DeVos says she won't force private school voucher plan on states
At a contentious confirmation hearing that mostly broke along party lines, Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of education, said she wouldn’t try to force states to adopt private school voucher programs along the lines of those she has promoted around the nation for several decades.
Her views are especially relevant to states like California with a history of opposition to taxpayer-funded vouchers that could be used to pay for tuition at private schools.
Appearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, DeVos responded to a series of questions from the committee chairperson Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-TN, against a backdrop of Democratic anger that Alexander allowed only one round of questions, limited to five minutes, for each senator.
Republicans uniformly expressed strong support for DeVos, while Democrats criticized her on multiple fronts, ranging from her lack of experience, her attendance at private schools as a student, and the use of her family’s fortune to advance conservative candidates and causes.
Democrats also complained they had not received a report from the Office of Government Ethics on DeVos and her finances, something they said Republicans had demanded before holding hearings for President Barack Obama’s nominees.
Alexander pointed out to DeVos that he had failed to get a private school voucher plan through the Senate in 2015, and for that reason it was not in the Every Student DeVos says she won’t force private school voucher plan on states | EdSource: