Many think schools are failing
“DeVos is clearly bothered by the perception that she’s out to abolish public education in America, mentioning multiple times that it’s the biggest misconception about her. “I mean, nothing could be further from the truth,” she says. “Public schools are great. Great public schools are really great. But no school is as great as it can be.”
Allies point to her surprisingly terse speech to a charter-school conference earlier this year in which she warned that complacency, which she believes has long plagued public schools, was rearing its head in charters as well—and would not be tolerated. The point, they say, is that DeVos has heard the criticism and is determined to champion good schools and chew out bad schools, whether public or private. So far, she has done lots of the former and little of the latter. When DeVos trades in photo ops at phenomenal schools for tough-love discussions at failing ones, the mob of reporters and protesters will get bigger—and so will her bully pulpit." (TIM ALBERTA, The Education of Betsy DeVos)
Betsy DeVos, in theory at least, seems to think all schools are at risk of being bad, and she just focuses on public schools.