Editorial: DeVos whiffs on ABCs of education

Follow @csteditorialsBetsy DeVos has a lot to learn. That’s one reason she is not fit to be the country’s next education secretary.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick, a wealthy philanthropist and school-choice advocate in Michigan, doesn’t grasp the basics of long-standing education policies.

Follow @csteditorialsAsked at her confirmation hearing this week if all schools that receive taxpayer funding should comply with the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, DeVos told Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that it’s “a matter that’s best left to the states.”

The federal law requires schools to provide a “free appropriate public education” to students with disabilities and serves as a roadmap for special education. It has been around since 1975.

Pressed by Kaine, who asked if DeVos agreed that any school receiving federal funding should follow the law regarding disabled students, she said it was certainly worth a discussion.

Say what?

After Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., told DeVos it’s a federal civil-rights law, DeVos said federal law must be followed when federal dollars are in play. But it wasn’t clear DeVos was familiar with the law heading into the hearing. “I may have confused it,” she said.

DeVos’ ignorance is inexcusable. The law is at the center of a case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last week.

Then again, DeVos has no experience leading public schools. She has an admirable quality: She wants to improve schools. But that by itself doesn’t qualify her to direct the nation’s schools.

Asked about two buzzwords in education, “proficiency” and “growth,” by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., DeVos stumbled. She seemed unfamiliar with the debate on whether test scores should be used to measure proficiency or growth from one year to the next.

We’ll give her credit for generating a Twitter storm. Asked by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., about allowing guns in schools, DeVos said it should be left up to locales and states. She also cited an elementary school in Wyoming with fencing to keep out grizzly bears and said there’s probably a gun there “to protect from potential grizzlies.”

Some probably howled with laughter, but her nomination, and likely confirmation by a Republican-controlled Senate, is no joke.

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