Trump appoints ‘true enemy’ of public schools

November 25, 2016
Issue 
Conservative billionarie Betsy DeVos has been selected to be Trump's Education Secretary.

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped for US Education Secretary , a conservative billionaire who “does not hide her contempt for the public schools,”  historian Diane Ravitch.

 of charter schools and , National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia  of DeVos: “Her efforts over the years have done more to undermine public education than support students.

“She has lobbied for failed schemes, like vouchers — which take away funding and local control from our public schools — to fund private schools at taxpayers' expense.

“These schemes do nothing to help our most-vulnerable students while they ignore or exacerbate glaring opportunity gaps. She has consistently pushed a corporate agenda to privatise, de-professionalise, and impose cookie-cutter solutions to public education.

“By nominating Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration has demonstrated just how out of touch it is with what works best for students, parents, educators and communities.”

Similarly, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten  DeVos “the most ideological, anti-public education nominee put forward since President [Jimmy] Carter created a Cabinet-level Department of Education”.

“In nominating DeVos,” Weingarten said, “Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatising, defunding, and destroying public education in America.”

Ի,Chalkbeat  “a few things we could reasonably surmise from a DeVos pick”. Among them was that Trump is now likely to go through with his plan “to  to encourage states to make school choice available to all poor students, including through vouchers that allow families to take public funding to private schools”.

[Abridged from .]

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