Forgive my silence on Betsy DeVos, but I wanted to digest what she said during her hearings and collect my thoughts (and those of people I trust).
1) As you will read below, both Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), on whose board I serve, and I (personally) cannot support her nomination – but I sincerely hope we’re wrong and that she surprises us. To that end, I’m going to lead this email with this argument in her favor, made by an experienced, smart and trusted friend:
I think you've mischaracterized Betsy's record, and I think she’ll be an outstanding Secretary of Education. As someone who has, as a Democrat, worked alongside Betsy since 2000, I can assure you that few, if any, other Republicans have done more to promote accountable school choice for low-income communities across the country. She has repeatedly stood up against laissez-faire advocates and insisted on focusing on students who, because of their economic situations, have no school options. She holds fast to designs that would 1) test the academic progress of scholarship recipients, 2) be transparent about the results, 3) close schools that aren’t cutting it, and 4) include tough financial controls for any school receiving public funds. It's crazy to me that she's being maligned as anti-accountability.
We are facing serious issues with Trump, including his threat to indiscriminately deport the families of vulnerable students. The new president seems immature and dangerous, and I appreciate why we’d want to oppose him on every front. But Betsy is aligned with Democratic education reformers on most issues, in spite of the teacher unions' propaganda, especially compared to many of the people Trump could have nominated. We need to find a way to support the good while resisting the bad.
She's also bi-partisan and honest. She has taken real steps to make sure that Dems are at the table in Red States across the country. That includes pouring her and the American Federal for Children’s financial resources into electing DFERs.
If people believe her viewpoint must be warped because she's 1) a beneficiary of Amway's enormous wealth and 2) a white, conservative, evangelical Christian, let's talk about that. I appreciate the concerns. But I submit that her "different sensibilities" make her an even stronger advocate for the children who are currently getting screwed by our system.
I realize that some people are suspicious that billionaires who don’t need to do this work might have nefarious motives. I want to be respectful, but such people are either crackpots, over-zealous to defend the broken status quo, or just not thinking clearly. From my work with Besty, I’m convinced she has devoted herself to this work because she believes that what’s happening to millions of American children is just wrong. I've watched her in enough tough situations to be confident she's just as committed to helping low-income communities as we are. I wish more billionaires and Christians were like her.
As for the hearings last week, okay, she was not at her best, especially after the first 2.5 hours. It was ultimately political theater where she politely handled hostile queries from many of the panel’s Democrats, who were particularly testy because they felt they were being rushed (and then used half their time complaining about being rushed, instead of asking her questions). She didn’t exhibit mastery of IDEA, or of growth vs. proficiency, or of a half dozen issues that are so important to us policy wonks. I assure you, she is very smart and hard-working and perfectly capable of getting up to speed on everything coming at her. But let’s be clear: she was not wrong to resist the assumption that we should be regulating and “holding accountable” every school in the exact same manner. She was not going to agree that all schools in this country should end up having the same governance, rules, regs, unions, etc. as the default traditional urban school. I’m glad she didn’t.
Back on Michigan, the root of the accusation that she’s against accountability is last year's proposed amendments to the Michigan charter law, which Betsy’s Michigan team opposed. Groups like EdTrust Midwest and StudentsFirst thought it made sense, on balance, to give Mayor Duggan authority to rationalize charter authorizing in the city. On the other hand, Betsy’s team, along with the strongest charter authorizers and the charter school association, worried about whether a classic machine Democrat or future mayors could really be trusted with such power. But let’s be clear. Her opposition to Duggan's bill didn't mean she opposes accountability or improved authorizing. That's too simplistic. She just wants a solution that's protected from political meddling. She also thinks that Michigan's entire system of school accountability needs an overhaul, and that charter accountability should not be dealt with in isolation. I don't think her position is that unreasonable.
Another point. Betsy isn't that involved in Michigan charter policy, and it's odd that people are trying to hang all of the state's charter school failures on her. That said, she knows well that there are a couple of for-profit providers in the state are failing children. We're all looking for a solution that would shut them down. (She also knows there are a lot of district providers who are failing children, and we’d all like to shut them down too.) She'd just like to do remove the bad actors without blowing apart the charter sector or killing off the for-profits that are providing decent schooling. It's actually a very tough, nuanced policy challenge, as well as a political one. Her team and allies are working sincerely on it. I hope we don’t all dismiss their proposed solution out of hand, especially if it’s one “flaw” turns out to be that it allows effective for-profit schools to continue operating.
Finally, I do hope you'll get to work with Betsy. My prediction is you'll find she's not nearly as awful as you now fear. You might even conclude, like me, that she's the only good thing so far about the Trump administration.
2) Below is what DFER released on Thursday, in the form of a letter from Executive Director Shavar Jeffries and statement (below). Here’s an excerpt:
As we sit at the crossroads of an uncertain future with the incoming administration, we are redoubled in our commitment to support good policies that expand opportunity for kids, and to vigorously oppose those that do not. Rooted in this commitment, we cannot support the nomination of Betsy DeVos. We respect Mrs. DeVos’ lifelong commitment to expanding opportunity for kids and reject efforts by some to attack her personally or to assault her character. Our opposition, instead, is rooted entirely in our core values and policy commitments. Our statement below discusses those policy concerns, anchored principally in our concern about the need for a strong federal role in holding schools, as well as colleges and universities, accountable for results, and the federal role in protecting our most vulnerable children, including children with disabilities, from actions that undermine their access to high-quality educational programs. Should Mrs. DeVos be confirmed, we would seek to work with her in those areas where we find common ground, but would push her to reconsider ideas that we find not to be in the best interests of our children.
3) I came to the same conclusion, somewhat reluctantly (not that my opinion matters – or, for that matter, anyone’s other than Senate Republicans, who are almost certain to confirm her).
I say “somewhat reluctantly” because I think she is a smart, capable person who genuinely cares about every child in this country receiving a high-quality education, and also because I agree with her on many things, including the importance of parental choice, especially via good charter schools, and on the need to courageously do battle with the forces of the status quo (including playing political hardball, as
this NYT article notes), which are so poorly serving so many millions of children.
Lest anyone think DFER or I are toeing the unions' line, perish the thought. The unions aren't talking about choice or accountability. They claim DeVos is a rich billionaire with ethical problems and no experience with or in public schools. The unions obviously oppose choice and, like conservative Tea Party Republicans, they oppose strong federal accountability, as they'd like to be left to their own devices locally.
So why my opposition? Going into the hearings, I was inclined to be neutral on her nomination, but I was quite troubled by many of the things I heard, leading me to change my view.
A friend who was there provided an excellent summary:
I came away impressed with her apparent sincerity for improving student outcomes for kids, and of course impressed with the fact she's devoted large parts of her life and fortune to expanding educational opportunity. But when the questions became more specific and pointed (which was all-too-infrequent given that many Senators focused on questions of process), I came away with four primary concerns:
1) Serious concerns around her initial statement implying that Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) enforcement should be left to the states. In response to follow-up questioning about an hour later by Sen. Hassan, she seemed to suggest that she meant that IDEA compliance for voucher schools should be left to states. Either of these would be a non-starter for me, and if she didn't mean to suggest either, then I hope she'll clarify;
2) Troubling that she couldn't state plainly that she doesn't view the Secretary's role as one to facilitate privatization of public schools or defunding public schools (charters are, of course, public schools, not a vehicle for privatization, and I believe that parental choice must operate within a system of public accountability and oversight, and commitment to equity in terms of serving all kids);
3) Concerned that, in response to Sen. Murphy, she said the Department of Education should reassess the obligation for states to implement state-based accountability plans that require schools to meet minimum performance benchmarks; and
4) Troubling to defer to states re. enforcement of higher-ed accountability (via the gainful-employment rule) for post-secondary vocational programs. It would seem self-evident that the DOE should ensure that federal student aid actually advance employment outcomes for students in federally-subsidized higher ed career programs.
In summary, I’m not convinced that DeVos is aligned with us on most issues. The Michigan model, long before she was nominated, was our poster child for what NOT to do from an accountability standpoint: too many authorizers (dozens of them); a proliferation of for profit providers (80%); and at best mediocre results where charters barely, if at all, outperform district benchmarks that are already abysmal. That record doesn't excite us.
Nor did her performance at the hearing allay these concerns. In fact, her testimony exacerbated them. Her responses on accountability, from IDEA to vocational colleges to ESSA implementation, were uniformly about states' rights and discretion, not the federal role to protect educational opportunities for vulnerable students. She also couldn't state plainly that she wouldn't seek to defund public schools, at a time when diversion of funds from Title I is a large concern for those of us on the center-left.
Our commitment to accountability is rooted precisely in the fact that low-income students should not be left only to the whims and priorities of markets (particularly markets saturated with profit seekers) or localities when it comes to educational opportunity. In fact, a primary purpose of both Title I and the USDOE is to bring federal oversight in light of a history of markets and states giving short shrift to low-income kids and children of color.
I’d add that I was quite shocked that, despite having had nearly two months to prepare and that attack lines from Democratic Senators could have easily been foreseen, she didn’t do better under intense questioning. Of course she was going to toe the NRA line on guns (sadly), but then her answer shouldn’t have been about grizzly bears, but rather, “I think it’s a good idea for certain trained personnel such as security guards to have guns so that there’s someone to shoot back at madmen like the one who perpetrated the Sandy Hook tragedy, Sen. Murphy.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say she supports similar accountability for any school (public, charter, private) that takes taxpayer money? It’s just a vague statement of principle.
She wasn’t aware that IDEA is a federal law?
She wouldn’t commit to enforcing existing DOE rules aimed at weeding out the worst abuses of the for-profit colleges?
4) This NYT article captures some of my concerns as well:
But her confirmation hearing that night opened her up to new criticism: that her long battle for school choice, controversial as it has been, is the sum total of her experience and understanding of education policy. In questioning by senators, she seemed either unaware or unsupportive of the longstanding policies and functions of the department she is in line to lead, from special education rules to the policing of
for-profit universities.
Ms. DeVos admitted that she might have been “confused” when she appeared not to know that the broad statute that has governed special education for more than four decades is federal law.
A billionaire investor, education philanthropist and Michigan Republican activist, Ms. DeVos acknowledged that she has no personal experience with
student loans — the federal government is the largest provider — and said she would have to “review” the department’s policies that try to prevent fraud by for-profit colleges.
She appeared blank on basic education terms. Asked how school performance should be assessed, she did not know the difference between growth, which measures how much students have learned over a given period, and proficiency, which measures how many students reach a targeted score.
Ms. DeVos even became something of an internet punch line when she suggested that some school officials should be allowed to carry guns on the premises to defend against grizzly bears.
5) Lastly, Justin Cohen captures additional concerns I have:
At her Senate confirmation hearing
this week, Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. education secretary Betsy DeVos failed to answer basic questions about civil rights, measuring student growth, and children with disabilities.
Her answers also validated what left-leaning education reformers have suspected for months: DeVos embraces school choice as an education panacea, while grasping little else about federal education policy. That philosophy will likely lead her to prioritize some of the least promising, and most
divisive, components of the education reform agenda.
When that happens, she and Donald Trump will kill the bipartisan education reform coalition.
…The glue of the reform coalition has been an orientation toward results and accountability. DeVos has shown that her real commitment is to an ideological position, dominated by a faith in markets and the economic theories of conservative economists like Milton Friedman.
The nomination of DeVos signals that our country’s Republican leadership will abandon the technocratic agenda in favor of an ideological one. DeVos’s own history indicates that her department of education will prioritize federal funding for private religious schools, a laissez-faire approach to school accountability, and a hands-off approach to the enforcement of federal civil rights laws. Those priorities would shrink the federal government’s role in safeguarding equity and increase the flow of federal dollars to unaccountable private entities. I don’t think low-income families should take that deal, and frankly, neither should tax-averse conservatives.
In the meantime, DeVos’s nomination should be a wake-up call to the left-leaners of the reform coalition. We’re about to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis, where pushing away from DeVos’s education policy agenda could mean getting subsumed by the traditionalist agenda of our own party. That agenda still hews to the positions of management interests and labor leaders, and not closely enough to the needs of vulnerable families.
To avoid that trap, left-leaning reformers like me need to build a legitimate reform agenda of our own — one that can both improve students’ lives and garner motivated, popular support in the coming years.
6) I don’t want to end this email without presenting additional arguments in favor of DeVos. Here’s an editorial in the WSJ:
Democrats are searching for a cabinet nominee to defeat, and it’s telling that progressive enemy number one is Betsy DeVos. Donald Trump’s choice to run the Education Department has committed the unpardonable sin of devoting much of her fortune to helping poor kids escape failing public schools.
Progressives and their media allies have spent the last week roughing up Mrs. DeVos in preparation for her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, which will feature the charms of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Liberals claim that Mrs. DeVos, wife of former Amway president Dick DeVos, is unqualified to lead the Education Department because she’s never been a teacher.
Yet the same crowd howls that bankers shouldn’t be regulating banks. Which is it? Managing a bureaucracy isn’t like running a classroom, though both require a steely resolve. Most Education secretaries have been former teachers or school superintendents—not that student test scores are better for it.
Perhaps Mrs. DeVos’s most important qualification is that she has the courage of her convictions. Progressives are willing to brook billionaires who use their wealth to expand government or augment their political influence. Hyatt heiress Penny Pritzker, whose family is a major Democratic patron, served as President Obama’s Commerce secretary. But a conservative who’s dedicated her private fortune to liberating poor kids trapped in lousy public schools? The horror!
7) Here’s Gloria Romero and Larry Sand:
It’s about time we had a secretary of Education who truly maximized the educational opportunities of all children — including those living in poverty who are frequently forced to attend their all-too-often failing local school. While President Obama’s secretary of Education,
Arne Duncan, challenged the entrenched interests in education, he didn’t go far enough. DeVos will disrupt business-as-usual — with an intensified focus on the rights of parents to choose the right school for their children, no longer being subservient to their neighborhood zip code-mandated school or some anonymous education bureaucrat assigning kids to a school based on arbitrary laws irrespective if that school is failing.
American schools are still too separate and still too unequal and are in dire need of restructuring. With DeVos at the helm, and flanked by parents from New York to California who have the audacity to stand up against the powerful monied special interests which seek to put their jobs and contracts before the needs of kids, we just might see the dawn of a new era of hope in America — a new era founded upon the most essential of cornerstones: education.
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Dear Friends,
As President Obama’s historic term in office comes to an end, we reflect on the great progress we’ve made for kids and communities over the past eight years. President Obama’s educational legacy is historic. Rooted in innovation, accountability, resource investment, and expanded parental options, Secretaries Duncan and King were historic champions for the kind of progressive, choice-expanding, accountability-focused policy agenda that animates our work at DFER.
We believe that access to a high-quality education is a civil right – not a privilege. As a person who lost my mother to gun violence at a young age and whose father was not in the picture, my life, and that of my family, was transformed by the power of education. Like you, we bring this unyielding belief in the capacity of our children to this work, as well as a deep-seated belief in the responsibility of government to ensure educational opportunity is available to all, regardless of race, class, gender, or zip code.
As we sit at the crossroads of an uncertain future with the incoming administration, we are redoubled in our commitment to support good policies that expand opportunity for kids, and to vigorously oppose those that do not. Rooted in this commitment, we cannot support the nomination of Betsy DeVos. We respect Mrs. DeVos’ lifelong commitment to expanding opportunity for kids and reject efforts by some to attack her personally or to assault her character. Our opposition, instead, is rooted entirely in our core values and policy commitments. Our statement below discusses those policy concerns, anchored principally in our concern about the need for a strong federal role in holding schools, as well as colleges and universities, accountable for results, and the federal role in protecting our most vulnerable children, including children with disabilities, from actions that undermine their access to high-quality educational programs. Should Mrs. DeVos be confirmed, we would seek to work with her in those areas where we find common ground, but would push her to reconsider ideas that we find not to be in the best interests of our children.
I cherish our partnership with you in expanding opportunity for America’s students. And I welcome the opportunity to discuss our position in detail or answer any questions you might have. I look forward to our continued work to make the American Dream real for all of our children.
Best,
Shavar Jeffries
National President, Democrats for Education Reform
