Why parents are concerned about Trump’s appointment for USED

Many of the parents who have been active in combating Common Core and its many tentacles in the past six years are expressing amazement at the appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. One such parent, Jenni White, Education Director of Reclaim Oklahoma Parent Empowerment (ROPE), posted a long blog on Thursday, November 24, 2016, in which she listed several major concerns. They can be summarized as follows:

DeVos has no direct public education experience.  DeVos has not worked in public education and has no public education experience, other than through philanthropy.  Moreover, she attended private schools and sent her children to private schools. As White noted, "There's EVERYTHING wrong with rich people pushing policy to which neither the philanthropist nor their kids are subject." Anti-Common Core activists have expressed similar concerns about Jeb Bush (who created the pro-Common Core Foundation for Excellence in Education), Bill and Melinda Gates, Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil, and others who seek to reshape public education to fit their view of the workforce, but exclude from decision-making conversations the parents of the kids whose education they want to "transform."