{"id":591,"date":"2018-03-09T10:31:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T15:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=591"},"modified":"2018-03-11T10:36:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T14:36:14","slug":"after-demanding-local-control-devos-finds-that-it-limits-her-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=591","title":{"rendered":"After Demanding Local Control, DeVos Finds That It Limits Her Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0ERICA L. GREEN<\/span><\/a><\/span>

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Betsy DeVos, secretary of education, gave a scathing speech to state education chiefs this week, pushing them to innovate and do better by students.<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 After spending much of her life fighting for state and local control of education, Betsy DeVos last year found herself at the helm of the federal agency that she had long said stands in the way of educational innovation.<\/p>\n

But after a year on the job, Ms. DeVos may have learned a hard lesson: local control means she can\u2019t always get what she wants.<\/p>\n

Ms. DeVos this week upbraided state education chiefs, telling them that while she was obligated to approve their federally mandated state education plans, she was not happy about the way they have used their freedom under the new federal law that governs elementary and secondary education, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act.<\/p>\n

If the states are supposed to be the laboratories of democracy, Ms. DeVos isn\u2019t seeing much experimentation. But she refuses to violate her principles on states\u2019 rights and tell them what to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cESSA was enacted partially in response to the widespread calls from state school chiefs \u2014 including many in this room \u2014 to give you the flexibility and opportunity to address your state\u2019s unique challenges,\u201d Ms. DeVos said in an address to the Council of Chief State School Officers. \u201cWell, this law gives you that chance. The trouble, I don\u2019t see much evidence that you\u2019ve yet seized it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the first time that Ms. DeVos has offered her opinions on the quality of state plans under the new law, which freed states from the punitive and prescriptive federal mandates of the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act.<\/p>\n

But what Ms. DeVos called \u201ctough love\u201d policy experts and observers called the ultimate display of a frustrated federalist. The address, they said, is an example of a self-described education reformer wrestling with the limits of her influence in an agency whose power she wants to curtail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she\u2019s having an identity problem,\u201d said Sandy Kress, who served as senior education adviser to Mr. Bush on the No Child Left Behind Act.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kress noted that Ms. DeVos had been critical of her predecessors, calling Mr. Bush\u2019s education law a \u201cstick,\u201d and Barack Obama\u2019s Race to the Top policy, which incentivized state reform with cash, a \u201ccarrot.\u201d But he noted that she had not identified any tool that she would use to effect change in the nation\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a federalist does not exclude you from the role of leadership,\u201d Mr. Kress said. \u201cShe needs to stand for something, rather than showing up at a place like a regular citizen opining on things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said he believed that not since the administration of the elder George Bush has an education secretary been a true federalist. That education secretary was Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who is now a senator. As the chief architect of ESSA, he ensured the \u201clocal control\u201d components of the bill.<\/p>\n

George W. Bush\u2019s administration was so aggressive in driving education policy that Mr. Bush reset the expectation of conservative leadership in the department, Mr. Petrilli said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been conditioned for the last 30 years to expect a secretary of education to be out front on education reform, using various federal levers,\u201d he said. \u201cBetsy DeVos is trying to lead from behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. DeVos\u2019s criticism of the state plans echoed that of several groups that say her office\u2019s implementation of ESSA has been too lax.<\/p>\n

Democrats and civil rights groups say Ms. DeVos has approved state education plans that do not properly measure the performance of minority students, an allegation she denies. But in her speech, she mentioned the fact that\u00a0several governors<\/a>, the majority of them Republican, had refused to sign the plans their states submitted to her office because of what they saw as lackluster achievement goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because a plan complies with the law doesn\u2019t mean it does what\u2019s best for students,\u201d Ms. DeVos told the chiefs. \u201cWhatever the reasons, I see too many plans that only meet the bare minimum required by the law. Sure, they may pass muster around conference tables in Washington, but the bare minimum won\u2019t pass muster around kitchen tables.\u201d<\/p>\n

Education chiefs bristled at Ms. DeVos\u2019s assessments, which they saw as painting them with too broad a brush.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll states are doing far more than Sec. DeVos recognized,\u201d tweeted Matthew Blomstedt, the education commissioner in Nebraska, a state whose\u00a0governor refused<\/a>\u00a0to sign its ESSA plan. \u201cShe delivered a \u2018tough love\u2019 speech that demonstrated why the USDOE is out of touch with the good things actually happening in states and schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Policy experts agreed with the substance of the speech, but said it was too little, too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe should look in the mirror,\u201d said Chad Aldeman, a principal at Bellwether Education Partners, a consulting firm that led a group of policy experts in an\u00a0independent review of plans last year.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cThere were several points in time she could have shared her concerns and improved plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

All plans have been submitted, and 35 have been approved. In announcing the batches of approvals, Ms. DeVos noted only that they complied with the law.<\/p>\n

Ms. DeVos had signaled unwavering support for the autonomy under the ESSA law, and even issued a pared-down template for states to complete following a\u00a0vote by Congress<\/a>\u00a0last year to rescind regulations that specified accountability measures in the law. But since then, she has not used much of her power over budgets, guidance documents or even a public relations campaign to promote opportunities for innovation and specificity under ESSA, critics say.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe lowered the bar, they met it, and now she seems frustrated by that,\u201d Mr. Aldeman said.<\/p>\n

Ms. DeVos told state chiefs that they met the lowest bar \u2014 compliance \u2014 and that many plans fell short of furthering ESSA\u2019s primary goals of innovation in educational programming to lift student achievement, as well as increasing transparency about school performance.<\/p>\n

For example, she said, only two states, Louisiana and New Mexico, opted into a program that allowed them to use millions in otherwise restricted federal dollars to provide new educational programs, like online courses, for struggling schools.<\/p>\n

She also said that some states \u201cproposed accountability schemes that were so complicated, schools would be accountable to no one.\u201d In one case, she said, a state \u201ctook a simple concept like a color-coded dashboard and managed to make it nearly indecipherable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her speech, Ms. DeVos praised \u201cbright spots,\u201d like Nevada, whose state education chief, Steve Canavero, said he was encouraged by the speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe core message I heard is a message that I continue to hear from the other folks who are in the bleachers of the education space: You have to continually think about ways to innovate, and think about ways to best serve kids,\u201d Mr. Canavero said.<\/p>\n

Ms. DeVos reiterated that she would not fall into \u201cthe trap of a top-down approach\u201d of her predecessors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Education doesn\u2019t write laws, it implements them,\u201d she said. \u201cCongress did its job. We\u2019re doing ours. And now, you get to do yours.\u201d<\/p>\n