The DeVos Family

Amway, Blackwater all part of the DeVos empire

By now you've surely heard of the Kochs. Meanwhile, the powerful, wealthy DeVos family has remained largely under the radar, while leading a stealth assault on America's schools.

Rachel Tabachnick posting at AlterNet has the goods on the super-wealthy DeVos family. 

The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.

Dick DeVos is said to have coined the term "government schools" when referring to public education.

Tabachnick  also describes the role of Howard Fuller, the conservatives' hired gun in the African-American community. Fuller, a '60s civil rights activist, is the founder of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO). The group tries to portray school vouchers as an effort to help low-income kids and children of color "escape" public schools to the freedom of private and religious schools.

But Tabachnick says that a new report explores the money trail behind BAEO, finding that it leads directly to a handful of wealthy right-wing foundations and individuals that have a deep agenda -- not only supporting the school voucher movement, but also backing anti-affirmative action campaigns and other efforts that African American organizations have opposed or considered offensive.”