“Just Cut a Small Piece of Cake, and Give Me the Rest”

Wealth and the DeVos Educational Agenda, Part 1b

Thomas Hobbes on the left, John Calvin on the right (collage by the author, from public domain paintings)

Introduction

This multi-part analysis of the educational agenda of Betsy DeVos began as a simple rant. I knew that the Secretary of Education had been raised as a Dutch Calvinist in the Christian Reformed Church, and I prepared to paint her as just another conservative trying to force her religious values on the nation.

But I soon discovered I was missing the big picture (funny how research changes things). There were three basic problems with my initial “hypothesis”:

• “Thousands of alumni of DeVos’ alma mater, the private Christian liberal arts school Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, [in 2016] signed a letter opposing her nomination” as Secretary of Education because they believed that her attitude toward private schools would undermine the principles of public education. (Politico)
• John Calvin was not opposed to the accumulation of wealth, but he argued that the advantage of owning more obligated the rich to help alleviate the suffering of the poor (which DeVos has certainly not sought to do in the case of impoverished students defrauded by Corinthian and other predatory for-profit colleges).
• Betsy and Dick DeVos have not been affiliated with the…