Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Education secretary today on a 51-50 vote. Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote. A massive union-led campaign generated 1.5 million calls a day, reports NPR. Senate Democrats staged an all-night Betsy-bashing marathon. Only two Republican senators voted “no.” I don’t foresee the end of public education. As NPR’s Anya Kamenetz points out, “less than 10 percent of funding for K-12 schools comes from the feds.” Furthermore, any Trump

How do you find the right school for your son? Help your daughter raise her grades? Understand jargon-heavy mailings? Advocate for a child with special needs? In New Orleans, a nonprofit called EdNavigator is helping parents — many of them poorly educated single mothers — be engaged, effective parents. EdNavigator persuaded hotels that funding education counseling as a job benefit would cut turnover, raise productivity and save money, writes Mareesa Nicosia in The 74. “The ho

A wealthy libertarian is creating low-cost private schools in North Carolina, reports Reason. After starting a popular charter school called Franklin Academy, Bob Luddy decided that families need an “exit” from the public system. His Thales Academy network charges $5,300 for elementary school, and $6,000 for junior high and high school. The schools don’t serve students with severe learning disabilities and scrimp on buildings (no auditoriums or cafeterias, minimal sports faci

After seven years and $7 billion in School Improvement Grants, low-performing schools showed no improvement, concluded a federal analysis. The final evaluation found “no evidence that SIG had significant impacts on math or reading test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment” compared to similar low-performing schools that didn’t receive grants. To receive up to $2 million per year for three years, school had to adopt one of four Education Department models. Sch

On the eve of confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s nominee for Education secretary, American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten blasted Betsy DeVos as “the most anti-public education nominee” ever. Betsy DeVos DeVos is a “fairly traditional, center-right education reformer,” not a radical, argues Michael Q. McShane in Education Next. She “has a long history of supporting the kinds of accountability and school-choice policies that a broad swath of the education-

Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s nominee for Education secretary, is a “pretty mainstream pick – though usual suspects on right & left of course are already going bonkers,” tweeted Andrew Rotherham. On Eduwonk, he added that DeVos is “within the mainstream of Republican thought on education.” She’s not the elitist, racist, fundamentalist, public education-hating monster that opponents claim, writes Tyler O’Neill in PJ Media. She doesn’t hate public education or oppose all regulati

Free Market For Education: Economists Generally Don’t Buy It, claims Susan Dynarski, a University of Michigan education professor, in the Dec. 30 New York Times. “Only a third of economists on the (University of) Chicago panel agreed that students would be better off if they all had access to vouchers to use at any private (or public) school of their choice,” she writes. “While economists are trained about the value of free markets, they are also trained to spot when markets