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Student Life

Hello DeVos, Goodbye Qualifications

To the American Education System... I'm sorry.

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Hello DeVos, Goodbye Qualifications
NBC News

America has yet again proved that we make horrible decisions under pressure. Over the last few months, I've started to lose faith in our government. From electing a reality TV star to be the leader of our nation to making Steve Bannon the White House's chief strategist, I was disgusted.

I'll admit that I usually keep my political opinions to myself on this platform, but I simply can't anymore. I'm not going to talk about the hypocrisy within the Trump administration. I'm not going to talk about the "Travel (Muslim) Ban," because that is a totally different story which I will get very aggressive about. I'm going to talk about the election of Betsy DeVos as our Secretary of Education.

I am in college now. I don't have any younger siblings. Whatever she does will more than likely have little to no effect on me. However, my cousins are still in school. My friend's little brothers are still in school. My best friend will be graduating in two semesters and becoming a teacher. My older cousin is a teacher now. This may not affect me but it will affect them.

I've seen a lot of articles coming out about how Democrats are "painting DeVos in a negative light." That's simply untrue. You see, we're just putting her under the spotlight. We've been attempting to show people how unprepared and underqualified she is to take on this position. We've been calling our Senators in an attempt to give them a real-life / real-people wake-up call, but those calls have been on deaf ears. (Thanks, Senator Toomey.)

Betsy DeVos and her family have donated a significant amount of money to the Republican party and to political figures across our government. That much is true. However, she has never:

- Attended public school
- Sent her children to public school
- Been a teacher
- Been an administrator
- Worked as a state education bureaucrat
- Run a school district

She has shown no evidence that says she is prepared to do this job. This is like letting me become the CEO of a company because I dog-sit for the business owners. It's not a smart move.

Let me be clear when I say, I genuinely hope that DeVos surprises us all. I hope that she makes things easier for kids to go to school. I hope she helps improve the conditions under which my friends and family teach. I just wish our government hadn't put so much blind faith in the woman.

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