Two black leaders recently praised President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, as a champion for education — regardless of race and regardless of class.
“She’s not African American, but she’s concerned about our children,” Dr. Dwight Montgomery, president of the Memphis Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and pastor of Annesdale Cherokee MBC, declared in December. “I am so glad that the president-elect has nominated her to be the Secretary of Education. That direction is superb.”
Montgomery argued that DeVos will “have a commitment to education, not just public education.” She will be committed “to make sure that every child is in an environment to receive the education that is in the best interest of the child.”
While the pastor insisted that he has always supported public education, he tries to represent the children and the parents, rather than the teachers, since they have a teachers’ association. “Educational choice is needed, it is important,” Montgomery declared. “Thank God that He has opened the door [for] … a Secretary of Education who has integrity and a commitment to make sure that our children are educated.”
Another black leader, Howard Fuller, Ph.D., who served as superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, declared that his experience in education taught him that “one of the things that does work is parent choice.” He supported DeVos as a champion of that kind of choice.
“Betsy DeVos understands the importance of parent choice, particularly for low-income and working-class families,” Fuller declared in a video for the American Federation for Children. “She will fight hard to give children access to great schools, regardless of their zip codes. Betsy is a proven reformer, who will take on protectors of the status quo and the special interests to ensure that all of our children receive a quality education.”
Ever since Trump announced DeVos as his pick for Education secretary, the philanthropist has taken heat as a religious extremist, an elitist, and some liberals have even subtly implied that she is a racist. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As these black leaders explained, DeVos will challenge the teachers’ union status quo. Five years into Common Core, U.S. 15-year-olds are behind 35 other countries in math!
School choice will help the least privileged by allowing parents to send their kids to better schools, and perhaps allowing the bad public schools to lose students and maybe even get shut down. Schools badly need real accountability, and the best way to provide that is by allowing parents to choose where their children go to school.
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