Teachers are seeing (and wearing) red in protest of Secretary of Education pick Betsy DeVos
For reasons known only to him, Donald Trump decided to pick a nominee for Secretary of Education who has never attended a public school, has never sent her kids to a public school, has spent her career trying to bankrupt public schools for her own personal profit, and who has admitted to having no real knowledge of what school teachers even do. And after Betsy DeVos outed herself as being historically inappropriate for the job during her Senate confirmation hearings last week, teachers around the nation are fighting back.
Public school teachers nationwide will be wearing red to work this Wednesday in order to signal their disapproval of Betsy DeVos’ nomination, according to ABC News. Among the numerous objections to DeVos, various teachers have pointed to the moment during her confirmation hearings in which she admitted to Senator Al Franken that she didn’t know the difference between student proficiency and growth — two of the most basic educational concepts.
DeVos also incredibly claimed that schools need guns in case grizzly bears attack, and then claimed not to know she’s been the vice president of an anti-gay group for the past seventeen years, even though tax filings list her in that manner.
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has condemned the DeVos nomination by stating that “In nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.” She then added that “Betsy DeVos is everything Donald Trump said is wrong in America—an ultra-wealthy heiress who uses her money to game the system and push a special-interest agenda that is opposed by the majority of voters. Installing her in the Department of Education is the opposite of Trump’s promise to drain the swamp.”
Palmer Report has heard from school teachers who are both Democrats and Republicans who strongly oppose the nomination of Betsy DeVos due to her sheer ineptness and unfitness. More details on Wednesday’s “wear red” protest can be found here.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report