Open letter to Biden and Harris: How to undo damage DeVos did to public education - The Washington Post

Open letter to Biden and Harris: How to undo damage DeVos did to public education - The Washington Post

An open letter to Biden and Harris: 10 steps to undo the damage Betsy DeVos did to public education

If Joe Biden becomes president, you can expect an overhaul of U.S. education policy.

For nearly 3½ years, President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have made their top education priority — and pretty much their only one — the expansion of alternatives to traditional public school districts, the ones that enroll the vast majority of American students. They have repeatedly asked Congress to pass a $5 billion tax credit program that would ultimately allow students to use public funding for private and religious school tuition.

In some bit of irony, Trump and DeVos pushed the public schools that they have disparaged to open for the 2020-2021 school year, and at one point threatened to withhold federal funding from those that did not. (They didn’t have the power to withhold funding already approved by Congress.)

Biden, vice president under President Barack Obama and now the Democratic presidential nominee, and his running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), have both savaged the Trump-DeVos education agenda. And they have said they would try to make the education system more equitable for underserved students.

This post is an open letter to Biden and DeVos from Chris Reykdal, the Washington state superintendent of public instruction, offering 10 steps that Reykdal said would help set a foundation for a more equitable school system.

An Open Letter to the Biden-Harris Ticket:

Mr. Vice President and Senator Harris, there is so much at stake with this year’s presidential election, including the very foundation of our country’s democracy — the future of our public education system. Led by Betsy DeVos and fueled by years of education privateers, the U.S. Department of Education has been an utter failure in advancing student learning, racial equity and gender equity over the last four years. Under DeVos, the Education Department has jeopardized the financial future of too many young CONTINUE READING: Open letter to Biden and Harris: How to undo damage DeVos did to public education - The Washington Post