Before Betsy DeVos

is appointed, study Florida’s school “reform” mess for a look at the potential future, Scott Maxwell writes.

This week, Congress began vetting Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations.

Fireworks flew as members vetted nominees such as Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State.

I don’t know Tillerson from Adam. So I’ll leave the fighting over him to the D.C. politicians.

But I’m very familiar with the school “reform” movement championing Betsy DeVos as Trump’s pick for education secretary — because Florida has been Ground Zero on that front.

And here in Florida, that socalled “reform” has been a disaster.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from a bipartisan coalition of legislators who have admitted that Florida’s testing-obsessed brand of “reform” has spiraled out of control and ultimately hurt both students and teachers.

Just last week, Republican legislators vowed to roll back some of the testing overkill started by Jeb Bush — the man leading the charge to put DeVos in charge of schools nationwide.

The problems are evident. Under Florida’s so-called “reform” and “accountability” movement ...

Testing mandates have been so intense that some schools reported that test-related activities interrupted more than 60, 70 and even 90 of the 180 school days each year.

Three years ago, Orange County had to create 1,000 new standardized tests — for everything from P.E. to band — to keep up with mandates.

Science and art classes have been cut — sometimes entire courses, sometimes nine full weeks of curriculum, just so students could run more testing drills.

Teachers have fled the state’s public schools — so much that the state’s own research show 40 percent of new teachers leave within five years after they start.

This is why Republican legislators have already begun repealing some of the very “reform” measures they used to champion.

But here’s the real problem with the “accountability” movement: It is bogus.

Reformers bog down public schools with mandates that parents and teachers hate — but then offer vouchers to schools that don’t have to meet the same standards.

Think about that. It’s an obvious double standard with a goal of driving people away from traditional schools and to the private ones.

It’s like offering someone two plates of barbecue ribs. You’re free to choose whichever plate you want ... oh, but first we’re going to place a big steaming pile of dog poop on top of one of them. Now choose!

Of course you’re going to choose the poop-free platter.

If these folks were honest, they’d require every school that takes one nickel of public money or tax credits to meet the same

standards. Some. None. Just be consistent.

But they don’t. Because that would be a fair fight.

A few years ago, legislators actually talked about requiring the private schools that receive vouchers to meet the same “accountability” standards — and the private schools went bonkers.

One pro-voucher group even penned a column in the Sentinel saying that forcing them to play by the same burdensome rules would “threaten privateschool appeal.”

Well, no kidding. The private schools basically said: What you are doing to public schools is so bad that, if you do it to us as well, people wouldn’t choose us anymore. It was basically an admission that the “reform” movement — with “accountability” for some, but not for all — is a fraud.

And DeVos — the woman who wants to run America’s public-school system, despite never attending public schools herself nor sending her own kids there — is the queen of the vouchers and “reform,” helping lead several groups on that front.

Listen, as a parent of two public-school students, I

want some standardized testing. I want to know how my kids are doing on nationally respected tests.

I also want accountability. Not just for my kids but for underprivileged kids, some of whom have traditionally been left behind and are the intended beneficiaries of reform efforts.

I also deviate from some in the teachers’ unions in that I believe there’s a place for charter schools, especially those that serve special needs, cater to gifted students and target specific topics. And I think teacher raises should be set by supervisors who are best positioned to see what they are doing — just like most professions do.

But I also believe that teachers are experts at teaching. Not politicians. And definitely not people whose real goal is to funnel money to private and forprofit schools.

Great things still happen in Florida’s public schools. But they happen in spite of Florida’s top-down “reform” efforts, not because of them.

So before the U.S. Senate tries to take “reform” nationwide, they should look at Florida.

Look at all the specific problems I cited at the top of the column — and listen to all the former “reformers” here who now have buyer’s regret.