Betsy DeVos is one of President-elect Donald Trump's latest appointments. Trump tapped her to be secretary of education — an area she's spent her entire professional life working to reform.
DeVos comes from a wealthy Republican family in Michigan and is a long-time advocate for charter schools and voucher programs, which allow low-income families to send their children to private schools.
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With the financial and political support of her family, DeVos founded several school-choice advocacy groups, including the American Federation for Children, where she currently acts as chairwoman.
"Our work, our effort, is revolutionary. ... It's about a transfer of power from the system to the parent and child," DeVos said at the 2015 American Federation for Children Summit.
Supporters champion school-choice programs as a free-market solution to failing public schools, giving parents more options on where their children go to school.
"The reality is, we have been stuck in a factory model of education for 150 years. We're not a factory model of society anymore," DeVos said.
Charter-school opponents say voucher programs only weaken the public school system and take resources away from schools that need it most.
