So it's probably no surprise that Scott's a huge fan of his buddy Donald Trump's controversial Secretary of Education appointee, billionaire Betsy DeVos, an unabashed backer of what's known as school choice.
On Friday, Scott sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions urging them to confirm DeVos.
"Mrs. DeVos has dedicated her life, personally and professionally, to improving education in the United States of America. Over the course of our friendship, I have admired the passion with which she advocates for students, particularly as it relates to school choice," he wrote.
DeVos, a member of one of Michigan's richest families (which got that way thanks in part to Amway, the multi-level marketing company the family co-founded), is what one observer called "hostile to public education" in a way no one appointed to the position of Secretary of Education has ever been.
She has openly advocated spreading Christianity through education despite the whole First Amendment thing, and doing so by pushing school choice.
Proponents of school choice say it gives students and parents a better shot at good education, and thus levels the playing field for students of all economic means.
Like a free-market solution to a system that's for too long been encumbered by bureaucracy, etc., huh?
Yeah, on the surface.
Critics say school choice's benefit to Republicans are obvious. After all, siphoning dollars earmarked for public education weakens public education, thereby weakening teachers' unions, which are big Democratic Party donors, and thus shrinking the party's resources.
Plus, there's that whole abandonment-of-instilling-critical-thinking-skills-in-favor-of-blind-conformity-to-arbitrary-religious-beliefs thing, which can't be good for anyone—except for the people getting all that government money to teach kids to believe the universe was formed in a week by a giant dude with a bad temper.
DeVos's confirmation hearing is set to begin Tuesday at five (watch it here).
This article appears in Jan 12-19, 2017.