Democrats critical of Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s choice for education secretary, find plenty of reasons to pillory the school-choice advocate and Republican donor. Plans to improve equal opportunity in public education—growing public charter schools and voucher programs, and testing district teachers—terrify teachers’ unions, who are significant patrons of the Democratic party. And she has invested her ample personal wealth in philanthropic support of school choice organizations and conservative causes. DeVos’s distinctions, offensive as they are to Democrats in Congress and writers at Newsweek, herald a welcome change to those for whom education reform in service to the American poor is a daily fight.
Eva Moskowitz founded the Success Academy Charter Schools, a growing network of 41 high-scoring New York City schools that mainly serve minority students from low-income families, a national model for inner-city public charters—and a lightning rod for New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, a hardline union ally and Moskowitz’s repeat political foe.
Before starting Success Academies, Moskowitz was a teacher and a New York City councilmember. She’s a Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton. But she trusts Trump’s pick to take on full-force the “educational suffering” found in failing rural and inner-city schools. Federal support, in the form of funding and awareness-raising by a government agency, for school choice—what advocates now call “parent choice”—would help free low- and middle-income families to transfer their children to schools that fit their needs.
“There is so much work to be done and I think Betsy is thoughtful and talented, and she will be able to mobilize the country to finally tackle this very real and very serious problem,” Moskowitz told THE WEEKLY STANDARD on Wednesday—when DeVos’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health Care, Education, Labor and Pensions was initially set to take place.
News of the hearing’s delay came amid growing concern from Democrats in Congress. At a news conference hosted by House Democrats on Capitol Hill Monday, teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten characterized DeVos’s school choice advocacy as a campaign to “undermine public schools and to divide communities.” DeVos’s donations to Republicans and connections to conservative political advocacy groups complicate the ethical standing of her appointment, HELP Committee Democrats alleged in a letter last week.
“Look, the election is over and now it’s time to govern,” Moskowitz told TWS. “I fail to see how educating children is a partisan issue.” Back in November, after meeting with President-elect Trump, and not long before he announced DeVos’s nomination, Moskowitz said: “I stand ready to support his efforts in any way I can. I will work with him and whoever he selects as next education secretary to increase educational opportunities for American families.” According to Chalkbeat, she wrote in an email to her staff at Success Academy that she was “personally upset” by Trump’s victory. But, as an ambitious education reformer, she was bolstered.
Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, writes of DeVos as a unifying figure for school-choice advocates—an ideologically diverse group without party affiliation. She hopes DeVos will work with Congress to increase funding that will, among other things, reward and expand proven charter programs and promote pedagogical cross-pollination from charters to district-run schools. Low-income students reap the benefits.
“Given the small size and reach of the U.S. Department of Education,” Rees told TWS via email, “Her greatest asset will be her bully pulpit so my hope is that she will use her voice to unite the movement in favor of an agenda that is focused on opening the door to more students to access an education that fits them the best.”
We’ll get a feel for her plans for the pulpit at the re-scheduled hearing, now set to take place next week. “The American people are going to hear directly from her,” said Ed Patru, a spokesman for Friends of Betsy DeVos. And those tuning in should expect to hear DeVos support causes she’s spent decades defending as a private citizen. “She’s for local control. She’s for educational equality. And, in general, she believes that the system of education that we have in this country needs to modernize and needs to reform and needs to be more welcoming of new ideas.”
DeVos, in office, can frame public perception of an ongoing reform movement neither federally-instigated nor ideologically one-tracked. And nothing less than revolutionary—as Andy Smarick’s THE WEEKLY STANDARD cover story “A Quiet Revolution” expertly illustrates.
A diverse movement’s shared goal: to bring an ever superior mix of good and proven ideas into practice. “Public education is strongest when people from all backgrounds, holding a diversity of perspectives, contribute their talent,” as Rees said. A trenchant alliance with labor only constricts its capabilities.
