The New York Times Unwittingly Makes the Case for Betsy DeVos

This week marks the beginning of the confirmation process for Trump’s cabinet picks and predictably the left-wing press running around with their hair on fire screaming “Racist! Sexist! EVIL!!!”. Jeff Sessions received the royal treatment from Cory Booker and his ilk during his hearings. Mike Pompeo was subjected to the “California” treatment when freshmen Senator Kamala Harris asked him to confirm that climate change is the cause of terrorism.

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Soon, Betsy DeVos will take the stage and Trump’s Education Secretary pick will face the typical barrage of unwarranted insults and criticism. If we’re lucky Kamala Harris will be there to add some gravitas to the proceedings.

The editorial staff at the New York Times recently released a joint op-ed sounding the alarm on the Michigan native who is a billionaire homeschooler and school choice champion. I’ve been two of those three things and I hope to be the third once Redstate starts showering me with the riches I so very much deserve. “Big Worries About Betsy DeVos” reads like an endorsement to anyone who has even the tiniest experience in the realm of school choice and homeschooling.

Every “horrid” point they made about DeVos seemed only to further solidify that she is a fantastic choice for the Department of Education. The New York Times have unwittingly made the case for a Trump pick. 2017 is already a barrel of laughs. Here are some of the best snippets from their accidental endorsement of the first pro-school-choice secretary in decades.

People who have seen her financial disclosures so far say that Ms. DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos, have investments in some 250 companies registered to a single Grand Rapids, Mich., address, entities whose investments could take weeks for the ethics office to research.

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So the DeVos’ invest their own money back into their own state? Quelle horreur!

Beyond erasing concerns about her many possible financial conflicts, Ms. DeVos also faces a big challenge in explaining the damage she’s done to public education in her home state, Michigan. She has poured money into charter schools advocacy, winning legislative changes that have reduced oversight and accountability.

 

Sounds fantastic. DeVos has put her money where her mouth is in Michigan. The New York Times writers are wringing their hands over “reduced oversight” but I’ve spent enough time in the School Choice movement to know that “reduced oversight” is just an anti-choice phrase for schools that figure out how to reject the union overlords.

About 80 percent of the charter schools in Michigan are operated by for-profit companies, far higher than anywhere else.

They make that sound like a bad thing! I can’t figure out at what point Americans started believing that profit in education somehow diluted that education. I never hear any of these New York Times writers complaining about the profit made by colleges across the nation. Somehow we’ve decided that its wrong for anyone to make money off of a child’s education, even though the whole reason we educate them is so someday they will go out and make money. Education is most certainly a commodity. It decides the course and future prosperity of our nation as a whole. Not to mention that competition breeds excellence. Betsy DeVos understands this.

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She has also argued for shutting down Detroit public schools, with the system turned over to charters or taxpayer money given out as vouchers for private schools.

Have you seen the condition of Detroit? The entire city might need to be shut down. Ok, that was a bit of a joke but the idea of taking pathetically failing public school system and putting control of education back in the hands of parents seems like an intelligent and compassionate idea. It is at this point in the article that I know the writers responsible for this op ed have never set foot in a Detroit public school or ever asked a poor, minority parent if they’d prefer a voucher or just more money for their crappy school. The truth is that almost to a man (or woman) the answer is to such a question is “voucher.” I have yet to meet one fellow black mother who doesn’t wish she had the choice of which school to send her child to. DeVos isn’t just championing an improved school system in Detroit, she’s championing thousands of black and brown parents across her state. Brava!

Nothing is more vexing to the liberal elite than the government appointee who has spent their entire lives in the private sector. That alone is reason enough to hail DeVos’ confirmation.

The most impressive thing Donald Trump could possibly do with the Department of Education altogether. It has been a very long time since anyone was able to eliminate a government entity, so the second most impressive thing he could do is to put an entrepreneur, homeschooler and school choice advocate like Betsy DeVos in charge.

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DeVos threatens to bring a lot of heart to the heartless bureaucracy. This former homeschooler and present school choice advocate approves.

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