I live on a beautiful lake that leads to Lake Michigan. One of my neighbors is Betsy DeVos. She and I come from a similar religious denomination. I could understand a lot of her background, but she has lost her perspective of what it means to be an everyday American.
I was distressed from the get-go by her nomination. She’s a political mega-donor with no experience in public education other than lobbying for vouchers and other privatization schemes that hurt public schools. I’ve already seen first-hand the damage the DeVos family inflicted on the public school system in Michigan, and on the Michigan Education Association and other unions in the state.
Her viewpoint is that there is no problem with using public dollars to fund private schools, and I don’t agree with that. Taxpayer funding is meant to support a system of schools that are open to every student from any background and governed by elected school boards. I also take issues with decisions DeVos has made to remove protections meant to protect LGBTQ students from discrimination and students of color from unfair disparities in discipline practices.
The DeVos family, with its vast wealth and political influence, helped turn the Republican party toward a certain conservative view that paints educators and their unions as the enemy. And over the decades, in Michigan, it became a basic assumption that Republicans oppose labor unions. But it wasn’t always so.
I like to remind my more conservative friends that the 1965 law that gave Michigan educators the right to bargain was signed by Republican Gov. George Romney. That’s how much the world has changed.
I’ve found myself voting for Democrats in recent elections, because the moderate Republican candidates I sought were being shoved out by the kind of ultra-conservative politicians the DeVos family backs. I still hold out hope that more moderate Republicans who back an inclusive vision of public education and believe public money should stay in public schools can succeed in politics. In the meantime, I ask all educators to vote their conscience, regardless of party labels. Just look at who is going to support public schools, and support strong communities instead of dividing us, and then vote accordingly.
In a public school system, we care about every kid. Ninety percent of our children go to public schools, but for DeVos, public education is not seen as part of a vital infrastructure.
She doesn't have the background that qualifies her to be a secretary of education and she has really harmed that system. What's at stake if you don't have good public schools is your community.
It really is a daily fight for educators to say, ‘this is important—that system is our future.’ Whatever good is happening in public schools is good for the country.
