Monday is the first full weekday that the Trump administration is in control of the U.S. Department of Education. And there are major questions about what the new crew—including some 150 political appointees, who have yet to be named—will mean for everything from the big data sets, like the Civil Rights Data Collection, to day-to-day work of the more than 4,000 career employees who stayed behind after the Obama administration cleared out last week.
Here’s a quick rundown on where things stand in Washington:
Who’s in Charge?
The department’s career staff is still running the show. That’s because Trump’s pick to lead the department, Betsy DeVos, hasn’t been approved by the U.S. Senate yet. The Senate education committee has delayed a vote on her confirmation, originally slated for Jan. 24, to Jan. 31, to give senators time to review her now-finalized ethics paperwork. Democrats, who lamented that they weren’t given enough time to question DeVos during her hearing last week, pushed unsuccessfully on Monday for another hearing so that lawmakers could ask her any questions that emerged from the paperwork.
Filling the secretary slot for now is a long-time career employee, Philip Rosenfelt, the deputy general counsel for program service in the office of the general counsel. Rosenfelt has worked on education issues since before there even was a U.S. Department of Education…
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.