At a heated three-and-half-hour confirmation hearing Tuesday evening, Senate Democrats predictably pressed the president-elect’s Education Secretary-designate. Betsy DeVos, a major Republican donor and school choice advocate, has proven one of his more controversial appointees: Her decades of philanthropic advocacy and public support for school choice initiatives make her an “anti-public education nominee” in the eyes of labor union leaders and the Democrats they support. (Plus, her family’s billions make her an oligarch, to borrow from Senator Bernie Sanders.)

In her opening statement to the Healthcare, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, DeVos emphasized her personal ties to public schools: Her mother was a public school teacher, “My greatest educational influence in life was a public school teacher named Elsa Prince.” She herself has mentored public school students in Grand Rapids, Michigan for many years. She expanded on her foundational belief that every child equally deserves the best local schooling to meet their needs, ideally to be chosen by parents from a diverse “mix of traditional publicly-funded and private schools.” And she defended the concept, oft-cited by school choice advocates, that competition and cross-pollination with charters and private schools only makes public schools better. Reform is “not just an issue of public policy but a national injustice” for her—one she’s made it her “life’s work” to correct. And it’s an ongoing struggle in need of a new approach her defenders, lately coming out in droves from both sides of the partisan divide, agree. DeVos fans have also referred to her “strong backbone” (per Barbara Bush) and commended her strength of conviction—traits that served her well Tuesday evening.