Detroit Free Press Staff and News Services

WASHINGTON — Billionaire philanthropist and public education backer Eli Broad, who has strong Michigan roots, is urging senators to vote against the nomination of Betsy DeVos, saying President Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary is “unprepared and unqualified for the position.”

Broad, a product of Detroit Public Schools and Michigan State University, writes in a letter to senators that if DeVos were confirmed, “much of the good work that has been accomplished to improve public education for all of America’s children could be undone.”

Broad says the country needs an education secretary “who believes in public education and the need to keep public schools public.”

DeVos is a billionaire Republican donor from Grand Rapids who also has spent more than two decades promoting charter schools. Broad has given millions toward programs aimed at improving public education.

DeVos's nomination already is on thin ice after two Republican senators vowed Wednesday to vote against her.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska delivered statements from the floor of the U.S. Senate saying they could not support DeVos' nomination, questioning both her experience and commitment to public schools.

"Mrs. DeVos is the product of her experience," said Collins. "She appears to view education through the lens of her experience of promoting alternatives to public education in Detroit and other cities."

Collins went on to say that DeVos' "concentration on charter schools and vouchers raises the question about whether or not she fully appreciates that the secretary of education's primary focus must be on helping states and communities … strengthen our public schools."

Charter schools are typically public schools that operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools and outside traditional geographic boundaries. Vouchers refer to systems in which public school funding may move with a student to a different school that the student or his or her parents choose. Both have been criticized by some of undermining traditional public education systems.

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"I think Mrs. DeVos has much to learn about our nation's public schools," said Murkowski. Like Collins, she raised concerns that DeVos' lack of experience with public schools and concentration on charter schools and vouchers worries educators and parents in rural areas of states like hers, where those alternatives are unavailable.

"She has been so involved in one side (of school vouchers and school choice), she may be unaware of what actually is successful within public schools and what is broke and how to fix them," Murkowski added.

DeVos has emerged as one of Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks facing fierce opposition from Democrats, teachers unions and civil rights activists. With Collins and Murkowski in opposition, the nomination could die if DeVos loses the support of one more Republican — and all Democrats vote against her.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who serves as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that voted 12-11 on Tuesday to send DeVos' nomination to the full Senate for consideration, said Wednesday he remained "confident" that she would be confirmed as secretary of the U.S. Department of Education in a vote that could come as early as this weekend.

Broad and his wife, Edythe Broad, have given millions of dollars to MSU, where his name is on the business school and an art museum on the East Lansing campus. He made his fortune in home building and life insurance. In a 2014 opinion piece in the Free Press, he credited DPS and MSU as the foundation of his success.

According to a 2015 Los Angeles Times article, Broad and his wife, through their Broad Foundation, have invested $144 million in charter schools in L.A. and elsewhere. The Times went on to say that the foundation also "has granted funds to the California Community Foundation and the United Way of Greater Los Angeles to support Education Matters, a new Times digital initiative devoted to more in-depth reporting on schools."

Broad, who graduated from Central High School in Detroit, has maintained ties to the Detroit school district and the city. He was a key backer of the Education Achievement Authority, a state district that opened in 2012 and was aimed at turning around some of the worst-performing schools in the state, though it had only taken on Detroit schools.

Broad helped fund the EAA, donating $10 million in 2013.

Leaders from the EAA were tied to Broad, too. John Covington, the first chancellor for the EAA, and Veronica Conforme, who succeeded him, were part of Broad’s efforts to develop urban school leaders.

Broad, a Democrat, said in a 2013 commentary in the Free Press that the EAA was a path of success for students and that he supported the expansion of the district to take schools beyond Detroit.

“We are motivated by only one goal: to provide an equal opportunity for every child in Michigan — regardless of family income or background — to receive a world-class education. And we want to make sure that public schools remain public.”

In 2003, Broad gave DPS a $6-million grant to help recruit and train Detroit students to become teachers in the district.

And when Robert Bobb was appointed by the state to be the emergency financial manager for DPS, Broad’s foundation paid a portion of his salary and a large chunk of the contract for a consultant hired to work with the district.

Free Press staff writer Todd Spangler, the Los Angeles Times (TNS) and Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Jennifer C. Kerr and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.