Democrats are looking for a scalp among President Trump’s cabinet nominees, and seem to have settled on his pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, a firm conservative and advocate for charter schools in her home state of Michigan. Dana Goldstein, an education journalist who recently came aboard from the liberal site Slate, contributed to the liberal mockery of DeVos and slammed school vouchers in “Opposition to Education Pick Is Broad and Vocal.”
In her brief and previous tenure at The New York Times, Goldstein has focused solely on reporting the DeVos hearings. On Saturday, she stooped to mockery of DeVos rather unbecoming for the news pages of a national newspaper.
By most any measure, the secretary of education is one of the least powerful cabinet positions.
The secretary is 16th in the line of succession to the presidency. Education accounts for a paltry 3 percent of the federal budget, compared with 24 percent for Social Security and 16 percent for defense. And the most recent major federal education law curtailed Washington’s role on testing, standards and accountability, turning much of the firepower in education policy back to states and school districts.
That is what has made the protest movement against Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s nominee to be secretary of education, all the more remarkable.
After an underwhelming confirmation hearing in which Ms. DeVos seemed ignorant of major provisions of federal education law, such as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, some Senate offices reported receiving more calls opposing Ms. DeVos than any other Trump nominee.
At women’s marches across the country on Jan. 21, protesters carried signs ridiculing her as an out-of-touch billionaire. In Portland, Ore., high school students walked out of class in opposition to Ms. DeVos, and in Anchorage, protesters picketed the office of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, demanding she vote against the nominee.
....
Research suggests that traditional public schools and nonprofit charter schools generally outperform for-profit charters and private schools that accept vouchers, and some organizations representing nonprofit charter schools have come out against Ms. DeVos. The Massachusetts Charter Public School Association wrote a letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, last month saying that it was “deeply concerned that efforts to grow school choice without a rigorous accountability system will reduce the quality of charter schools across the country.”
Even the photo captioner got into the act: “At her confirmation hearing in January, Ms. DeVos seemed ignorant of major provisions of federal education law.”
Goldstein continued:
School choice may not do much to help sparsely populated rural communities, a factor Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski cited in their decisions to oppose Ms. DeVos. And the idea of having children attend virtual schools at a computer screen, while a growing practice, leaves many parents and educators cold.
Not even her supporters got off easily:
Eva Moskowitz, the founder of the Success Academy charter school network in New York City, and herself a lightning rod for using confrontational political tactics, is one nonprofit charter leader who has vocally supported Ms. DeVos....
Then came the jokes at DeVos’s expense, with Sarah Palin thrown in for good measure.
It has not helped Ms. DeVos that she exemplifies much that liberals find objectionable about the Trump administration. She is a Christian conservative, an heir to the Amway fortune and a longtime Republican Party donor. At her confirmation hearing, she would not commit to following a number of President Barack Obama’s education regulations, on matters including campus sexual assault and reining in low-performing for-profit colleges.
Then she ran into the political-entertainment buzz saw, which has made maximum use of some of her (unintentionally) humorous comments at her confirmation hearing. Millions of people have viewed a “Daily Show” segment in which Trevor Noah excoriates her as unqualified, focusing on her statement that guns should be allowed in schools to protect children against “grizzlies.” Celebrities including Michael Moore and Olivia Wilde have spoken out against her.
The late night host Jimmy Kimmel said Ms. DeVos “has no experience in education” and noted that her children had attended private schools. If grizzly bears are a problem in public schools, he joked, maybe Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, should be secretary of education.
A mere three weeks ago, Goldstein was writing stories against DeVos for the liberal website Slate, featuring hostile headings like this: “Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of education tried to sound like a moderate -- and revealed that she’s either underprepared or a zealot.” Goldstein’s actual reporting isn’t as blunt as Slate’s headlines, but the general thrust -- a deep suspicion of free market education reform -- is clear.
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...despite the fact that federal law contains strict regulations on accommodating disability -- she revealed herself to be either underprepared for the job or stiffly wedded to an ideological, market-oriented vision of education policy, one that has had disappointing results in her home state of Michigan, where she wields enormous influence. DeVos’ allies, like former Sen. Joe Lieberman, who introduced her, presented her lack of governing experience as a plus. Coming from outside the educational “establishment ... is one of the most important qualifications you can have for this job,” Lieberman said.
As expected, DeVos pushed her passion project: giving low-income students taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private and religious schools, a strategy that has demonstrated few gains in terms of student achievement. ....
Now Goldstein is writing news stories on DeVos for the Times.
The above is just one of several articles harshly criticizing Trump policy on education and DeVos in particular. Another article showed a particular hostility toward vouchers for private schools, under the headline “How Trump Could Gut Public Education.”
