Betsy DeVos Has Been Scarce on Capitol Hill; Why Is That? – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Betsy DeVos Has Been Scarce on Capitol Hill; Why Is That? – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Education Week logoU.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos hasn’t testified before the House or Senate education committees since becoming secretary more than a year ago—and Democrats aren’t happy about that.

For one thing, it’s a departure from the record of her recent predecessors, each of whom had appeared before the two education committees at least once—and in many cases, more often—by this point in their tenures. And even when you widen the lens to look at other committees on Capitol Hill, DeVos is still behind the pace of her predecessors.

All in all, DeVos has testified before Congress just four times so far, including her confirmation hearing in January of last year, and three education spending committee appearances.

That’s not to say DeVos is dodging lawmakers. The party in control of Congress—in this case, the GOP—gets to decide when a cabinet secretary appears before Congress. “Every time the Secretary has been called up to testify she has made herself available to do so,” said Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the department.

Still, top Democrats on the House and Senate education committees—Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington—are not happy that they haven’t gotten a chance to hear from DeVos directly. They have big concerns about the way DeVos is implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act, her school choice agenda, and what they see as her rollback of Obama-era civil rights protections. They want to question her about those issues in person.

House Republicans say they fully intend to have DeVos speak to the committee, they’ve just run into scheduling conflicts.

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Will Betsy DeVos Set a High Bar for Approving ESSA Plans? Watch Michigan

Will Betsy DeVos Set a High Bar for Approving ESSA Plans? Watch Michigan

Want to know how high U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team will set the bar in approving Every Student Succeeds Act plans? How DeVos handles her home state may provide the answer.

Michigan’s ESSA plan was largely panned in a review by Bellwether Education Consultants and the Collaborative for Student Success. Another outside reviewer declined to rate it, citing incompleteness. The state’s GOP lieutenant governor worried about its impact on students with special needs. And Jason Botel, the acting assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education, called the state to talk about some of the information missing in its plan.

That last move angered Brian Whiston, Michigan’s state chief, who said the feds were sending mixed messages when it comes to ESSA. DeVos, he said, stressed local control, and told state chiefs in a closed door meeting to hand in their plans even if they weren’t totally complete. But Botel, the acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, seemed to be working from a different playbook, Whiston said last month…

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Trump Ed. Dept. to Michigan: Your ESSA Plan is Missing Major Details

Trump Ed. Dept. to Michigan: Your ESSA Plan is Missing Major Details

A key section of Michigan’s plan to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act is so sparse that the U.S. Department of Education isn’t sure it’s ready for formal review, according to a letter the agency published Tuesday.

The department told the state chief, Brian Whiston, the information it provided “was insufficient” to “adequately review” the section of the plan dealing with the state’s accountability system, arguably the heart of ESSA. That could be partly because the state’s application, filed this spring, Michigan offers three possible approaches on accountability. (Michigan has since settled on one of them, a “dashboard”, Whiston said.)

Otherwise the letter, which followed a phone call between state officials and the education department on the plan, is fairly light when it comes to the list of things the state needs to fix. (More on that below).

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If Senate Starts Over on Health Care, K-12 Could Dip Lower on Priority List

If Senate Starts Over on Health Care, K-12 Could Dip Lower on Priority List

If the Senate’s attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act that crashed and burned Friday morning comes back to life, it could push congressional action on education further down the priority list.

Why? Several senators, Democrats in the main, complained that the health-care legislation was not considered by the “regular” process. If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., decides to start over and try to move a bill through the relevant committees, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., suddenly becomes a very important figure in the process. That’s because, as many readers know, he chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions…

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U.S. Senate Vote to Overturn Accountability Regulations under ESSA

U.S. Senate Vote to Overturn Accountability Regulations under ESSA

The Senate on Thursday voted 50-49 to block the accountability rules for the Every Student Succeeds Act created by the Obama administration.

Without the rules, the requirements for accountability and state plans will be found in the language of ESSA itself. The Obama-era accountability rules, finalized late last year, set ground rules for how schools must be rated for school-improvement purposes, specified the requirements of (and flexibility for) states dealing with high testing opt-out rates in individual schools, and outlined how states would have to handle the “school quality” indicator in accountability systems.

The rollback measure was introduced by Sen. Lamar…

Democrats Press Betsy DeVos on Privatization, ESSA, and LGBT Rights

Democrats Press Betsy DeVos on Privatization, ESSA, and LGBT Rights

By Alyson Klein and Andrew Ujifusa

WASHINGTON — Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Education, sought to use her confirmation hearing to beat back the notion that she would undermine public education as head of the department, as Democrats pressed her on everything from her views on the civil rights of gay and lesbian students, to states’ responsibilities for students in special education, and guns in schools.

“If confirmed, I will be a strong advocate for great public schools,” DeVos said. “But, if a school is troubled, or unsafe, or not a good fit for a child—perhaps they have a special need that is going unmet—we should support a parent’s right to enroll their child in a high-quality alternative.” She also noted that her mother, Elsa Prince, was a public school teacher.

But those assurances didn’t seem to quell the anxieties of Democrats on the committee, including Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking member. “I have major concerns with how you have spent your career and fortune fighting to privatize public education and gut investments in public schools,” she said.

In the early stages of a tense hearing that lasted three and a half hours, Murray asked DeVos if she would be willing to commit not to “cut a penny from public education” or use her perch at the department to privatize public schools. DeVos said she would seek to give parents and children the best educational options possible, which Murray essentially took as a no.

DeVos didn’t delve into the specifics on many of the big questions on the table, like whether she would rein in the department’s office of civil rights, or how she would handle key details of the federal student lending program. And at times she seemed unclear on key policy details, including during a pair of exchanges with Democratic senators on whether federal special education laws should apply to all schools. (More here.)…

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