What Betsy DeVos Calls Education Transformation Is Actually Public Theft
Betsy DeVos wants to give your tax dollars to private schools and businesses and tell you it’s an education “transformation.”
That’s the main theme of an address she gave this week to a conference held by the organization she helped found and lead, the American Federation for Children.
Declaring “the time has expired for ‘reform,'” she called instead for a “transformation… that will open up America’s closed and antiquated education system.” Her plan also opens your wallet to new moochers of taxpayer dollars.
By the way, AFC, according to SourceWatch, is a “conservative 501(c)(4) dark money group that promotes the school privatization agenda via the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other avenues.” It also grew out of a defunct PAC connected to DeVos called “All Children Matter” that ran afoul legally in Ohio and Wisconsin and still owes Ohio $5.3 million for breaking election laws.
So DeVos had a supportive crowd for her speech, but what should the rest of us think of it?
The transformation she calls for seems to rest on the premise that, “It shouldn’t matter where a student learns so long as they are actually learning.” But what does she mean by “learning”? And what should the public expect about how its funds are being spent?
In kicking off her address (transcript here), DeVos thanked Denisha Merriweather for introducing her. Merriweather, as I’ve previously reported, often appears with DeVos at events extolling school vouchers that allow parents to send their children to private schools at taxpayer expense.
In Merriweather’s case, exercising school choice meant using Florida’s education tax credit program to attend a fundamentalist Christian academy that presents the Bible as literal history and science, teaches young earth creationism, and demeans other religions.
DeVos then quickly moved to the story of a recent graduate of a Catholic private school, What Betsy DeVos Calls Education Transformation Is Actually Public Theft:
