Ensuring Florida Leads And America’s First

While many of the Trump administration’s spots are being filled by individuals from the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), Erika Donalds, “the face of school choice in Florida,” is joining AFPI, establishing a Florida chapter and advancing the principles of the America First movement in Florida “and beyond.”

Yesterday, the Trump administration named 10 new Education Department appointees, four of whom have previously worked with AFPI. AFPI is a pro-Trump think tank which was co-founded by Linda McMahon in 2021 as the president ended his first term in office. McMahon, is the former WWE executive and professional wrestling performer, who Trump has nominated to be his U.S. Secretary of Education. McMahon served as AFPI’s president and CEO prior to her nomination.

AFPI Education priorities include:

• Provide tax options to promote school choice
• Adopt a Parental Bill of Rights
• Cut the strings attached to federal funding to K-12
• Require Universities that accept federal funds to protect students’ free speech rights (which is funny because this is literally attaching strings to federal money)
• End support for radical political ideologies and WOKE Education Projects
• End Higher Ed Accreditation processes that push political and ideological agendas into college campuses.

In other words, emulate Florida.

And just in case Florida isn’t “Florida enough,” earlier this month AFPI announced Florida’s own Erika Donalds will join AFPI as Chair of the Center for Education Opportunity and Chair of the AFPI-Florida State Chapter. Donalds’ leadership, they say, “will drive AFPI’s mission to empower parents, expand educational opportunities, and advance the principles of the America First movement in Florida and beyond.”

Erika Donalds is the wife of Congressman Byron Donalds and she has had her fingers in Florida’s education policy for the past decade. ICYWW, they are very MAGA. In 2019, she was referred to as “is the face of school choice in Florida.” Her resume includes:

• Elected to Collier County School Board in 2014. Served one term.
• Lead a fight against the Florida School Boards Association (which had taken a stand against vouchers and charter schools) and became a found member of the Florida Coalition of School Board Members (FCSBM). That group was well funded and politically connected but its own membership never grew beyond a dozen or so members.
• In 2017, she was appointed by then-House Speaker Richard Corcoran to the Florida Constitution Revision Commission, where she tried to pass school board term limits and lternate charter school authorizing. Her proposals failed to make it on the ballot.
• In 2018, newly elected Ron DeSantis appointed her to his Advisory Committee on Education and Workforce Development, advising his transition team.
• She helped found two charter schools in Collier and then created a charter school management company, The Optima Foundation, when helped start and manage Classical Charter Schools.
• She created OptimaED, which provides virtual reality education experiences and the first virtual reality classical education option.
• She is associated with many conservative education groups: the Heritage Foundation (authors of Project 2025), Hillsdale College, the Leadership Institute, the Classical Learning Test, and the Koch funded Independent Women’s Forum Education Freedom Center.

And now…

With Donalds’ leadership, the Center for Education Opportunity and the AFPI-Florida State Chapter will expand their reach and impact, working to restore excellence in education and ensure Florida remains a model for America First solutions.

What could go wrong? How much more abuse can Florida’s public schools sustain? We’re about to find out.

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Addendum: Former Tennessee commissioner of education Penny Schwinn, who does not appear to have worked for AFPI, was nominated as Deputy Secretary last Friday. Schwinn, if confirmed, would be the first Teach for America alum to serve in that role. Fellow edu-blogger, Mercedes Schneider investigated Schwinn, discovering she is pretty controversial. So much so that even conservatives oppose her confirmation.

I’m betting she still gets confirmed…