DETROIT — After spending millions of dollars on a goal that has so far eluded her, Betsy DeVos might finally have found a way to achieve it.

The wealthy philanthropist from western Michigan who served as U.S. education secretary under former President Donald Trump has been fighting for private school vouchers in her home state since at least 2000, when she and her family put about $3 million behind a ballot referendum that was soundly rejected by voters.

She spent the next two decades spending heavily on campaign contributions and lobbying efforts to promote alternatives to traditional public schools. DeVos and her allies have succeeded in making Michigan one of the nation’s friendliest states for privately run, publicly funded charter schools. But her vision for a state program that would make tuition-based private schools more affordable for Michigan families has repeatedly run up against the state’s strict constitutional prohibition on public dollars for these schools.

Now, however, Michigan is among many states where the surge of anti-government activism that emerged during the pandemic has combined with a conservative shift in the federal courts to fuel what experts say could be an unprecedented expansion of voucher programs, which give parents money for private school tuition or other educational expenses. Supporters hail vouchers as “parental choice,” while detractors deride them as harmful to public schools.

(School vouchers is basically taking money out of public schools and diverting it to private schools, basically subsidizing the education of the very rich. They try to sell it as "School choice", but average Americans can't afford private school tuitions.)