• Dems criticize Trump's choice for education,
WASHINGTON — The Senate education committee was deeply divided over President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary at her confirmation hearing Tuesday evening, with Democrats attacking Betsy DeVos as unfit for the job and Republicans defending her as a bold advocate for change.
Ms. DeVos’ confirmation hearing came on the same day as a hearing for Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., Mr. Trump’s choice for interior secretary, who is expected to sail through the confirmation process generally unscathed.
Ms. DeVos, a Michigan billionaire, repeatedly told skeptical senators that she looked forward to working with them to improve the nation’s schools. But she sidestepped several issues important to Democrats and their allies: She declined to commit that she would not work to privatize the nation’s public schools, called Sen. Bernie Sanders’ ideas about free college tuition “interesting,” and said she could not promise to uphold the Obama administration’s guidance to K-12 schools and colleges on handling allegations of campus sexual violence.
“It would be premature” to make such a commitment, Ms. DeVos said in response to a question from Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.
The Obama administration’s guidance on sexual assault, issued in 2011, pushed campus officials to more aggressively investigate incidents and protect survivors’ rights.
But the guidance, which directed schools to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard in sexual assault investigations, has drawn backlash from some colleges and politicians who argue that it violates the rights of those accused of assault.
Ms. DeVos is a polarizing nominee to helm the Education Department. She has lobbied for decades to expand charter schools and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools, but she has no professional experience in public schools — which she has called a “dead end” — and has not held public office.
It was time to move away from a “one size fits all” system and toward newer models for students from preschool to college, Ms. DeVos argued.
Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, declared that “Betsy DeVos is wholly unqualified to do this work.” It was the first time the group has opposed an education secretary nominee.
GOP senators cheered Ms. DeVos’ nomination, saying they hoped that she would champion alternatives to the nation’s public schools and scale back the federal footprint in K-12 education.
“She’s devoted her life to helping mainly low-income children have access to better schools,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Tuesday.
The hearing went forward Tuesday over the objections of Democrats, who are concerned the Office of Government Ethics — which is responsible for vetting presidential nominees for potential conflicts of interest — has not finished its review of Ms. DeVos’ vast wealth and financial investments.
Patty Murray of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the HELP committee, said that she has “major concerns about how you spent your career and your fortune fighting to privatize public education,” and is concerned about Ms. DeVos’ contributions to groups that “want to impose anti-LGBT or anti-women’s health beliefs on public schools and the students in them.”
Ms. DeVos said that if confirmed, she will be a “strong advocate for great public schools.” But when public schools are “troubled, or unsafe, or not a good fit for a child,” she said, parents should have a “right to enroll their child in a highquality alternative.”
Ms. DeVos also said repeatedly Tuesday that she would not coerce states to expand vouchers or charters.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Mr. Zinke made his case to be interior secretary.
He said that completing billions of dollars in backlogged projects at national parks should be a major part of Mr. Trump’s plans to revamp aging roads, bridges and transportation hubs.
The former Navy SEAL also said publicly for the first time that unlike Mr. Trump, he does not believe climate change is a hoax.
He also affirmed, forcefully, that he had no intention to sell or relinquish any federal land.
In other news, Senate Democrats are expected today to grill Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. — Mr. Trump’s choice to oversee the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — focusing on what they say is a “pattern” of questionable stock trades he made while serving as a member of Congress.