Why People Are Mad Betsy DeVos Is the New Education Secretary
Today, the Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary of the United States and people are pissed.
Well, not all people — Trump and his loyal band of Republican political puppets are pretty thrilled about it.
But Democrats, and the two Republican senators who voted against her confirmation, are pissed.
Why?
Well, for one, Betsy DeVos doesn’t have any real experience with education.
As a wealthy billionaire, DeVos has understandably never had a job working in the education system — which famously doesn’t pay a lot — but she has spent a LOT of money to give parents vouchers to make it easier for them to opt out of sending their kids public school, diverting government funding from public to private schools in the process — after all, those vouchers don’t pay for themselves.
Which is great if you can afford to send your child to private school, but pretty awful if you can’t.
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In 2016 she even went so far as to write an op-ed for the Detroit News about how the Detroit public school system should be scrapped and replaced with a free-market system.
Which again sounds like a pretty bad situation for all the kids whose parents don’t have the money to send them to the best schools a free-market education system could buy.
Oh, and during her confirmation hearing, when she was asked whether guns should be allowed in schools — a position Trump supports, by the way — Betsy was like, “um, sometimes yeah, because grizzly bears.”
So given these questionable beliefs and overall lack of experience, you might be asking yourself how tf did Betsy DeVos even cross Trump’s mind for Education Secretary in the first place?
Remember how I mentioned she was a billionaire earlier?
Good, because that’s why she got the job.
It’s hard to even know where to begin to explain the depth of DeVos’s financial contributions to the Republican party.
Since 1970, her fam’s given $200 million to right-wing causes, according to Mother Jones.
She’s also donated at least $100,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC and at least $818,000 to 20 current Republican senators — who just so happened to be responsible for confirming her nomination as Education Secretary.
Awkward.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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Plus, way way back in 1997 she made it clear that in exchange for the mountains of money she was donating, she expected to get something in return.
And now she has!
Big time.
Feeling kinda pissed off?
Well buckle up, because it’s gonna be a bumpy four years.