After pouring millions in to take Tudor Dixon from obscurity to winning the primary, Betsy DeVos and her entire family are doing whatever it takes to drag their handpicked sellout across the finish line in November. Their special interest PAC – which has essentially served as Dixon’s entire campaign apparatus – is spamming the airwaves with another false attempt to distract Michigan families from Dixon’s dangerous plan to enact the DeVos agenda to dismantle public education.
The DeVoses are expected to spend upwards of “$30 million” in Dixon’s favor. Their investment in tandem with other outside groups and opponents have put more than $16 million towards pushing bogus attacks against Governor Whitmer this cycle. Here are the facts:
Dixon Sold Out to Do Betsy DeVos’ Bidding and Rewrite Michigan’s Constitution So She Can Shortchange Our Kids
Tudor Dixon has been one of the most vocal gubernatorial candidates pledging to decimate public education funding by any means necessary. It’s no wonder the DeVos family recently committed to bankrolling her campaign.
Last year, she voiced her support for “the latest effort by legislative Republicans to create a school voucher system in Michigan” and vowed to sign the DeVos-backed attempt to privatize education and siphon up to $500 million annually from public schools into law as governor.
Dixon also announced that repealing Michigan’s constitutional ban on using public money for private education was a top priority for her campaign. Dixon said she “absolutely” backed a tax plan that would slash $3.5 billion from public schools.
Michigan Curriculums Already Can’t Be Crafted Without Significant Parental Involvement
Echoing the same strategy Betsy DeVos has claimed credit for in other states where she has successfully advocated for diverting taxpayer dollars to private institutions at the expense of students, this new family-funded ad offers only misleading information in an attempt to scare people while ignoring the facts. solutions in search of a problem while ignoring the reality of how Michigan works.
State law not only leaves decisions about sex education to local school districts, it also requires districts that do offer any form of sex education “form advisory committees in which at least half its members are parents of students in the district.” Additionally, parents have the ability to opt their child out of sex education in schools where it is offered.
Governor Whitmer Has Repeatedly Supported Parents’ Role in Their Children’s Education
As a parent of two kids who went to Michigan public schools, Governor Whitmer knows how important it is that parents have a say in their children’s education.
Governor Whitmer created the Michigan Parents’ Council to empower more parents in the policymaking process. Representing parents from across the state, the council will host regional roundtables to hear from parents on topics like long-term success for students, the start of the new school year, implementing the education budget, and crafting future investments.
While serving in the legislature, Whitmer voted multiple times in favor of bipartisan legislation requiring schools to involve parents including a bill mandating that schools adopt and implement parent involvement plans “designed to encourage parental participation” in schools.
Governor Whitmer Has Been Working With Anyone to Protect and Strengthen Public Education
Governor Whitmer’s ability to deliver bipartisan wins for Michigan students, teachers, and parents is unmatched. In every year of her first term, she’s made the largest investment in K-12 education in Michigan history – without raising taxes. She has tripled the number of reading coaches, helped reduce class sizes, and closed the school funding gap.
Last year, Governor Whitmer secured a bipartisan $17.1 billion dollar public education budget that completely closed a decades-long state funding gap between school districts, and made the “largest investment in PreK-12 schools in state history” — all without raising taxes.
Governor Whitmer recently signed a historic, bipartisan $19.6 billion School Aid budget. This massive win for working families builds on per pupil investment gains, closes pandemic learning gaps, and retains teachers in their own communities.
As part of the new bipartisan budget, Whitmer recently signed the highest per-pupil state funding in Michigan history – $9,150 for every kid, in every district with a $450 increase. She negotiated resources to recruit more teachers, increase mental health care, improve school facilities, boost “career and technical education programs by 27 percent,” and expand before and after-school programming as well as free tutoring. She secured hundreds of millions of dollars to help schools build new classrooms, labs, and libraries and more on top of that to support every single school with safety initiatives.
DeVos-Backed Special Interest PAC Michigan Families United Continues to Bankroll DeVos Sellout Tudor Dixon
Prepared to bankroll Tudor Dixon’s campaign at any rate necessary, the DeVos family has already “contributed more than $4 million to outside groups,” $1 million of which went to Michigan Families United, a PAC “shrouded in secrecy” that runs the majority of the airwave interference propping up Dixon’s campaign.
But the DeVoses aren’t alone. After they publicly lined up behind her, PACs supporting Dixon funded by other “deep-pocketed donors” were able to spend “a combined $2.18 million” in her favor to drag her through the bitter primary. This outpaces Dixon’s own advertising spending 20 times over and even surpasses what she raised for her campaign in total.
