Liz once vouched for school vouchers

Top Trump critic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who’s expected to grill Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos tomorrow — once advocated school choice much like the woman she is likely to grandstand against.

Warren recently slammed DeVos’ lack of education experience as well as her support for school vouchers that would allow public school students to attend private schools in a likely preview of tomorrow’s nomination hearing.

“Your history of support for policies that would drain valuable taxpayer resources from our public schools and funnel those funds to unaccountable private and for-profit education operators may well disqualify you from such a central role in public education,” Warren wrote in a blistering letter to DeVos last week.

But Warren, who sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee set to question DeVos tomorrow, supported a type of voucher system in her 2003 book, “The TwoIncome Trap.”

“An all-voucher or allschool choice system would be a shock to the educational system, but the shake out might be just what the system needs,” Warren wrote in a book she co-authored with her daughter, Amelia Tyagi.

The Harvard Law professor proposed giving students vouchers to attend any public school they wanted in an attempt to eliminate the current system that often necessitates that students live in a pricey community to attend a good public school.

“The whole concept of ‘the Beverly Hills schools’ or ‘ Newton schools’ would die out,” she wrote of the vouchers.

Warren’s position on school choice shifted over time, however, and she recently opposed a ballot question that would increase the number of charter schools in Massachusetts. Now Warren and other Trump critics have blasted DeVos for backing a school voucher system that would allow students to attend private schools at public expense.

“You and the organizations you led have also spent millions to promote policies that send more public funds to for-profit and virtual charter schools with no accountability for how well these schools serve students or how these taxpayer dollars are spent,” Warren wrote.

A Warren aide noted that the programs backed by DeVos would let public funds go to private schools, which aren’t accountable to government. The voucher system proposed by Warren would let students attend other public schools — still a choice that would put pressure on failing public schools.