WSJ Editorial Invites Ed. Sec Betsy Billionaire DeVos to Destroy Public Education

Not That She Needed An Invitation

The strident ugly hatred of conservatives is always on display on the Op/Ed pages of the Wall Street Journal.  So it is no surprise that rather than celebrating the confirmation of one of their own, Betsy (I never saw a public school I didn't hate) DeVos as Secretary of Education they attacked Democrats for their futile attempt to derail the appointment.

"Why is Betsy DeVos the one nominee Democrats go all out to defeat?

The answer is the cold-blooded reality of union power and money. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are, along with environmentalists, the most powerful forces in today’s Democratic Party. They elect Democrats, who provide them more jobs and money, which they spend to elect more Democrats, and so on. To keep this political machine going, they need to maintain their monopoly control over public education."

What's her virtue? Well there is this

"Mrs. DeVos isn’t a product of that monopoly system."

Well that's pretty obvious, otherwise she would have at least some compassion and understanding of public education. And maybe, just maybe Dems and others were opposed to her because she is totally and completely unqualified for the job. Eli Broad, a very rich man and supporter with money and writings for charter schools was opposed to her.

And so what do they want the billionaire to do? Well this.

"All you need to know about today’s Democratic Party is that this is precisely the reason the party went to such extraordinary lengths to destroy her. We trust she realizes that her best revenge will be to use every resource of her new job to press the campaign for charter schools and vouchers from coast to coast."

Yeah, we would have thought a decent and compassionate WSJ would want her to work to improve public schools, you know, where a huge majority of non-billionaire kids will be educated. But as we say, that would have required decency and compassion.  And if the WSJ really wanted to know why Dems and two Republicans voted against her, and they don't, here is the NYT editorial explaiining it to them.

"She has never run, taught in, attended or sent a child to an American public school, and her confirmation hearings laid bare her ignorance of education policy and scorn for public education itself. She has donated millions to, and helped direct, groups that want to replace traditional public schools with charter schools and convert taxpayer dollars into vouchers to help parents send children to private and religious schools.

While her nomination gave exposure to an honest and passionate debate about charter schools as an alternative to traditional public schools, her hard-line opposition to any real accountability for these publicly funded, privately run schools undermined their founding principle as well as her support. Even champions of charters, like the philanthropist Eli Broad and the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, opposed her nomination."