I must disagree with Barbara Bush’s commentary endorsing Betsy DeVos for secretary of education (Jan. 13).

First and foremost is that Ms. DeVos is a billionaire who donated $9.5 million to Donald Trump’s campaign. She has no education degree. She has no public education experience, and she does not support public education, but she has invested $200 million in Christian school education. She has not worked in a public school, she was not educated in a public school and she did not educate her own children in a public school.

Her real focus is to promote Christianity in poorly regulated, for-profit charter schools. For these reasons Mrs. Bush’s position is fundamentally flawed. The Michigan schools where Ms. DeVos had an impact have had a decline in proficiency. Mrs. Bush did not cite any research to back her assessment of Ms. DeVos.

It does appear that Ms. DeVos wants taxpayer money to fund and promote Christian education and charter schools. In this manner, funding is pulled away from our public schools, which then diminishes our ability to improve our public schools.

According to Mrs. Bush, her friend Betsy is an “educator at heart.” That may well be, but our public school educators work for years to get degrees in education including bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and doctoral degrees. Our committed teachers and educators in all fields typically put their own money into supplies and materials for classroom work in order to teach public school children who are not able to afford private schools.

Rather than pulling monies away from public education and putting our education system into the hands of a novice, we need highly skilled educators to assess and improve on the amazing work that our educators do to educate kids from all over America. Please let your voices be heard in this very serious nomination for secretary of education. What is Barbara Bush thinking?

Elizabeth Perry, BSW, MEd

Standish