Education reformers were given reason for giving generous thanks on Thanksgiving when, the day before, President-elect Donald Trump announced he would nominate Betsy DeVos as secretary of education.
DeVos has been an active philanthropist and an activist in Michigan politics, as state Republican chairman in 1996-2000 and again in 2003-05. She has worked for more than 20 years to promote school choice and charter schools in Michigan and across the nation.
She and her husband Dick DeVos helped pass a state charter school law in 1993 and in 2000 they unsuccessfully sponsored a school voucher ballot measure (Republican John Engler’s opposition to this had something to do with DeVos’s resigning as state Republican chairman in 2000). DeVos’ Wikipedia entry, her endorsement by National Review, this Weekly Standard blog post and this Tyler Cowen blog post provide more information on DeVos’ work promoting charter schools and school choice.
There was a clear contrast on education policy between the two major party candidates for president this fall. Despite the fact that the Clinton and Obama administrations were in some ways favorable to or at least tolerant of some forms of school choice, Hillary Clinton was a hard-core opponent of charter schools and school choice and, to all appearances, a wholly owned subsidiary of the teacher unions. American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten was enthusiastic in her support for Clinton, with a stemwinding speech at the Democratic convention.
Donald Trump, in contrast, said he supported charter schools and school choice. He has proven that by selecting Betsy DeVos.
Undoubtedly some Democrats and public employee union apologists will attack DeVos as a rich woman and dilettante. She is undeniably rich; her husband’s father is a co-founder of Amway and DeVos’ father owned the Prince auto parts firm in Michigan.
But DeVos is by no stretch of the imagination a dilettante. Her involvement with charter schools goes back decades, when she and her husband visited and provided support for individual schools in the Grand Rapids area. And her knowledge, built on years of hard work, is deep: In conversations with her over the past several years, I have found her incredibly well informed about school choice developments in every state and every stratum of society. Quite possibly no one else in the country is quite so well informed on these issues. For those who believe that various forms of school choice provide positive alternatives to the existing public school system, especially for children who start off with disadvantages, the DeVos appointment is wonderful news.
Of course school choice is not the only issue facing an education secretary. The Obama administration Education Department has been promoting speech codes, kangaroo courts and other foolish policies, often just by sending out “guidance” letters with no legal status but clearly containing the threat of cutting off funds unless the department’s advice is followed. The Manhattan Institute’s Minding the Campus blog has posted a useful guide to the Obama administration’s atrocious policies — and how they can be overturned.
