Betsy DeVos’s ‘School
Choice’ Is Really Crony Capitalism
Jeff
Bryant
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos says she supports “great public schools,” but her
actions continue to show her hypocrisy on that subject.
Her recent trip to Michigan, her home state, offers yet more
proof of the real focus of her leadership – and it isn’t about supporting
public schools.
Whose STEM?
During her visit to a Michigan community college,
reporters questioned DeVos on her support for public school
teacher training and professional development programs.
The school, Grand Rapids Community College, offers an
extensive array of education courses to prepare new teachers and help veteran
faculty grow their instructional skills.
Reporters couldn’t help but point out
that President Trump’s budget has proposed massive cuts to teacher training
programs, including eliminating $2.4 billion in funding for Title II,
the third-largest federal K-12 program in the country.
Nevertheless, DeVos told reporters, “President Trump and I are
very big proponents of continuing to support teachers and develop teachers.”
DeVos also pivoted reporters’ questions to talking about her support for the Van Andel Education Institute, which she had visited earlier in the day.
The Van Andel Education Institute also provides career development
programs for teachers, more specifically on preparing and supporting educators
in teaching science, technology, engineering, and math, commonly called STEM
education.
Trump’s budget, which DeVos has repeatedly endorsed, proposes
huge cuts that would endanger STEM learning in public schools and the
training provided by public institutions to support teachers in delivering STEM
curricula.
Yet, again, DeVos professed her support for “those kinds of
opportunities,” even though the budget she and the president have proposed cuts
funding in those areas.
Betsy’s Friends
But here’s a crucial point local reporters didn’t point out:
While the community college DeVos visited is a public institution funded
primarily by public tax dollars, the Van Andel Institute is a private,
nonprofit organization funded principally by friends of Betsy DeVos.
Jay and Betty Van Andel founded the Van Andel Institute after
amassing a huge sum of money in creating the Amway corporation with Richard
DeVos, Betsy’s father-in-law.
“Amway went on to become one of the largest
privately held companies in the world, making both of its founders
billionaires,” writes a progressive blogger based in Michigan.
So the fact Betsy DeVos would tout the Van Andel Institute at
the same time she presides over a federal department that is advocating for
deep cuts to teacher training and STEM education should bring up serious
questions about her professed allegiance to public education.
Deep Cuts
At the same time private organizations like the Van Andel
Institute have been prospering, Michigan has made huge cuts to public
institutions like community colleges.
In 2011, Michigan lawmakers passed a
budget that cut the public institutions most responsible for
teacher preparation and career education, community colleges and universities,
by 15 percent. Funding levels have never recovered since.
During roughly the same time, enrollments at Michigan
community declined 18 percent while the Van Andel Education
Institute grew.
DeVos’s preference for private ownership in higher education
mirrors her proposals for K-12 schools.
The budget she and her boss have
proposed essentially cuts direct aid to students, especially those from
low-income families, in order to expand the private sector’s financial
footprint in education by funding expansions of charter schools and school
voucher efforts.
Calling Her Out
This clear favoritism for the private sector prompted American
Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten to call DeVos “the most ideological anti-public
education person to ever be nominated or confirmed to that position.”
Weingarten notes the education budget she and Trump promote is
“the worst per-capita budget cuts for kids who are vulnerable or poor that
we’ve since Reagan. DeVos also wants the worst budget cuts in raw numbers
ever.”
At nearly every turn, DeVos favors private and powerful entities
over the public and the least empowered in our society, Weingarten notes,
“fighting for the predatory lenders rather than the borrowers in terms of
student loan debt,” siding against marginalized students such as transgender
children and victims of college campus sexual assaults, and weakening
enforcement of federal government anti-discrimination laws in private schools
that receive vouchers.
These are all signs of a U.S. secretary of education who just
does not get that the federal government’s role in education is about ensuring
equitable access to education institutions that guarantee an opportunity to
learn.
Betsy’s ‘Real’ Choice
DeVos claims her proposals are intended to provide more “choice”
in the education system. If that were true, she would be proposing to raise
funding levels for all options. The fact she boosts education options in the
private sector at the expense of public options shows her real intention is to
tilt the playing field toward the choices she wants – privately owned
institutions.
The fact those private options sometimes have personal
connections to her family and its fortunes make it look all the more like this
isn’t about education at all. It’s about making money.