Judge rejects DeVos’ bid to redirect funds for schools
A federal judge has rejected Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ attempt to give private schools a greater share of Congress’ COVID19 relief funds at the expense of public schools in lowincome areas.
In a setback for DeVos’ privatization efforts, U.S. District Judge James Donato of San Francisco said Wednesday that the secretary’s reading of the March 2020 law known as the CARES Act contradicted the clear intention of Congress and amounted to “interpretive jiggerypokery.” He issued a nationwide injunction in a suit by California, seven other states and the District of Columbia, and four school districts, including San Francisco.
The $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill included $13.2 billion in funding for schools with substantial numbers of lowincome students and $1.65 billion for California, where more than half the school districts are eligible
for aid. Congress told states to provide the funds to schools hardesthit by the virus and to distribute some funds to private schools under the terms of an existing law funding schools in areas of poverty.
That law, Title 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, provided federal funding for private schools in the same geographic areas as public schools receiving aid, based on how many lowincome students the private schools enrolled. But DeVos’ department, saying the pandemic had affected all students, ordered private school aid from the CARES Act distributed on the basis of a school’s overall enrollment and not just on its total of lowincome students.
The effect would be a reduction in aid to public schools in poor and minority areas. Donato said the Oakland Unified School District, which wasn’t part of the suit, has projected a loss of $2.2 million this fiscal year and “has resorted to private donations of food and education technology for lowincome students while waiting for its CARES Act funding.”
The CARES Act expressly requires educational agencies to provide funds to private schools “in the same manner” as they are distributed under Title 1. That means the formula must be the same, based on lowincome enrollment and not overall enrollment, Donato said.
“When Congress has spoken clearly ... that is the end of the matter,” the judge said. “An executive agency like the Department (of Education) has no authority to rewrite Congress’s plain and unambiguous commands under the guise of interpretation.”
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the ruling shows that “it’s time for Secretary DeVos to get her hands out of the cookie jar. While the fight isn’t over, this decision is a major victory for our state and will help school districts retain the flexibility they need right now to confront the unprecedented challenges of the coronavirus.”
The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment. The department could ask a federal appeals court to overturn Donato’s injunction.
DeVos is a longtime advocate of publicly funded vouchers for religious and private schools. In July, she said the federal government should deny funding to public schools that refused to reopen in the fall because of the coronavirus and should redirect the money to help parents pay for private education of their children.