Of all of Donald Trump’s selections for Cabinet posts so far, none has provoked more impassioned reaction, pro and con, than Betsy DeVos for secretary of education. She’ll either be the best thing that has happened to public schools in years or a threat to their very existence, depending on your source.
In fact, she fits neither of those narratives. But on balance she appears to be a good choice — a billionaire philanthropist and political activist with a long commitment to improving education who is unafraid to challenge the status quo.
For more than 20 years DeVos has pushed for greater choice in education, including public charter schools and vouchers for private schools, and for more accountability. Colorado of course has been a leader in charter school development for two decades, with more than 12 percent of students now attending such schools. In Denver, some charters boast among the best records in the state at elevating test scores of impoverished students.
It will be good to have such a forceful advocate for charters — her husband actually founded one — leading the Education Department.
Our primary concern with DeVos — as it would be for any education nominee in this administration — is the likelihood that she will try to push the president-elect’s pledge to create a $20 billion fund to bolster school choice, including vouchers. Although we’ve been sympathetic toward voucher experiments, including one in Douglas County that was halted by lawsuits, greater federal involvement would be a mistake — and would inevitably come with all sorts of rules and oversight.
Let the states and local districts fund and regulate school choice to the extent they wish.
Where would the $20 billion come from anyway? Would it be new money that would add to the federal deficit or would it be siphoned away from existing programs for the disadvantaged? Neither option is attractive.
Trump also railed during his campaign against Common Core education standards, misrepresenting them as a federal imposition on the states. In the wake of her nomination, DeVos has insisted that she too does not support Common Core, which she claims evolved into a federal “boondoggle.” But she has associated with groups supporting Common Core, even serving on the board of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s pro-Common Core Foundation for Excellence in Education — which is actually to her credit.
Common Core, now a bugaboo of both the left and right, was actually developed by a consortium of states to improve on existing standards that were too often inadequate. The fact that DeVos recognized the importance of the project is commendable, whatever she says today. She should continue to advocate for states to adopt rigorous, 21st century standards — even if her preference in the Trump administration is not Common Core.
The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, accuses DeVos of pushing “a corporate agenda to privatize, de-professionalize and impose cookie-cutter solutions to public education.” In other words, the union doesn’t like her. But the union is hardly a model of objectivity, since it has usually opposed even public school choice as well as modest attempts to nurture accountability and innovation in schools, including meaningful evaluations for teachers.
Say what you will about DeVos, she has proven she is not afraid to take on such self-interested agents of the existing system. And that alone gives her a chance to be a first-rate education secretary.
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