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Press Release - ICYMI: WSJ: Who's Afraid of Betsy DeVos?

January 17, 2017

"Mrs. Devos's Most Important Qualification is that She Has the Courage of Her Convictions"

Who's Afraid of Betsy DeVos?
The Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal Opinion
January 14th, 2017
Click Here to Read

Democrats are searching for a cabinet nominee to defeat, and it's telling that progressive enemy number one is Betsy DeVos. Donald Trump's choice to run the Education Department has committed the unpardonable sin of devoting much of her fortune to helping poor kids escape failing public schools.

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Mrs. DeVos's most important qualification is that she has the courage of her convictions.

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The DeVoses have donated tens of millions of dollars to charity including a children's hospital in Michigan and an international art competition in Grand Rapids. They've also given to Christian organizations, which the left cites as evidence of concealed bigotry. Yet education has been their main philanthropic cause.

During the 1990s, they patronized a private-school scholarship fund for low-income families and championed Michigan's first charter school law. In 2000 they helped bankroll a voucher initiative, which was defeated by a union blitz. The DeVoses then turned to expanding charters, which have become Exhibit A in the progressive campaign against her.

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Two studies from Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (2013, 2015) found that students attending Michigan charters gained on average an additional two months of learning every year over their traditional school counterparts. Charter school students in Detroit gained three months.

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The real reason unions fear Mrs. DeVos is that she's a rare reformer who has defeated them politically. Prior to being tapped by Mr. Trump, she chaired the American Federation for Children (AFC), which has helped elect hundreds of legislators across the country who support private school choice.

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AFC has built a broad coalition that includes black and Latino Democrats, undercutting the union conceit that vouchers are a GOP plot to destroy public schools. In 2000 four states had private-school choice programs with 29,000 kids. Today, 25 states have vouchers, tax-credit scholarships or education-savings accounts benefitting more than 400,000 students.

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You know progressives have lost their moral bearings when they save their most ferocious assault for a woman who wants to provide poor children with the education they need to succeed in America.

Donald J. Trump, Press Release - ICYMI: WSJ: Who's Afraid of Betsy DeVos? Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/218731

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