It wasn’t easy narrowing this list down to just 5 things, but here we go!
- She Set the Predatory Lenders Free. By gutting regulations intended to protect students, many of whom are veterans, minorities, and first-generation college attendees, from being defrauded by predatory schools and colleges, Betsy has put the interests of these for-profit colleges—some of which she has personal financial interests in—ahead of students.
- She Abandoned the Kids Who Need Her Most. Betsy has dismissed civil rights complaints and ripped up guidance that urged public schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms that conform to their gender identity.
- She Made Sexual Assault Great Again. Sec. DeVos has rolled back sexual assault policies on college campuses, established a higher bar for victims reporting complaints, and is now forcing survivors to be cross-examined by their attackers in court—this one is especially egregious in that DeVos is from Michigan, where Larry Nassar sexually assaulted 332 young girls and women at MSU over 25 years.
- She’s Still Trying to Get Us to Fund Private Schools With Taxpayer Dollars. Betsy continuously calls public schools “a dead end”, and then advocates for a national private school voucher program by requesting $20 billion in the federal budget, even though all previous attempts in Michigan were humiliating failures, voted down by nearly 75% of the citizens of our state.
- She Tried to Starve Her Own Department of Funding. DeVos proposed to eliminate the federal Department of Education…and then suggested cutting the Department’s funding by $9 billion — about 13 percent of the Department’s full budget allocation. DeVos’ budget eliminated money for after-school programs for disadvantaged youth and axed a grant program that helps low-income students go to college…in favor of increased spending on school-choice initiatives and private school voucher programs. Her proposal also included cuts to the Office for Civil Rights. In a stunning rejection of her request, the GOP-controlled House returned a budget with an increase of $3.9 billion—a 13% hike in funding!
So, to all those people who say that Sec. DeVos hasn’t accomplished very much…who else could dream up public policy so craven and draconian and just plain cruel, that it actually forces the Republican Party to increase spending on things that benefit children, families, and communities, like public education?!?!?
Only Betsy DeVos.
Now that’s quite an accomplishment!
Betsy DeVos caricature by Donkey Hotey | Flickr
