American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten says Trump Education Secretary Betsy Devos is on a mission not to save and improve public education but to essentially destroy it.
Weingarten says Devos is part of America's billionaire class and they have no desire to improve the lives of working Americans - whether it's education, a voice on the job or healthcare.
Weingarten says on education billionaires are trying to seduce the public with false promises while systematically taking apart public education in the process.
Randi Weingarten: "With the fierce anti-union animus that we've seen from the Chamber of Commerce and from all of these ga-zillionaires, they don't want regular folks to have a voice. And they don't want teachers to have a voice, they don't want workers to have a voice.
But they also don't want their kids to have a real public education."
Weingarten describes what Devos is trying to do to public education.
Randi Weingarten: "She's a public school denier. And she is the most ideological Secretary of Education that's ever served in that position.
And her MO in Michigan was to de-fund and destabilize public schools. Not to simply promote various different private choices, but to intentionally try to undermine any public choices for parents.
What she's also done is try to to eliminate the core equity ingredients that the federal government has provided to schools and to poor children since Lyndon Johnson was president.
So, get rid of all after school programs, all of the community learning programs that have helped feed kids, have helped kids have custodial care so their parents could work after school."