Betsy DeVos has clearly shown to be no match for previous leaders of the department of education. After Elizabeth Warren’s grilling of her policies, agenda, and experience, it became clear that DeVos has no place in a white house cabinet. “President-elect Donald Trump has picked billionaire Betsy DeVos” to be leader of the department of education (x). Clearly, Trump is guilty of cronyism—appointment of “friends” to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications.
She defends her long-time advocacy for use of public funds towards private schools. Here’s the thing about private schools—they’re private. Those who wish to attend private (high) schools agree to paying tuition, which can range anywhere from 10-50 thousand dollars annually depending on the school.
Parents who decide that the private school route is best for their children, choose to set aside tuition money to give their children an alternative education. By not receiving public funds, private schools are able to layout their teaching platforms in different ways, and organize the school to the criteria of parents and staff, with less influence from Common Core curriculum.
Public schools are the schools that truly need the funding that DeVos wishes to allocate towards private schools. Kids who go to private schools are not complaining about moldy cafeteria lunches, limited textbooks, broken chairs, and lack of individual teacher to student engagement; no, all those valid complaints come from students in the public schools that DeVos thinks are heftily funded. “In her hearing, DeVos also said that states should be left to decide whether guns are allowed in schools” (x).
The nation is currently split on gun restriction, and whether or not possession of firearms is necessary for the safety of our country and people. Yet, DeVos goes as far to say that firearms at schools is not a problem. Someone who believes that rifles are a good fit for elementary and high school students, surely does not value the safety of students, but rather wishes to push her own neoliberal agenda.
Economists have predicted that DeVos’s subsidization of individuals to attend private schools rather than an effort to uplift public schools as a whole will result in less students attending private schools, as now that they have government funding, their conventions become more rigid and guided. Economists have also predicted that the interest in becoming a teacher will decline, as teachers will take heavy blame for the failure of the public school system. Thus, morale as educators and students is likely to decline.
While DeVos has no clear platform on student loans, she thrives off of student loan debt cash influx. “DeVos listed on her financial paperwork a holding company that invests in Performant Business Services, Inc., which the Education Department hires to collect defaulted federal student loans" (x). someone who benefits so greatly from indebted students, is unlikely to accommodate any needs of students in America's expensive education system. To all the hopeful college student wishing to be less indebted, keep hoping.
