DeVos Narrowly Confirmed by Senate, Resistance to Privatization of Education Continues

Interview with Carol Burris, executive director of Network for Public Education', conducted by Scott Harris

Among President Trump’s many controversial nominations to his Cabinet, his pick of Betsy DeVos to become Education Secretary drew some of the most passionate and widespread opposition. DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist, charter-schools advocate and one of the nation’s largest contributors to Republican Party candidates came under withering criticism for her efforts in her home state of Michigan and across the country to dismantle and privatize public education. A longtime supporter of for-profit public charter schools and giving taxpayer-funded vouchers to parents who send their children to private schools, DeVos personally never attended or sent her children to public schools.

But despite a nationwide grassroots campaign that made hundreds of thousands of calls to legislators and organized protests, the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed DeVos in a Feb. 7 vote that required Vice President Mike Pence to cast a deciding vote to break a 50-50 tie, a first time in votes for a Cabinet nominee. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, who explains why so many educators, teachers unions and parents groups opposed the DeVos nomination, and how her group intends to continue to fight against an agenda of school privatization as it moves forward.

CAROL BURRIS:She’s unqualified. She’s never taught; she’s never attended a public school. The only involvement that she says she’s had in a public school was that she mentored in a public school, whatever that means. She’s never been involved in policy decisions regarding public schooling. Betsy has no qualifications.

The second reason is that it really smacks of a political appointment. Her family has given millions upon millions of dollars to the Republican party and she’s been very outright in stating that she believes that giving that money should buy her influence. She makes no bones about it. So, the feeling is, though, she’s getting this, because of what’s she’s given in the past.

But at least for our organization, probably the greatest reason why we oppose her is that she has made it very, very clear that her agenda is to privatize schools in America. That she believes in a free market. And that she believes that if people are allowed to and groups are allowed to open up schools that will open and close depending upon when their parents are interested in them. If people are allowed to make a profit by educating students, if taxpayer money can go to a variety of private schools including those that are religious schools, that somehow the marketplace will work its magic and kids will receive a better education. Well, you know that’s been tried in a couple of places. It’s been tried in Chile; it’s been tried in Sweden; it’s been proven not to work.

And the end result is the destruction of the national public school systems in those countries. She’s made no bones about it. We know of no attempts that she’s ever made to work within the public school system, to make public schools better. We know of no donations that she’s ever made to public schools. We only know that her work has focused on the destruction of public schools, which she has called a dead-end and a monopoly.

BETWEEN THE LINES:If, as expected, the Senate confirms Betsy DeVos as the next Secretary of Education, what powers will she have to push forward her agenda of more charter schools, more for-profit schools, more religious schools getting public funds and the general goal of moving our education system to privatization?

CAROL BURRIS:Yeah, it’s an interesting question because a lot of us have been debating that. Certainly, she’s going to need Congress’ approval to work on some of these issues. I don’t think she can unilaterally, for example, take all Title I funds, as Donald Trump said he’d like to do and turn them into block grants. I believe, my understanding is, you’d have to have the Senate and the House of Representatives on board with those kinds of ideas. But, when you think about what (former Secretary of Education) Arne Duncan was able to accomplish with Race to the Top, and with regulations, changing some regulations, she can do a decent amount of damage.

And then, of course, the worry is that the agenda in the House and in the Senate where it’s part of the Republican platform that they believe in “choice,” and when they mean what they really mean is “privatization.” They’ve changed the name because “choice” sounds better. She’s probably going to have some support in that there’s already a House bill that we saw that’s been presented that would allow federal funds to go for vouchers. That has not been allowed so far, but there it is.

BETWEEN THE LINES:So you feel pretty confident that all the people who have mobilized thus far to oppose Betsy DeVos’ nomination will stay active if and when she’s confirmed.

CAROL BURRIS:Yeah, yeah, I do. Now, will some fall away? Yeah, I imagine they will. But we already our email to those 316,000 people ready to go to tell them to keep heart and to share with them our pathway forward in siding this. We’re not going to sit back and say, hey, this is okay. Our hope, too, is that we will start to engage with more elected officials, both Democrat and Republican, and help them understand what’s at stake and why. Some of the policies that they’ve been supporting around charter schools are policies that are going to destroy a lot of the public schools.

Learn more about the Network for Public Education at networkforpubliceducation.org.

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