Dogwood: 'Republican Running for Governor of Virginia Has Proven She'd Make Public Schools Worse'

Winsome Earle-Sears has a long record of supporting legislation that would cut funding from Virginia’s public schools 

VIRGINIA - New reporting from Dogwood details Winsome Earle-Sears’ extensive record attacking public education from putting private profits over public schools to taking money from anti-public school proponents to supporting efforts to dismantle public education.
 
Dogwood: Is Virginia’s #2 Republican trying to wreck your local school? We’ve got the receipts on Winsome Earle-Sears 

• Here are 4 instances when the Republican running for governor of Virginia has proven she’d make public schools worse.
• The Republican candidate is currently serving as Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s lieutenant governor, and she’s been part of a number of education policy decisions over her past three years in office. What’s more, she’s also been very forthcoming on right-wing media channels about how she’d change education in the commonwealth if elected governor in November.
• After being signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, the Republicans’ “billionaire bill,” which Earle-Sears said “does so many great things,” gave the wealthy elite tax breaks that were paid for by cutting millions of low-income families off of Medicaid and food assistance.
• In 2023, despite the need for increased education funding and teacher pay, Republican leaders—including Lt. Gov. Earle-Sears and Delegates Glenn Davis, Michael Webert, Amanda Batten, and AC Cordoza—backed a bill that would divert public funding away from public schools.
• Winsome Earle-Sears has a shady money trail when it comes to campaign donations from charter school moguls.
• A billionaire school boss gave Earle-Sears $10,000 to help push for more charter schools, after making a fortune from those schools, paid for by taxpayers.
• In 2025, Earle-Sears accepted $40,000 in campaign donations from the DeVos family, including a $5,000 donation from Betsy DeVos, Trump’s former US secretary of education (and another Michigander). The DeVos family has a long track record of defunding and destabilizing public schools in favor of private, for-profit schooling.
• Winsome Earle-Sears supports Project 2025 and other efforts to dismantle education oversight and funding.
• Earle-Sears praised President Trump after he issued an executive order to dismantle the US Department of Education, calling it a “game-changer” and saying that “the state should have always been in total control of its education.” 
• Winsome Earle-Sears is an echo chamber for the far right’s plan to put their agenda ahead of local communities.
• Earle-Sears has partnered with several right-wing organizations, like the Virginia Education Opportunity Alliance, Family Foundation of Virginia, and Americans for Prosperity-Virginia, to push for taxpayer-funded private education.