Have you seen the latest in Washington? Betsy Devos has been taking the country by storm. She is the leading education reformer and the 11th US Education Secretary. However, before she was working in Capitol Hill, she had dedicated her life to philanthropy and education in her home state of Michigan. She had led the Michigan Republican Party in education, starting with legislation like “Kids First!” Coalition to supporting her husband’s gubernatorial run in 2006.
However, now she leads the nation in education reform. While many on the left have critiqued her ideas on education reform, she has remained strong and fought for educational choice in all 50 states. In a recent interview with “60 Minutes, Devos stated that she felt success had been made in certain states since she took office. It has only been two years, but in that time, she has made significant progress in some states, including Louisiana and Florida. She believes that Florida has been the most successful due to its tuition-based scholarship program.
Devos believes that students should have more choices when it comes to picking a school. Currently, in many years, students are stuck going to a failing school because they are zoned for one, even if they don’t like the curriculum or don’t have the same resources as other schools. This has led many students to experience a fear of going to school, and it’s what Devos is fighting against. She wants students to be able to select where they go to school, including programs for magnet schools, virtual schools, homeschooling, private academies, and charter schools.
To those who say that public funding will wind up in the hands of private schools, Devos says that naysayers don’t understand the program. She also stated that philanthropy has been the driving force behind educational choice, including donors like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Sam Walton.
The Devos Family Foundation has also been involved in a number of education donations. The charity has given away more than $135 million to healthcare, education, cultural programs, and other groups. It’s this kind of dedication that has made schools in Michigan much stronger.
Since 2018, President Trump has been talking about the state of America’s schools and has been working with US Education Secretary Devos to improve school safety. He appointed her to head up the school safety movement, and throughout the summer, many policy and regulation changes were made to ensure that schools were safer for the 2018-2019 school year.
Currently Devos is working towards bringing more states under educational choice and continues to fight against violence in schools.
For updates, follow Betsy DeVos on twitter.