Jersey Jazzman: Reformy In the Age of Trump

Jersey Jazzman: Reformy In the Age of Trump:

Reformy In the Age of Trump

Here's one of the very, very few positive things to come out of the Trump presidency: the neoliberal education "reformers" finally have to take good, long look at the conservatives they've made common cause with.

For those who've clung tight to their moral superiority while defending the "reform" agenda, it's a cold slap in the face:

At her Senate confirmation hearing this week, Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. education secretary Betsy DeVos failed to answer basic questions about civil rights, measuring student growth, and children with disabilities. 

Her answers also validated what left-leaning education reformers have suspected for months: DeVos embraces school choice as an education panacea, while grasping little else about federal education policy. That philosophy will likely lead her to prioritize some of the least promising, and mostdivisive, components of the education reform agenda.

When that happens, she and Donald Trump will kill the bipartisan education reform coalition. 

Having participated in that coalition for 15 years, as a nonprofit president and member of President Obama’s 2008 education policy committee, I will be disappointed, though not surprised, to see it dissolve.

That's Justin C. Cohen, as reformy a centrist Democrat as you will find, telling us he will be Jersey Jazzman: Reformy In the Age of Trump: