Ten years ago, Dick DeVos , while running for governor of Michigan, said that schools should have the option of teaching intelligent design alongside evolution. According to the definition, intelligent design (ID) is the pseudo-scientific view that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for U.S. secretary of education is Dick’s wife Betsy, who runs side by side with her husband “The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation”. The Foundation's giving, according to its website, is motivated by faith, and "is centered in cultivating leadership, accelerating transformation and leveraging support in five areas", namely education, community, arts, justice, and leadership.
During his campaign, back in 2006, Dick DeVos said school districts should be able to teach the idea that a higher power created life on earth. “That theory and others that would be considered credible would expose our students to more ideas, not less,” he suggested. Dick DeVos, heir to the marketing company Amway, is a member of one of America’s richest families. On Wednesday, Trump announced his selection of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary. The couple’s family foundation backs causes like charter schools and school voucher programs.
Critics say that teaching intelligent design in schools amounts to an attack on the separation of church and state. Teaching intelligent design as science violates the First Amendment by promoting “a particular version of Christianity” according to a Dover case from 2005 in which The Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation gave money to the Thomas More Law Center, the group that stood for the idea of intelligent design. The Dover case was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design.
Maggie Garrett, legislative director for the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told HuffPost that “intelligent design isn’t science, it is a religion.” Garrett also has concerns about Betsy DeVos’ support for school voucher programs. DeVos has worked to expand support and access to school vouchers and charter schools, which are privately run and publicly funded. These programs allow students to use taxpayer money to attend private schools ― which are sometimes religious. Trump said during the campaign he supports vouchers and charter schools, and will be “the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice.”
Trump’s choice of DeVos for education secretary has encountered an acceptance from school choice groups like the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Mr. Trump is very optimistic about Betsy DeVos’ future leadership of the US education system and he said: “Under her leadership we will reform the US education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families.”
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