CCC Endorses Trump call to “make education great again, Asks you to call your 2 US Senators this morning
Obama Education Dept. is the culprit forcing local schools to allow men to use girls’ bathrooms
Labor Unions, Gay and LGTB Groups, Democrats Focus on defeating Betsy DeVos
(CCC News) Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is one of the top targets of Senate Democrats for defeat as early as this morning – Monday 2/6/17 – because of her longstanding advocacy of school choice, where parents who wish to send their children to a charter school or a private school or even be homeschooled, are allowed these choices as alternatives to the local government-run, lower quality, monopoly public school system.
Urgent: call your 2 Senators this morning (202) 224-3121
With two Republican U.S. Senators saying they will vote against confirming her it will just take one more Republican Senator to defect to give President Trump his first high profile failure as President. The Conservative Christian Center strongly urges church going Christians to take the time on Monday morning to telephone your two U.S. Senators, focusing special attention on Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA) because he always poses as a moderate Democrat and often gets away with voting a “party line liberal Democrat” line.
In a state that voted to elect Donald Trump as President, we think Senator Casey is persuadable if he gets enough phone calls from church going Christians in Pennsylvania.
Call Senator Casey right now this morning at (202) 224-6324 and urge him to vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the Department of Education.
Why are Democrats and their allied pressure groups and labor unions so mad about Betsy DeVos?
One way of funding school choice is to allow corporations to donate to an education fund with the dollars given allowed as a credit against the taxes the corporation would owe, and then the school choice fund provides vouchers to parents for use to pay the tuition for their children at the school of they select.
“The more choices parents have the better the quality of education,” said Betsy DeVos in a Fox Business Network TV debate (to watch the debate click HERE). “Why not give the parents this choice,” asks Fox Business Network’s John Stossell in this TV interview with the billionaire wife of former Amway President Dick DeVos?
DeVos, whose father in law Richard DeVos, served as President of the American Chamber of Commerce, noted that the alternative, private schools competing with the government funded and operated schools have less funds available to them, yet their students outperform the government educated children.
Giving parents a choice where their children will be educated empowers them to do their duty as Christians and as good citizens – to make sure their own children have the very best education possible.
School choice also creates an atmosphere of competition among schools, improving the service they offer to parents and children. This isn’t something you will hear advocated by the liberal-left, which hates the idea of parents having any choice in education even more than they hate giving our citizens choices instead of government monopoly everywhere they can, from medical insurance to education and so much more.
Betsy DeVos has given time, energy and money for the school choice cause over many years, which makes her a top target of the left after her nomination by Donald Trump. With the U.S. Senate divided 52 Republicans to 48 Democrats, the Democrats just need several of the moderate Republicans to join them in opposing Betsy DeVos to defeat this Education Department Secretary nominee of Donald Trump.
In a statement supporting his nominee, President-elect Donald Trump said, “Under her leadership we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families,” (Associated Press).
“The idea that some government bureaucrats in our state capital of Harrisburg or off in Washington DC can do a better of deciding how our children are to be educated rather than their own parents here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is just silly” said Ross Cleveland, the organizer of a recent meeting in Carlisle at which a Director of the Conservative Christian Center, Kevin Peterson, was the featured speaker.
Cleveland, named as the CCC Coordinator for South Central Pennsylvania, added, “It is obvious that the secular left is determined not to allow parents to have alternatives to their big labor union dominated, secular education system monopoly. It is clear that most Democrats are fully aware that many of those parents are going to choose a school that teaches their children about the centrality of faith in their life, critical life lessons from the Bible, the belief in a personal savior, Jesus Christ, who values them as individuals and gives them as young adults, choices to make which will affect not only the rest of their life on earth but how they spend eternity.”
The left and their labor union allies are determined to defeat this nomination, with American Federation of Teachers labor union President Randi Weingarten claiming that Donald Trump’s goal is “privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.”
Another defender of monopoly power of your children for his labor union school teachers, National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia said DeVos’ “efforts over the years have done more to undermine public education than support students.” (Associated Press).
“There are a lot of pointed questions I plan to ask” said one senior Senator, Ron Wyden (D-Oregan). The New York Times reported “Democrats hope that moderate Republicans, especially those up for re-election in two years, will face an uncomfortable vote.”
This explains why the nomination hearings for Betsy DeVos were the nastiest of any of President Trump’s cabinet nominees, and a likely harbinger of things to come for his Supreme Court nominee.
The leftist onslaught against DeVos has resulted in two dramatic defections, announced in Senate speeches – the usually reliable moderates, Senator Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). The loss of the two Senators means that there is a dead even, 50-50 U.S. Senate split, with Vice President Mike Pence ready to break the tie and help President Trump’s nominee win.
But the leftwing and liberal media attacks continue, aiming to produce one more Republican Senator as a “no” vote to send the DeVos nomination down to the first major defeat for President Donald Trump.
The Nation chimed in, calling Trump’s Cabinet nominees a “basket of deplorables” and singling out Betsy DeVos as “yet another billionaire” and (gasp!!) “…sent her children to private schools and has crusaded to privatize public education.”
One of the most influential lobbies within Democratic Party circles also made clear they are going all out to sink the Trump nomination of Betsy DeVos.
Chad Griffin, President of the Human Rights Campaign (sic) which advocates for gay (now they call it LGBT) rights, complained, “”The DeVos family has a long, well-documented history of funding organizations dedicated to undermining and restricting the rights of LGBTQ people” (Politico).
This is a particularly sensitive issue for church going, conservative Christians also known as the “values voters” who CCC speaks for. The Obama Administration’s Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education which will be led by Betsy DeVos if the Senate approves her, has taken a leading role on the gay-LGBT issue in the past.
“It urged schools to extend anti-bullying policies to cover LGBT students. Using “Dear Colleague” letters, it has called on schools to allow LGBT student groups on campuses. Most recently, it cited Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex, to protect the right of transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.” (Politico).
Conservative Christian Center urges all Senators to vote YES on the President-Elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
CCC South Central Pennsylvania Coordinator Ross Cleveland said the 82% of church going Christians who voted for Donald Trump are highly motivated to demand that both Senators from Pennsylvania vote to approve this nominee.
Senator Murkowski cited “thousands, truly thousands” of her constituents who called her to oppose the nomination as her reason to defect.
Urgent: call your 2 Senators this morning (202) 224-3121 demand a YES vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the Department of Education. This is the closest vote of any nominee, so don’t delay, make that call this morning.
Betsy DeVos tweeted, “I am honored to work with the President on his vision to make American education great again. The status quo is not acceptable.”
Critics of the DeVos nomination attempted to peel off the support of church going Christians by claiming that Betsy DeVos has supported Common Core in the past, which they and President-Elect Trump strongly oppose.
DeVos countered by writing that she had originally supported the idea of standards for schoolchildren but quickly became disenchanted as they “got turned into a federalized boondoggle.” She now opposes Common Core, saying “I am not a supporter – period.”
We are well aware that Betsy DeVos has not always supported the more conservative alternatives available in GOP primaries. For example, at age 18 she campaigned actively for President Gerald Ford of her own state of Michigan, instead of Ronald Reagan.
This past year she supported Jeb Bush for President, considered the last place or next to last place choice for most values voters. However, values voters appreciate that she has been one of the leading proponents in America for improving education rather than allowing our students to be the hostages of big labor unions.
“DeVos’ support of school choice goes back more than 20 years. She was politically involved in the passage of Michigan’s charter school bill in 1993 and worked on an unsuccessful effort to change Michigan’s state constitution to allow tax-credit scholarships or vouchers. She has described that loss as her biggest setback” (Fortune).
Senator Lamar Alexander, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee which just reported out the DeVos nomination for a floor vote as early as this morning, said he expects DeVos “to stop the Obama administration’s effort to turn the federal government into a ‘national school board.’” (Washington Post)
CCC Action
We urge our readers to actively support this nomination by President-Elect Trump of Betsy DeVos, champion of school choice and local and parental control of education of our students.
And you should write to your own two U.S. Senators. Ross Cleveland said church-going, conservative Christians in Pennsylvania should let their two U.S. Senators know we want Betsy DeVos approved.
It is too late to mail a letter although a visit if you are within drive distance, either to a local district office or to the Washington, DC office, would be most helpful.
You may write a letter (if you can hand deliver or fax it), use their website to write an “electronic” message, telephone, to make your views known (or do all of these):
Hon. Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA)
393 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington DC, 20510
(202) 224-6324
Electronic: www.casey.senate.gov/contact/
Hon. Patrick J. Toomey (R-PA)
248 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington DC, 20510
(202) 224-4254
Electronic: www.toomey.senate.gov/?p=contact
Of course our friends from around the country should be doing the same thing – pressing your two Senators to vote YES on President-Elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos.
You can look up the contact information for your U.S. Senator (either using his name or by searching by the name of your state), HERE.
We urge you to write to us with any response you get – whether it is written, email or notes from your phone call to your two U.S. Senators and the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee (or their staff you speak to) , so that we can report this information in followup stories (be sure to let us know if we can mention you by name, or not). Write Editor@ConservativeChristianCenter.org.
Conservative Christian Center strongly urges you our readers, to communicate to your Senators and to the Senate Education Committee Chairman, your wish that they approve this nomination of Betsy DeVos and also asks you to lend your financial support to help fund this and its other work, donate HERE.
We may have some volunteers but a website, news releases, meeting notices, newsletters all cost money we don’t have and won’t have without help. We ask our readers to pitch in right now.
The Conservative Christian Center works to increase the number and influence of Christians in public policy and civics, and promotes the Christian traditions of America. For those who wish to attend future meetings in the South Central Pennsylvania area including at and near Carlisle, York and Mechanicsburg, write SouthCentralPA@ConservativeChristianCenter.org.