DeVos selection ignites fight on how to help students

by Chad Livengood, Jonathan Oosting and Michael Gerstein
The Detroit News
November 25, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump’s planned nomination of west Michigan philanthropist Betsy DeVos for education secretary has ignited a debate about how the country delivers a high-quality education for every child.

DeVos, 58, supports increasing school choices, which she has called an attempt to “empower” parents to find good schools for their children, whether they be traditional public schools, alternative public academies known as charters, virtual schools or private and religious institutions.

“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” Trump said Wednesday in a statement. “Under her leadership, we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families.”

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Under Republican presidents, education secretaries have operated in the background or used the office as a bully pulpit, as Ronald Reagan’s second-term secretary Bill Bennett did. Truscott said indications are DeVos may be more in the spotlight.

“So much depends on what the president wants from an education secretary,” he said. “Donald Trump is looking to be a strong, visionary president — he lays out the agenda and expects people to implement it.”

But the incoming Trump administration may run into a road block within the Republican Party, even though Trump and DeVos are the most pro-choice advocates in recent memory, said Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Washington-based Center for Education Reform.

“Trump is a much more committed, more vocal proponent of vouchers and charter schools than George W. Bush, as is his secretary designate a stronger supporter than those once in the same position,” Allen said Friday.

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