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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBetsy Devos accepts Education Secretary position from Trump
As a native Grand Rapidian I can tell you this is horrific. The Devos Family are old school Calvinists who believe they are rich because god favors them (not because of the massive illegal pyramid scheme they bilk people with).
Anti Union, she will push for public unions to be illegal. Creationism will be pushed nationwide.
His cabinet picks are sickening, worse than we could have imagined.
WhiteTara
(29,718 posts)Our country will be so dumb that stone age people will look sophisticated.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Yes. Yet another appointment revealing the influence of extreme-right plutocrats on Trump. Devos's charter schools are only an initial step in the destruction of public-funded education. They still have to make compulsory education and taxation to pay for it unconstitutional, but they've made it clear that's on the agenda.
WhiteTara
(29,718 posts)any day now. Maybe they'll wait until he is in the WH and they'll try out the seat behind the desk in the oval office.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)They were extremely powerful before we elected Trump, and so were the DeVoses. Now...! No hoping for 8 years of limited power for them, struggling to get part of their agenda passed and then retiring.
These are the people who will decide if Trump will be allowed to stay in office. They're probably already considering who to put into office and move into various positions in 2018 and 2020.
United we can take them down. That's why they and others like them have spent the past 40 years working extremely successfully on dividing us.
For what they've been up to for decades, I found Jane Mayer's "Dark Money" very enlightening, but she's discussed it a bit in articles and interviews that are on line as well.
aggiesal
(8,917 posts)WhiteTara
(29,718 posts)in person. Sad, sad world.
HAB911
(8,904 posts)WillowTree
(5,325 posts)demmiblue
(36,865 posts)Fellow Michigander here...the DeVos family is vile (see also, Eric Prince- Blackwater).
You said it... his cabinet appointments are beyond sickening. Double
demmiblue
(36,865 posts)DeVos' background is a fit for Trump's plans to boost school choice in the U.S., particularly for high-poverty students. She is on the board of directors for the Great Lakes Education Project, which advocates for school choice and charter schools. She also chairs the board of directors of the American Federation for Children, another choice advocacy group.
DeVos and her husband led a failed effort to amend the Michigan constitution to provide vouchers that would allow students to attend private schools at public expense. That's a centerpiece of Trump's education plan. He would invest $20 billion in federal money toward school choice, and expect states to kick in $110 billion of their own money, to provide $12,000 each in school choice funds to the 11 million school-age children living in poverty.
DeVos, from Michigan, is a longtime advocate for charter schools and school vouchers. She leads the advocacy group, American Federation for Children.
"The status quo in education is not acceptable," she said in a statement Wednesday. "Together, we can work to make transformational change that ensures every student in America has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential."
Read more: http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/23/betsy-devos-tapped-donald-trump-educations-secretary/94346002/
Thrill
(19,178 posts)People never learn
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)how do people fucking forget so easily what a hell that was???
Johnny2X2X
(19,066 posts)They want to make profits off educating our children.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)(grew up in SE MI/ metro Detroit, but lived in Grand Haven for a while)
superpatriotman
(6,249 posts)Charter schools. Christian Dominionism. Bad bad bad.
Johnny2X2X
(19,066 posts)She has aggressively advocated for ending teacher's pensions.
demmiblue
(36,865 posts)to provide links with statements like these.
Thank you.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)ERIK PRINCE, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.
What began as an investigation into Princes attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Princes relationship with Chinese intelligence. https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under-federal-investigation/
Inside Erik Prince's Treacherous Drive To Build a Private Air Force
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/11/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-drive-to-build-private-air-force/
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)Those people are fucked in the head
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)Tracer
(2,769 posts)It was handily defeated!
No one in MA was fooled by TV ads proclaiming the wonderfulness of charter schools.
Bettie
(16,110 posts)there should be no free public schools? That it should all have to be tuition based?
She sounds terrible, but I'm curious about this.