped the 50-50 vote held by United States senators February 7, confirming Betsy DeVos as President Donald Trump’s appointed Secretary of Education. When first picked by the President back in November after winning the 2016 election, Trump claims DeVos was “a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” according to BBC News. However, DeVos’ past has displayed anything but, from her statements on public education to gun policies in schools.
DeVos has been surrounded by incredible amounts of controversy over the months after information about her donations to state senators and the Trump administration was revealed. In the past two election cycles, DeVos’ family chipped in over $8.3 million to Republican Super PACs, and DeVos herself has donated over $115,000 to standing Republican senators. While donating to personal belief causes is a right to anyone in the United States, DeVos’ contributions pose a problem with the revelation that DeVos had donated this money to the senators who voted her in. This, arguably, can be seen as conflict of interest. For example, Senator Marco Rubio has received approximately $98,300 in donations to his campaign from DeVos’ family, as well as Senator Thom Tillis and Senator Bill Cassidy, both who received $70,200. In the list of DeVos’ donations, there are 23 more senators in addition to Rubio, Tillis and Cassidy; and this would not be such an issue if it were not for the fact that all 26 senators voted DeVos into her position.
As well as a possible conflict of interest — DeVos’ money potentially determining her seating position — her policies and beliefs on public education versus charter and private schools are entirely questionable and even worrisome, prioritizing religious and private education practices in her personal funding and statements. The majority of America’s children attend public schools, the fall 2016 semester’s numbers being at a whopping 50.4 million students across the country. Students could, arguably, work toward scholarships or financial aid in order to be able to attend private or religious based schools. However, private schools have to do little in order to fall within state guidelines, and can turn away students for things such as their sexual orientation or a disability the school does not accommodate to.
Public schools, though, are already in a state of falling behind and being forgotten, education not keeping up with the times and education quality declining. This issue comes from lack of funding, particularly in inner-city schools; and recently, with a particular praise DeVos received from Wisconsin superintendent candidates John Humphries and Lowell Holtz, the money issue becomes even more concerning. Since 1990, roughly $2 billion of Wisconsin’s public money has been funneled into private and religious schools, the amount only rising each year. If DeVos is receiving praise from a state that agrees with her privatization rhetoric (one that has given $2 billion to private education where it was needed elsewhere) then this issue becomes bigger.
In January, DeVos stated she advocates for allowing guns in school zones in states that want to allow it, an issue that is already controversial enough considering the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting and Columbine. DeVos turning a blind eye to this issue because of gun-choice rhetoric is just one reason why she is so unqualified, to the point where DeVos has no qualms with endangering the lives of children that she is now responsible for.
Throwing out these reasons entirely, however, leaves one profound reason as to why DeVos should be opposed to: she simply does not have the experience. Private schooling made up only 9.7 percent of all elementary and secondary schooling in 2013 according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and yet DeVos wants to prioritize these schools over the public ones. Yet, it makes sense, considering DeVos has never attended or taught in a private school, nor has she sent her children to any, either. Having an education secretary determining the lives of children that attend schools that DeVos has no understanding, experience or relationship to may end up ruining the education system for a very long time.
