Betsy DeVos is no longer former President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education, but that hasn’t stopped the Republican donor from actively making moves to “destroy” the public school system.
That’s according to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who came on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast to share exactly how DeVos, “one of Michigan’s least popular people,” is working to undermine public education.
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Her latest move: Financially backing an advocacy group that’s supporting Paul Vallas’ campaign for mayor in Chicago, a candidate who—shocker—backs charter schools and vouchers for private schools.
“This is what DeVos does,” Weingarten tells co-host, Danielle Moodie. “They starve public schools of the funds they need to succeed. They then criticize them for their shortcomings. They erode the trust in public schools by stoking fear and division. And then they replace public schools with private, religious, online, and home schools.”
“And frankly that’s how he’s running right now,” she adds of Vallas. “A fear campaign in Chicago, creating this kind of division now paid for by people like the richest former people who lived in Illinois.”
But this is one of a few moves DeVos has made, says Weingarten, telling Danielle all about how the Republican has “saddled” up with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Weingarten also shares her take on mass shootings in schools, (“They’ll ban a book before they’ll even talk about what to do with assault weapons”) as well as the state of teaching in America because of it all.
“It’s really remarkable that people stay in the profession,” she says.
Also in this episode: Hosts Danielle and Andy Levy listen to clips of Lauren Boebert getting owned over “public urination” and Trump saying truly dumb things, including that he may not love his children.
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
