(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) (Carolyn Kaster/AP)President-elect Donald Trump intends to name Betsy DeVos, a conservative activist and billionaire philanthropist who has pushed forcefully for private school voucher programs nationwide, as his nominee for education secretary, according to a person close to DeVos. DeVos donated money to Republican primary contenders Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush before throwing her support behind Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). “Together, we can work to make transformational change to ensure every student has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential.”Teachers unions and other proponents of public schools immediately decried DeVos’s nomination as a catastrophic attack on public education. Several recent studies have found that voucher recipients’ math and reading test scores decline after they transfer from public to private schools. But other studies have found that voucher recipients are more likely to enroll in and complete college than their counterparts who attend public schools.

Source: Washington Post November 23, 2016 18:19 UTC