Betsy DeVos's hard line on a new education law surprises states and conservative education experts

[riversedge]

It is not surprising that she wants total control at the Federal level. Not surprising at all.



DeVos’s Hard Line on New Education Law Surprises States
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/us/politics/devos-federal-education-law-states.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur


Erica L. Green
9-12 minutes
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Capitol Hill last month. Doug Mills/The New York Times

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who made a career of promoting local control of education, has signaled a surprisingly hard-line approach to carrying out an expansive new federal education law, issuing critical feedback that has rattled state school chiefs and conservative education experts alike.

President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 as the less intrusive successor to the No Child Left Behind law, which was maligned by many in both political parties as punitive and prescriptive. But in the Education Department’s feedback to states about their plans to put the new law into effect, it applied strict interpretations of statutes, required extensive detail and even deemed some state education goals lackluster.
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“It is mind-boggling that the department could decide that it’s going to challenge them on what’s ambitious,” said Michael J. Petrilli, the president of the conservative-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who worked in the Education Department under President George W. Bush. He called the letter “directly in opposition to the rhetoric and the promises of DeVos.”

After more than a decade of strict federal education standards and standardized testing regimes, the Every Student Succeeds Act was to return latitude to the states to come up with plans to improve student achievement and hold schools accountable for student performance..................................





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Betsy DeVos's hard line on a new education law surprises states and conservative education experts

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