It is official – even when it comes to the nation’s children and their right to a fair, thorough education, the Republicans refuse to climb down off of their partisan wall to oppose the President on even the most basic and common-sense issues.
On Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos was confirmed by the Senate in a 50-50 tie which was then broken by Vice President Mike Pence.
This comes after Democrats in the Senate protested on the floor for more than 24 hours in response to calls from their constituents to say “No” to DeVos. Democrats had hoped to win just one more negative vote from a Republican after two had committed to voting against DeVos. Unfortunately, they were unable to flip another Republican, resulting in the tie-breaking vote.
During her Senate Confirmation Hearing, DeVos repeatedly demonstrated her refusal to respect even the most basic tenets of U.S. law, choosing instead to leave issues like disability education up to the states to decide. DeVos could not answer Al Franken’s question about popular education philosophy, and repeatedly refused to say whether she would respect disability law.
DeVos even was accused of plagiarizing several of her responses to a Senate questionnaire, even taking answers from Obama-era officials.
DeVos is heavily in favor of charter schools and appears to know nothing about public schools, which is why she has also been strongly opposed by the Teacher’s union which feared her confirmation might take more funding from already over-budgeted public schools.
Neither she nor her children have ever stepped foot inside of a public school, and as Elizabeth Warren put it, the only knowledge the woman has of student loans is being on the lender side of things.
Despite all this and so much more, the shockingly unqualified woman will now head the Department of Education, committing untold amounts of damage to the nation’s children and their future. Republicans had a chance to do the right thing and again, they failed.
