There are surely good and bad things to say about Betsy DeVos, just as there are good and bad things to say about many of the educational initiatives she has initiated or supported.
However, there is no arguing that she is adamantly in opposition to the public school system and would like to see it dismantled, yet she has been placed in charge of safe-guarding and maintaining the health of that system. If you look at the Trump administration’s nominations for the different departments in the executive branch, the Fox has been placed squarely and solely in charge of the hen-house.
In researching DeVos it becomes clear that there is more bad to say about her accomplishments and policies than good if you value a strong and affordable education system.
If Betsey Devos’ family had a tv show, their theme music would make The Exorcist theme seem like Tiptoeing Through the Tulips.
Actually, everything about that is pretty creepy.
Betsy DeVos is married to Dick DeVos, son of Amway co-founder and himself former CEO of multi-level-marketing scam, Amway (remember them? They didn’t disappear. They made more than $9 billion in earnings in 2015. They just changed their name in North America to Quixtar.
(Amway, short for American Way, is a pyramid scheme which makes much of its money on promises that people will earn large amounts of money selling their products to OTHER people that will also make large amounts of money selling their products.)
Her brother, Erik Prince, is a former Navy Seal and founder of Blackwater, which, like Amway, changed its name (to Academi, in this case) because of legal and public relations troubles. Once a White House intern, Prince lists things like the Clean Air Act among reasons he became disinchanted and now considers himself a libertarian.
(Blackwater was kicked out of Iraq in 2007 after their contractors were convicted of killing 14 civilians. See the wikipedia for a list of similar actions.)
Obviously buying influence with fundraising.
According to The Atlantic DeVos, in a 1997 op-ed, said she expects results from her political contributions.
“My family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party. I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence,” she wrote. “Now I simply concede the point. They are right.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/01/betsy-devoss-policy-evasion/513440/
It’s frustrating to see someone so bent on dismantling one of the institutions that made America great. I’m not talking about the Dept of Education, she is perfectly fine to leave that building as it is while she is residing in it, but she is using what little power and influence the positions affords her to dismantle the public education system in favor putting that money, our tax dollars, into the private sector, into schools that have little or no regulation or oversight.
Read our other articles on Betsy DeVos:
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[…] November 14, 2017 | Betsy DeVos and Family: Cautionary Tales of Privatization and Deregulation […]