Betsy DeVos has been the Secretary of Education for three years, making her one of President Donald Trump’s longest-serving Cabinet members (no small feat in a cabinet with such high turnover). Who can forget her infamous Senate confirmation hearing, where she talked about grizzly bears and was confused about the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, which helps special education students, or when Vice President Mike Pence cast a tiebreaking vote to confirm her appointment after she got more “no” votes than any education secretary nominee ever? How the time flies!
But in three short years, the damage she’s done is already legendary. Since her confirmation, DeVos has waged a full-blown crusade against the students and communities that her office should be serving. She has used her position as education secretary to pursue her own political agenda — protecting corporate interests at the expense of the very schools, students and educators she was appointed to protect. Her tenure is marked by repeated efforts to take away rights from teachers, protections from students, and resources from public schools; her pattern of malpractice has put the future of public education and higher education at risk.
Here are a few of the ways we’ve seen DeVos hurt students, educators, and communities during her three years in office so far:
1. She's tried to cut school programs that actually help kids.
DeVos has actively pushed for slashing the Department of Education’s budget by $9 billion. Through her tenure, she, at various times, has proposed cuts to funding for civil rights investigations, after-school and school lunch programs, and even the Special Olympics.
For three straight years, DeVos and Trump have proposed eliminating the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative, which provides high-quality after-school programs to students nationwide.
2. Under her watch, the administration has rolled back rules to protect women, LGBTQ students, and students of color.
The Trump administration cut protections for transgender students during DeVos’s first month in office. She has made it harder for victims of sexual harassment and assault to seek justice by changing campus sexual assault polices, and she repealed rules from President Barack Obama’s administration that attempted to reduce racist disciplinary policies targeting students.
In fact, under her leadership, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights became less likely to stop discrimination overall, siding with students less than the Obama administration did.
3. She’s chosen corporations over borrowers, making the student debt crisis worse.
DeVos has sided with corporate interests over students; in the process, her policy moves have often favored those collecting student loans over those paying them back.
She’s made it easier for companies like Navient to engage in what state governments have called deceptive collection practices. Last year, we filed a lawsuit against DeVos for mismanaging the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which was enacted in 2007, for which the first crop of enrollees were eligible in 2017 on her watch; relief was denied for 99% of the teachers, nurses, and public employees who applied.
She has also made it easier for for-profit colleges to defraud students by repealing the “gainful employment” rule that regulates shady programs that promise degrees and don’t deliver, and then made it harder for defrauded students to seek debt relief. Last year a judge held her in contempt of court for violating a court order to stop collecting loans from students of a defunct for-profit college.
DeVos’s actions have been so egregious that we’ve sued her twice to help students.
4. She’s supported legislative attacks on working people.
In 2018, she showed up to a Supreme Court hearing when a plaintiff whose case against unions made it all the way to the high court, and has had a pattern of anti-union activity. When the employees at the Department of Education tried to exercise their voice at work through their union, her Department of Education refused to bargain with them.
5. She doesn’t listen to teachers.
For the person charged with overseeing America’s schools, it’s shocking that DeVos isn’t exactly a fan of teachers. In October, she called teachers unions “bullies” and, in February 2018, literally locked teachers union leaders out of the Department of Education when they were trying to deliver a message.
After educators spoke out to say they didn’t want to carry guns in the classroom, as Trump proposed, DeVos’s Federal Commission on School Safety lauded programs that train and arm teachers.
Not long after she was confirmed in February 2017, she even criticized teachers in Washington, D.C., after she paid them a visit, prompting an epic series of Twitter clapbacks from their school.
6. She's diverted public funds to private schools instead of strengthening public schools.
DeVos routinely proposes expanding voucher and charter programs that drain money away from public schools with little track record of student success. In fact, some of the schools she’s proposed giving federal funds to have discriminatory policies against LGBTQ students and staff, a strategy that, in 2018, she finally said she didn’t support.
7. She’s wasted taxpayer money on personal security.
Shortly after her confirmation, DeVos decided to have 24-hour armed security at the expense of taxpayers. She’s spending millions per year for armed guards while cutting programs for students in poverty. Estimates show that her over-the-top security detail could cost the American people more than $26 million by the end of the president’s first term.
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Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Betsy DeVos Says She Wants to Keep Schools Safe and Equitable. Her Policies Tell a Different Story
