Silicon Valley Investor Arthur Rock Joins Eli Broad In Concern On Betsy DeVos As Education Secretary
A day after billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad came out against Betsy DeVos's nomination as Secretary of Education, prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Arthur Rock expressed his concerns. Rock, who was an early investor in Apple, has long been a backer of charter schools.
Silicon Valley venture capitalist Arthur Rock was an early investor in Apple. (Photo courtesy of Arthur Rock)
Rock told me in an email that "answers to many of the questions raised in [DeVos's] confirmation hearings [make me] wonder about her knowledge of the education problems facing our country.”
On Friday morning, the Senate voted along party lines and advanced DeVos towards a final confirmation vote, which is expected to be next Monday.
Rock supports not-for-profit charter schools, and said he is not a fan of for-profit charters. "Betsy DeVos has not to my knowledge expressed her views on this subject," Rock said in his email. "For profit charters have a very poor record of achievement in comparison to public not for profit charters. So, if she is for all kinds of charters I would urge my senators to vote against her. If she is in favor of just non-profit public charters, I am willing to give her a second chance to answer questions from the committee [where] she might not get stage fright.”
Rock is an active philanthropist in education reform. From 2006 to 2008, Rock contributed $16.5 million to Teach for America. He also donated $1.5 million to Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), the country’s largest network of charter schools.
Rock's comments follow a stronger statement from Eli Broad, one of the country’s leading advocates for charter schools. On Wednesday, in a letter sent by e-mail to all the senators’ offices, Broad wrote that DeVos’s support for “unregulated charter schools and vouchers” concerned him the most.
Michigan, DeVos’s home state, has the highest number of for-profit charter schools in the country, according to a November 2013 report from the National Education Policy Center. Last summer, the DeVos family reportedly gave $1.45 million over a seven-week period to Michigan Republican candidates and organizations after the state legislature passed a public school funding plan that omitted charter school oversight.
The Walton Family Foundation, one of the country’s biggest benefactors to charter schools, has so far not commented on Silicon Valley Investor Arthur Rock Joins Eli Broad In Concern On Betsy DeVos As Education Secretary:
