Jared Kushner was a person supportive of Mitt Romney, James Mattis, and Michelle Rhee. His political ideology is unknown but appears to be moderate - somewhere along the lines of Mattie and Zinke.
Rhee and Mattis are not exactly moderates in their respective fields of expertise.
Jared Kushner was a person supportive of Mitt Romney, James Mattis, and Michelle Rhee. His political ideology is unknown but appears to be moderate - somewhere along the lines of Mattie and Zinke.
In all seriousness, is there a huge difference between Rhee and DeVos on charter policy? Or would both be equally controversial with teacher unions
There isn't much difference. DeVos was a big donor to Rhee's school initiatives, and ideologically they are basically the same on education, with the only significant exception I can see that DeVos has in the past been more focused on promoting religious private education, which Rhee doesn't care about. Choosing Rhee would have been smart politically because Rhee is connected to a number of high-profile Democrats (and also a registered Democrat herself) and thus difficult to oppose, but her positions on charter schools, teachers' unions, standardized testing, etc. are quite on the extreme of even the school reform movement. In any case, I doubt the Democrats want to burn political capital fighting about the education secretary when the alternatives are not much better anyway.
Obviously both would be hated by teachers' unions, but that's true of any hypothetical appointment by any Republican president at this point. Rhee would probably have incited even more vitriol because she is a more known figure in education circles, while DeVos has in the past mostly been a behind-the-scenes actor. The real question should be how the potential choices are received by school reform moderates, who dislike the unions but also dislike the extremism of Rhee and DeVos.
Hmmm that's interesting. I didn't know that about Rhee. Why didn't he pick her then to look bi-partisan (lol)?
I've been assuming DeVos was a Pence pick.
That's a more comforting scenario, than "he wanted to make nice to the guy with the private army".
Rhee and Moskovitz were the first choices, as I understand, but both turned him down. Then I think Pence suggested DeVos.
At least that's what I've come to understand
