Alexandra Berzon and Michael C. Bender report in The New York Times that Donald Trump now relies on Florida Congressman Byron Donalds for advice on education. Think of Byron Donalds as a 2024 version of Betsy DeVos, except that he’s Black, he’s a Congressman, and he’s not a billionaire. In all other respects, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them. Byron Donalds is viewed as a future governor or even Trump’s running mate.
In early 2021, Representative Byron Donalds, Republican of Florida, and his wife, Erika, took the stage at an event hosted by the Truth & Liberty Coalition, a group that pushes to inject Christianity into public schools and other institutions and whose leader has described homosexuality as Satan’s work.
The couple was warmly welcomed as allies in the cause. Mrs. Donalds was singled out for opening a charter school in Florida. As a state legislator, Mr. Donalds had created a school voucher program that, in the words of one speaker, let children “get a biblical worldview education….”
Mr. and Mrs. Donalds were early activists in an increasingly influential network seeking to transform traditional public education — in Florida and beyond. Long before the recent battles over book bans and critical race theory, the effort cast public schools as failing laboratories for liberal ideas and pushed to funnel public education funds into charter or private schools.
Mr. Donalds backed legislation that gave outside groups a bigger say in school curriculums, years before Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida set off a national debate by making it easier for groups to remove books from school libraries and limiting teaching about sexuality and gender.
The couple has deep ties to leading forces in those debates, including Moms for Liberty, Hillsdale College and the Florida Citizens Alliance, which has pushed to remove books that it deems inappropriate from schools. Both Mr. and Mrs. Donalds have made remarks disparaging homosexuality.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Mr. Donalds described heterosexual relationships as “the natural order that keeps society progressing.” In a tweet in 2017, Mrs. Donalds wrote, “Homosexuality is a sin just like any other sexual sin, and all of us sinners need forgiveness & mercy for our shortcomings.”
The couple’s work has been both advocacy and income. As Mr. Donalds pushed legislation expanding access to charter schools and voucher programs, Mrs. Donalds began to build a company and a nonprofit that took advantage of that expansion.
“Byron and Erika have been known for years in Florida as warriors in the fight for all children to have a quality education,” said Tina Descovich, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group that began in Florida but has emerged as a political power broker. “That reputation is spreading nationally.”As Mr. Trump campaigns, he has embraced the new education politics, suggesting that public schools have been overrun by “pink-haired communists” and promising to close the Department of Education if re-elected. And he has surrounded himself with like-minded supporters, such as the Donaldses….
It was Mrs. Donalds, whom he met in college, who drew him into evangelical Christianity. His full conversion came when he was 22, waiting tables at Cracker Barrel. He felt the call and “gave my life to Christ,” he said….
In 2017, Mr. Donalds was sworn in to the Florida House of Representatives, serving a Naples-area district. That same year, Mrs. Donalds started OptimaEd, a charter school management operation.
The couple’s work often intersected. Mr. Donalds was a co-sponsor for a bill that, among many other things, allowed charter schools to secure additional funding from local tax initiatives. He backed term limits for school board members, a proposal that Mrs. Donalds had long sought as a way to force turnover and potentially open up seats for charter school advocates…
In 2022, Mrs. Donalds was managing several charter schools in Florida. According to contracts, her company was paid a share — around 10 percent — of the schools’ public funding to provide human resources, marketing and other services. That year, the company collected about $4 million in public money and put around $2.6 million back into the schools, public records show, while Mrs. Donalds was paid a salary of about $180,000.
Those figures became a source of tension with the schools. Since then, three charter schools managed by OptimaEd ended their contracts with the company amid complaints that it was putting too little money back into the schools, according to public records and three people involved in the schools who asked for anonymity to discuss private negotiations.
Mrs. Donalds did not respond to a request for comment.
She has increasingly focused her business on an online academy and virtual classes that accept vouchers. In 2017, her husband led a successful effort to offer the private school tuition reimbursements to students who said they were bullied. Last year, Florida went much further, expanding its voucher programs to all students, regardless of circumstances or income, and opening a new flow of public money to private schools.
Seeding the ‘parents’ rights’ debate
Advocates described how the couple had helped lay the groundwork for pandemic-era policies that put Florida at the center of the education debate.
In 2015, Mrs. Donalds started a network of conservative school board members with women who went on to lead Moms for Liberty. (Mrs. Donalds is a Moms for Liberty adviser.)
The Donaldses were some of the first members of the Florida Citizens Alliance, according to the group’s founder, Keith Flaugh. The alliance has pushed to remove books from schools that it claims indoctrinate children with liberal ideas, including Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and other classics from African American authors.
“That year, the company collected about $4 million in public money and put around $2.6 million back into the schools, public records show, while Mrs. Donalds was paid a salary of about $180,000.”
Grifters be grifting. What else is new?
Amazing that Alexandra and Mike could determine what DT relies on. Even if he told them he relied on Byron, he’s been known to talk shit. Besides, anyone who has played their part on the big capitol hill stage, would know who calls the shots. The power of the appointed continues to eclipse the power of the electorate…
Corruption runs deep in Florida. The GOP leadership consists of assorted grifters, vandals, political and religious fanatics. While there is nothing wrong with a religious education, the public should not be compelled to finance it. We are a secular nation in which all may worship freely. We have no state religion, and we should not be transferring public funds from the public system causing undue harm to the majority to benefit religious schools of any kind, IMO.
Funding obligations seem to be a matter of belief statements. The public should not be compelled to finance RELIGIOUS beliefs. The public shall be compelled to finance STATE beliefs, ’cause it’s not called a religion. In the STATE we trust. The STATE shed it’s grace on us. STATE bless America. One nation, under STATE… I swear to tell the truth so help me STATE. Manleyfest Destiny, the belief that STATE intended the US to occupy the entire continent of North America.
Politics is never clean and religions have a long history of violence.
I’m talking about our species, the world, not just the United States. Being human is messy and unpredictable. Some of us are stable. Some of us aren’t.
What did Lincoln say about fooling people?
What did Lord Acton say about power?
The Bible is full of warnings about the abuse of power, greed, and false prophets. Traitor Trump is an example of all of these warnings rolled into one.
https://accountability.gop/profile/rep-byron-donalds/
“Republican accountability”???
I smell an oxymoron.
Florida is such a disappointing cesspool of far right nudniks, reactionaries and other assorted GOP fog horns and scripted Trumpian or DeSantisian sycophants.
That Dumpster is ANTI-Democratic. He wants a FASCIST Nation where the “whites” rule … unless they are are proper kind of brown or black person, according to that *&^(.
And who decides who’s proper? Answer: That DUMP.
Make no mistake …. Dump, a FASCIST who works for Putin.
It’s obvious why trump loves the donalds–shared name!
I saw a news report (on Politico I think) over the weekend about the “success” of Florida’s voucher program. The three largest counties are planning to close, consolidate, reduce or lease public school buildings to cope with the loss of students.
The figure of 20,000 fewer students was given, but I don’t recall whether that was in one county or one of the large districts. A photo showed desantis signing a law while two young Black girls looked on. I’ll bet if you asked them, both desantis and trump would say they’ve done more for Black children than the entire Civil Rights Movement!
However, one thing in Diane’s post caught my mind that I completely agree with– “In 2017, donalds led a successful effort to offer private school tuition reimbursements to students who said they were bullied.“
As a middle school student who was extensively bullied–physically, in school–for two years by a gang of older kids, I have NO tolerance for ANY school or staff or board that cannot put a stop to this.
A financial penalty like tuition reimbursement is a start, but not enough. Specific responses by staff, administrators, and board members who observe or are informed of bullying, should be written into their contracts, and should include informing law enforcement and parents.
Following baseball practice when I was in middle school, I was often made to kneel on two pieces of coal in the locker room while being whipped with wet rolled-up towels, or held down by each limb while being spat upon and slapped until I had a “pink belly”. The “standing slap-down” was administered by a hoodlum standing almost nose-to-nose while swearing at me and periodically slapping me on one or both cheeks. There was NO adult supervision in the locker room, because the coach was also a teacher and upstairs in his office doing paperwork.
Another time, I was sent to the office from the gym floor because the gym teacher stepped out into the hall to speak to another teacher, and I climbed up the service ladder to the big heating units on the ceiling to escape an attacker. Yet another time, a different student–the smallest in our class–was locked in a steel mesh locker and left under a cold shower.
What was the response of the “adults?” Coach said “I’ll speak to them, but you have to learn to take it.” The superintendent said “That’s not right. Let me look into this and I’ll get back to you.” I never heard from him again.
Three years later, at the high school, my tormentors were the core of the football team (that great vehicle of toxic masculinity). I refused to sign up for marching band, which performed at each football game, so I was banned from all music activities. The band, choir and orchestra teachers had an all-or-nothing policy in order to produce big ensembles.
Thankfully, my academic classes were limited to students all in the same grade, and those teachers were competent and interesting.
“As a middle school student who was extensively bullied–physically, in school–for two years by a gang of older kids, I have NO tolerance for ANY school or staff or board that cannot put a stop to this.”
So sorry this happened to you, Mark. It happened to me as well. I was moved from fifth grade to seventh, and I was smaller than the other kids, so I was an easy target and bullied severely.
There is no excuse for school officials not stopping that. When I was teaching, I was relentless in pursuing the bullies.
I suspect that those guys grow up to be Abbott and DeSantis. I know that this happened with The Don, Cheeto “Little Fingers” Trump-balone.
“There was NO adult supervision in the locker room, because the coach was also a teacher and upstairs in his office doing paperwork.”
Same with mine. The coach was not ignorant of what was going on. Probably thought it would toughen kids up. Probably engaged in the same bullying when he was a kid.
Mark,
I’m so sorry to hear of the bullying you experienced.
You should be aware, however, that when far-right people like Donalds add “bullying” to their list of students who should get vouchers, it’s part of a strategy. No real empathy, just list vulnerable students, then add a new listing every year until everyone is eligible for a voucher.
“No real empathy” and “part of a strategy” by voucher advocates? But this was exactly what I got from my public school coach, gym teacher, principal, and superintendent.
If a voucher or other school had been available, I could have tried out that option to see if they were sincere or not. Or, perhaps my public school, facing competition, would have done what they should have done in the first place.
mark: I am sorry you had it rough. The school I went to, a private high school, was much worse where hazing was concerned than the tiny town high school I might have gone to. Luckily, I was mostly left alone at both.
Suggesting that vouchers might lead to competition and hence to a better outcome for students sounds good until you realize that this was always the promise of better academic opportunities. It hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it’s because there is no accountability in the voucher system. When I taught at our community school, I was accountable to parents I knew personally to confront improper behavior. I probably missed some things, but the only rule I ever stated aloud in my class was: make everyone feel welcome to say stupid answers out loud.
Thank you Roy. I understand that most voucher systems are frauds. I was primarily talking about my own situation in the 1960s, where the malpractice of certified professionals exposed me to physical assaults at least 2x per week, and verbal abuse every day.
The politics of school funding, reform and choice are irrelevant to a child in that position. Although my academic classes and teachers were great, I would gladly have gone to a lesser school if it meant freedom from the assaults.
Was Mrs. Donalds making a confession in that 2017 tweet about sinners needing forgiveness? Do the Donalds perhaps protest too loudly?
Don C.,
I had the same reaction to Mrs. Donald’s’ tweet.
Here is the link to the Politico article I referred to earlier today. It describes the closing of schools in the 3 most populous counties in desantis’ Florida, due to vouchers:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/26/desantis-florida-school-closures-00159926
“Conservatives” in the United States today are confused. They rightly see that they have mostly lost the young people. This is borne out by their personal experiences–by having their kids come home and react with horror to their parents’ beliefs. And it is borne out by polls, which show that ON EVERY ISSUE, young people are overwhelmingly with the progressives.
And so, they look for someone to blame. They think: its the writers of YA books. It’s the librarians. It’s the teachers. It’s all that liberal brainwashing they are getting in school.
Clueless. They are freaking clueless. Schoolteachers know how little of that thing goes on, who milquetoast school generally is.
What’s happening, of course, is that THE CULTURE IN GENERAL has left the Reichwingers behind–it has become more diverse and more tolerant and more peace-loving less afraid of the Other generally. We have seen a seismic cultural shift, and no amount of the Moms for the Liberty to take away your liberty, no amount of Don’t Say Gay legislation, no number of Ku Klux Karens showing up at school board meetings to read salacious passages from books aloud is going to change this. They are like the mad king with his sword drawn against the sea. The tide of change is engulfing them, and their sexism and homophobia and transphobia and racism and hatred of foreigners and immigrants and love of guns and ancient superstition is in the process of being swept away.
“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”
It’s the culture, stupid. Not the teachers. It’s Cardi B and Euphoria. ROFL. And there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.
It’s the culture, stupid. Not the teachers. It’s Cardi B and Euphoria. ROFL. And there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.
Thank you.
You are right about the dumbing down of the culture. I really don’t care and don’t want to know what the Kardashians are doing. I am as disconnected as possible from the popular culture.