In early 2021, Representative Byron Donalds, R-Florida, and his wife, Erica, took the stage at an event organized by the Truth & Freedom Coalition, a group pushing to introduce Christianity into public schools and other institutions and whose leader has described homosexuality as the work of Satan.
The pair were warmly welcomed as allies in the cause. Ms. Donalds was singled out for opening a charter school in Florida. As a state legislator, Mr. Donalds had created a school voucher program that, in the words of one speaker, allowed children to “get a biblical worldview education.”
Mr Donalds addressed the group with characteristic humility. He’s just a “poor kid from Brooklyn,” he said, who made good by pursuing his interests.
He urged the team to do the same: “Be bold.”
Mr. Donalds’ career is a testament to his advice. His interests—in public education reform, evangelical Christianity, and the election of Donald J. Trump – have spurred a rapid political rise. A congressional supporter in just his second term, Mr. Donald, 45, has quickly become a prominent surrogate on Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and a regular conservative media spokesman, serving up outspoken and on-message defenses of the former president.
Mr Trump has taken note. She has privately introduced Mr. Donald as “the next governor of Florida” and has spoken to advisers about the congressman as a possible vice presidential candidate.
The national attention is less noticeable to those in Florida, where the Donalds have spent years building a name — and a business — for themselves in the state’s heated battles over schools.
Mr. and Mrs. Donalds were among the first activists in a growingly influential network seeking to transform traditional public education — in Florida and beyond. Long before recent battles over book bans and critical race theory, the effort cast public schools as failed laboratories of liberal ideas and pushed to funnel public education resources to charter or private schools.
Mr. Donalds sponsored legislation that gave outside groups a greater say in school curricula, years before Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida started a national debate by making it easier for groups to remove books from school libraries and restricting teaching about sexuality and gender. .
The couple has deep ties to leading forces in these debates, including Moms for Liberty, Hillsdale College and the Florida Citizens Alliance, which has pushed to remove books it deems inappropriate from schools. Both Mr. and Mrs. Donalds have made comments disparaging homosexuality.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Mr Donalds described heterosexual relationships as “the natural order that makes society progress”. In a tweet in 2017, Ms Donalds wrote: “Homosexuality is a sin like any other sexual sin, and all of us sinners need forgiveness and mercy for our faults.”
The couple’s work was both advocacy and income. As Mr. Donalds pushed legislation expanding access to charter schools and voucher programs, Ms. Donalds began building a company and nonprofit that took advantage of that expansion.
“Byron and Erica have been known for years in Florida as warriors in the fight for all children to have a quality education,” said Tina Deskovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group that started in Florida but has grown. as a mediator of political power. “That reputation is spreading nationally.”
As Mr. Trump campaigned, he has embraced the new education policy, suggesting that public schools are overrun with “pink-haired communists” and vowing to shut down the Department of Education if re-elected. And he has surrounded himself with like-minded supporters, like the Donalds.
Mr Trump gave the lawmaker a warm welcome at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser this month, saying Mr Donald had “something very special politically out there” and was a favorite among his club’s wealthy clientele. “We don’t have poor people, which is the one thing I don’t like about Mar-a-Lago, you know — I like the diversity,” the former president said, introducing Mr. Donalds, who is black.
He has also publicly praised Ms. Donalds, who is now an advisory board member at the Heritage Foundation, prompting speculation that she may be considered for a future board position.
He knows “more about education than anyone I know,” he told the Florida Freedom Summit last fall. “So keep it sketchy,” Mr. Trump added, nodding to her in the audience. “Stay on your toes, okay?”
A conversion
Mr. Donalds’ interest in education policy stems from his childhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he said in an interview. His mother was a teacher and principal in a public school. But she pulled him out of his public elementary school and sent him to private schools when he felt he wasn’t being challenged, she said.
“He thought there was more to me than the public school classroom, and he was right,” she said. “The choice of school was always important to me because this was my life. Just having options, I think, is important for every child and important for families.”
It was Mrs. Donalds, whom he met in college, who drew him to evangelical Christianity. His complete conversion came when he was 22, waiting tables at Cracker Barrel. He felt the call and “gave my life to Christ,” he said.
The couple settled in Naples, Fla., and became active in the schools as they watched one of their children struggle in a public school, Ms. Donalds said. He was elected to the local school board. The two began working to open a charter school — one that is taxpayer-funded but independently operated.
In 2017, Mr. Donalds was sworn into the Florida House of Representatives, serving a district of Naples. That same year, Ms. Donalds launched OptimaEd, a charter school management business.
The pair’s work often intersected. Mr. Donalds co-sponsored a bill that, among other things, would have allowed charter schools to secure additional funding from local tax initiatives. He supported term limits for school board members, a proposal Ms. Donalds has long sought as a way to force turnover and potentially open up seats for charter school advocates.
A pair with overlapping careers is common in Florida’s part-time legislature. The rules for legislators are much looser than for local officials, who are more restricted when it comes to potential conflicts with family businesses, said Caroline Klancke, former general counsel for the Florida Ethics Commission.
“We weren’t funneling money directly to her,” Mr. Donalds said, referring to Ms. Donalds. “We were setting up a programmatic change in the state of Florida.”
In 2022, Mrs. Donalds managed several charter schools in Florida. Under contracts, her company received a share — about 10 percent — of the schools’ public funding to provide human resources, marketing and other services. That year, the company raised about $4 million in public money and put about $2.6 million back into schools, public records show, while Ms. Donalds received a salary of about $180,000.
These figures became a source of tension with the schools. Since then, three charter schools operated by OptimaEd have terminated their contracts with the company amid complaints that it was returning too little money to the schools, according to public records and three people involved with the schools who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.
Ms. Donalds did not respond to a request for comment.
It has increasingly focused its business on an online academy and virtual courses that accept vouchers. In 2017, her husband led a successful effort to offer the private school tuition reimbursement for students who said they had been bullied. Last year, Florida went much further, expanding its voucher programs to all students, regardless of circumstance or income, and opening a new stream of public money to private schools.
Starting the “parental rights” debate.
Advocates described how the couple had helped lay the groundwork for pandemic-era policies that put Florida at the center of the education debate.
In 2015, Ms. Donalds started a network of conservative school board members with women who went on to lead Moms for Liberty. (Ms. Donalds is a Moms for Liberty consultant.)
The Donaldses were some of the earliest members of the Florida Citizens Alliance, according to the group’s founder, Keith Flaugh. The alliance has pushed to remove books from schools that it claims indoctrinate children with liberal ideas, including Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and other classics by African-American authors.
Mr. Donalds cheered — and took credit for — some of Mr. De Sandys’ education policies. After Florida’s governor approved a high-profile bill allowing anyone to petition to remove a book from a school library, Mr. Donalds described the law as an extension of his work in the legislature.
Under pressure from the schools, Mr. DeSantis recently revoked his law, limiting the number of complaints outsiders could make and noting that the process had been abused by outside groups.
Those laws “deprived many students of access to education and important reading materials,” said Carlos Guillermo Smith, who was a lawmaker alongside Mr. Donalds and now advises Equality Florida, an LGBTQ rights group. “At the end of the day, none of this was necessary.”
But in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an event often seen as an audition for up-and-coming politicians, Mr Donald made it clear he was committed to his vision for schools.
“We are going to fundamentally transform the government of the United States,” he said to applause. “The last major area where we really need a resurgence of American leadership is our culture, and it’s with our children.”
