The Miseducation of Betsy DeVos

For almost twenty-five years, Betsy Devos has arguably been the most dogged political operative in the movement to privatize public education. DeVos is a disciple of Milton Friedman, patron saint of the free market—a fact that justifiably panics supporters of public education. Friedman's plan boils down to this: taxpayer funding but private control. Today Betsy DeVos and other free-market education reformers support privately run charter schools, financed directly by the government, not by student voucher money. It’s a wealth of privatized choices meant to squeeze out, as much as possible, the least appealing alternative for free-market ed reformers: neighborhood public schools.