DeVos urges resistance to changes
Education Dept. workers told to protect policies for students
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday urged Education Department employees to continue to resist any policies that they believe could hurt students with a new administration preparing to take over.
“Many of you know well that most everything in this town, when it comes to education, is focused on schools — not students,” DeVos told agency employees in a virtual meeting Tuesday. “So, let me leave you with this last plea: Resist. Be the resistance against a familiar force that will distract you from doing what’s right for students.”
The remarks, first reported Tuesday night by the website Politico, were shared with the Free Press by DeVos’ office, which said they were consistent with her message throughout her tenure as secretary to put students’ needs ahead of anything else.
Her press secretary, Angela Morabito, contradicted any suggestion that DeVos intended for her career employees to undermine President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration.
“The Politico story, unsurprisingly, is misleading and missed the point,” she said. “The secretary urged the staff to always put students first, and resist anything that distracts from that mission. Too many in Washington for too long have put the needs of adults and the education ‘ system’ first. Secretary DeVos worked tirelessly for four years to reorient the conversation around students, especially disadvantaged students, and she urged everyone to keep students at the center of every decision.”
DeVos has come under sharp criticism from Democrats and others, however, for pushing policies that are seen as undermining traditional public schools to benefit private and charter schools, as well as rescinding rules to curtail what was earlier described as disproportionate discipline of Black elementary and secondary school students and restricting qualifications for student loan relief.
Politico, which reported that it had obtained a recording of the comments, didn’t link to that recording or publish a transcript. But the story did note that DeVos, as confirmed by the partial transcript provided by the Education Department, prefaced the remarks about resistance by saying that “from the beginning” of her tenure, “our aim in everything we accomplished was to do what’s right for students.”
Biden has pledged to undo many of the changes DeVos has made as President Donald Trump’s secretary of education, including putting back in place reforms made under President Barack Obama that limit federal funding to for-profit institutions based on students’ debt and salary levels. He has also said he will work to get rid of changes that provided more protections to students accused of sexual assault on college campuses and limited institutions’ authority to investigate sexual misconduct.