Senate schedules confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick for education secretary
The Senate education committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to helm the education department, for Jan. 11.
DeVos, who has spent more than two decades advocating for charter schools and taxpayer-funded school vouchers, is one of eight Trump nominees that Democrats have singled out for additional scrutiny. Two of the others are Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s pick for attorney general, and ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump’s pick for secretary of state.
DeVos’s hearing is scheduled to take place on the second day of Sessions’s scheduled two-day hearing with the Judiciary Committee and the same day that Tillerson is tentatively scheduled to face the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A billionaire power broker and major Republican donor, DeVos has not held elected public office nor worked as an educator. She is likely to face questions about her advocacy track record, particularly in her home state of Michigan, where she played a key role in shaping a fast-growing charter-school sector that even many charter-school supporters criticize as lacking in oversight and quality. Senators also are likely to ask her about her support for using public money to pay tuition at private and religious schools — one of the most polarizing ideas in education.
But committee members also likely will use the confirmation to question DeVos about her views on a range of other Education Department subjects about which she has previously said little or nothing publicly. Those include her view of for-profit colleges, which have faced intense scrutiny under the Obama administration; her plans for implementing the new Every Student Succeeds Act; and her plans for the Office for Civil Rights, which is responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws in schools and which some Trump surrogates have said should be stripped of power.Senate schedules confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick for education secretary - The Washington Post:
