Rep. Mark Pocan Betsy DeVos is unfit to lead the Education Department. It's time for her to resign.
DeVos' confirmation hearing raised many red flags. Now America's children are dealing with the consequences of her incompetence.
By Rep. Mark Pocan, U.S. Representative
Last week, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos appeared before the House Appropriations Committee to attempt to justify the Trump administration’s 2020 budget request. During the committee hearing, members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans — had the opportunity to ask her about a number of programs and funding decisions that we found problematic to our students, educators and schools. Her answers only reinforced a truth we have known for two years: Secretary Betsy DeVos is wholly unfit to oversee this vital department and must resign before her actions wreak even more havoc than has already occurred.
We’ve long known that President Donald Trump was proposing dangerous and irresponsible cuts to many critical programs, from Medicaid and Social Security, to special education and medical research. However, during Tuesday’s hearing with DeVos, representatives pressed her on some of her agency’s most devastating cuts, including those to Special Olympics, Gallaudet University and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. DeVos could not defend cutting or eliminating these programs, instead only claiming, “We had to make some difficult decisions.”
When Trump first nominated Betsy DeVos to lead the Department of Education, there were many red flags that both Congress and the American public noticed. Most alarming was the fact that DeVos — who was never a public school student, teacher, principal, superintendent, or administrator — brings the least amount of public school experience of any secretary in our nation’s history.
During her confirmation hearing, DeVos' lack of background in public education became even more clear when she gave downright CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos is unfit to lead the Education Department. It's time for her to resign.