image screenshot from Washington Post video
President-elect Donald Trump has selected billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos, a relatively unknown figure on the national scene, to head the U.S. Department of Education.
Calling her a “brilliant and passionate education advocate,” Trump said in a press release that “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.” Although DeVos earns high praise from conservatives for her pro-school choice positions, she is a polarizing figure to public education supporters, who claim she could destroy public schools with vouchers.
In order to set the record straight about her association with Common Core, The Daily Signal reported that “upon accepting the position of education secretary, DeVos issued a statement clarifying that she is not a supporter of Common Core ‘period,’” adding that although organizations she has been a part of support Common Core, that’s not her position, especially since “it got turned into a federalized boondoggle.”
She strongly supports school vouchers, charter schools and homeschooling as options that should be available to parents in order to put them back in charge of their children’s education.
DeVos’ in-laws, Richard and Helen DeVos, are longtime personal supporters of The Heritage Foundation, and her husband Dick DeVos is the son of the co-founder of Amway, a company that has become a world famous success story.
