Thursday, November 24, 2016

What Does Betsy DeVos Have in Mind for Higher Ed? - Dan Berrett, et al.; Chronicle of Higher Ed

By selecting Betsy DeVos to become the next secretary of education, President-elect Donald J. Trump has signaled his commitment to an ambitious plan to reform elementary and secondary education. Ms. DeVos, 58, is a leading player in the national school-choice movement. As chairwoman of the American Federation for Children, she has advocated aggressively for the expansion of charter schools and voucher programs for low-income students. Ms. DeVos’s lack of a track record in higher education is by no means unusual. Ms. DeVos’s nomination also met with some sharp criticism from both the left, where some see her as an opponent of public schools, and the right, where her stance on Common Core standards has come under scrutiny. Donald E. Heller, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of San Francisco, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Trump’s pick "could have been worse. But not much." http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Does-Betsy-DeVos-Have-in/238514