Just What Kind of “Educational Freedom” Does DeVos Want?

US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos had harsh words for past education reforms and called for more “educational freedom” – but how serious is the Trump administration about really tackling America’s education crisis?

US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos used a speech before the right-wing American Enterprise Institute this week to criticize previous administrations’ attempts to solve America’s education problems, and tout President Trump’s commitment to “educational freedom” (a clever rebranding of “school choice”).

In her speech before the AEI, DeVos pushed for further delegation of education policy from the federal level to the states, a process already set in motion under another Obama-era education milestone, the Every Student Succeeds Act, but that process is facing plenty of its own hurdles.

DeVos also called the Obama-era Common Core Standards Initiative “a disaster” and “dead” earlier this week (though not everyone agrees that’s the case), but the Secretary hasn’t accounted for the Trump administration’s own pretty lukewarm first year in terms of achieving its education priorities (except for terrifying thousands of DACA students with the prospect of deportation). The folks at Chalkbeat have fact-checked her speech as well.

And while DeVos continues to praise charter schools and personalized learning as solutions to fixing American schooling, it remains to be seen what the Secretary of Education makes of supporting America’s hardworking tutors.

After all, if DeVos is to be taken at her word and “equal access to a quality education should be a right for every American,” tutors can provide that access today, but only if parents, communities, governments, and tutors can muster the resources and planning to make it happen.

banner image from https://www.the74million.org/an-unusually-pointed-devos-pans-past-federal-school-reform-efforts-in-broad-call-for-educational-freedom/

An Unusually Pointed DeVos Pans Past Federal School Reform Efforts in Broad Call for “Educational Freedom” https://www.the74million.org/an-unusually-pointed-devos-pans-past-federal-school-reform-efforts-in-broad-call-for-educational-freedom/