Educating the children of Albert Lea Area Schools is a team sport.

Parents know that their dedicated teachers work year after year to unlock the potential of every student, but what’s not so clear to parents is the importance of all the people behind those educators giving support.

From our local principals and superintendent, to community and state leaders, all the way out to the U.S. Department of Education, it takes a chain of caring and qualified people to instill the love of learning in Albert Lea Area Schools students.

That is why I am so concerned about the nomination of Betsy DeVos for U.S. secretary of education. She has never attended a public school, didn’t send her children to a public school and has never held a job in public education or government.

However, what she lacks in experience, she makes up for in money. She is a billionaire mega donor, who has contributed to the campaigns of 17 of the U.S. senators who will vote to confirm her for the job.

She has also spent millions of dollars promoting education policies that damaged the public schools in her home state of Michigan, and now she wants to bring those failures to Washington.

The confirmation hearings for Ms. DeVos start Wednesday. I am urging Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken to vote against her.

The students of Albert Lea and the surrounding towns deserve a unified team of dedicated and qualified people behind them. That will not happen if we have Ms. DeVos, with no experience and no love of public schools, as education secretary in Washington.

Beth Isaacson

governmental relations

Albert Lea Education Association