Like many televised events on Capitol Hill, the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing of secretary of education nominee Betsy DeVos alternated between interrogation and crass disparagement. DeVos tried to answer loaded policy questions, mostly from Democrats, only to be interrupted by senators whose aim was to discredit her qualifications.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., waved off DeVos after the hearing, refusing to shake her hand. Like DeVos, Warren once supported school choice and vouchers, but you wouldn't know it based on her purposeful attempts to upbraid DeVos before the cameras.
The senators' attempts to paint DeVos as a rich capitalist bent on turning schools into private profit centers rehashed the limp, decades-old arguments against charter schools and voucher programs. The committee chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., was right when he described DeVos' positions as mainstream. In her home state of Michigan, she spent more than a decade fighting for school choice programs that benefited mostly minority schoolchildren.
She's not alone. Supporters of school choice have included many Democrats and Republicans — presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, a half-dozen education secretaries, and more than 30 states.
But not here. Chicago and Illinois are case studies in resisting this type of education reform. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis last fall called DeVos a "nightmare."
Two years into Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner's term, the issue that got him involved in public policy in the first place — expanding school choice for kids stuck in poor-performing schools — is on the back burner. As in, way back. There has been no progress toward rescuing kids from poorly performing schools, even with a supportive governor at the helm.
In fact, compared with most states, Illinois is moving in reverse. Charter schools are still misunderstood and resisted. Any form of government-sponsored scholarship or voucher program isn't even whispered about. The Chicago Teachers Union insisted on a cap on charter schools in its latest contract. Charter operators have seen their own teachers unionize. And the state legislature routinely advances bills that weaken school choice.
And yet, thousands of parents are on waiting lists to get their kids into charter schools, particularly in Chicago.
Last fall, Rauner established a school funding task force, but its mission was to figure out how to distribute education dollars to public schools. Expanding charter schools statewide or establishing true competition through a voucher-type program isn't on the task force's agenda.
The last time the General Assembly voted on a school voucher initiative was 2010, and it addressed only poor-performing schools in Chicago. Twenty-two Democrats, including a handful of black and Latino lawmakers, supported it. So did House Speaker Michael Madigan. Like many politicians, Madigan sent his own children to some of the city's top private schools. But even that limited legislation failed to garner enough support in the House. The momentum was lost.
Instead of lauding DeVos for trying to break a failing status quo in places like Detroit, a handful of U.S. senators tried their best to depict her as an out-of-touch nincompoop whose goal was to destroy public schools. Yet half the Democrats on the committee either went to private schools themselves or had children or grandchildren attending private schools, according to a recent report in the Daily Caller, a right-leaning news site.
It's disturbing that so many politicians can choose the best educational opportunities for their kids but refuse to allow underprivileged families the same benefit.
FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
