Bye Bye Betsy
With Secretary Devos' resignation from the Department of Education, her legacy as a Secretary leaves a lot for the next administration to untangle
Betsy Devos, one of the longest serving Trump cabinet officials, tendered her resignation from her post as Secretary of Education on January 7th, in the wake of President Trump’s role in the Siege of the Capitol. Senator Elizabeth Warren summarized the feelings of many on the left in less than 280 characters, with her most liked tweet to date reading:
The distinction of the title “Worst Secretary of Education Ever” might seem a bit harsh, but the fact that there have only been 11 Secretaries of Education, including Ms. Devos, means that this is a question we should take seriously into consideration. While this is inherently a subjective designation, and one that wouldn’t be properly given without an exhaustive comparison of the other 10 Education Secretaries, we can certainly argue that Devos’ tenure was one of the most polarizing and ineffective stints as the Secretary of Education. The worst? That’s for you to decide.
What she didn’t do
Despite the fact that Devos holds the infamous distinction of being the first and only Cabinet Secretary who was confirmed via a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, she has mostly drifted into the background of the press coverage of the Trump administration (though a YouGov poll conducted in July of 2020 pegged her net approval rating at -17%). Likely this is because many of her controversial plans never came to fruition. Devos’ signature proposal, a bill to provide a $5 billion tax credit for individuals to donate money toward organizations that would provide students with vouchers for private schools and homeschooling. This “Education Freedom Scholarship” was pointed to by a spokesman as “the most transformative K-12 policy in our nation’s history”, despite the fact that was never introduced into either the House or the Senate. In fact, Devos’ focus on school choice might have backfired. Charter schools, which used to enjoy bipartisan support in the Obama era, are now firmly polarized as the agenda of the right, with President-Elect Joe Biden holding an education agenda more firmly tied to the National Teachers’ Unions.
Her efforts to reform the actual education of students, such as her criticism of Common Core, also lacks a concrete policy accomplishment. Her constant criticism of the funding of her department went unheeded by Congress, which refused to reduce the Education budget. Lacking a signature policy accomplishment, an examination of Devos’ legacy has to focus on the regulatory actions she took as Secretary.
Rolling back protections for students
As Secretary, Devos focused on rolling back Obama era civil rights and protections for students. She rescinded the Department of Education guidance for transgendered students to use the bathroom of their choice, dropped a previous rule meant to decrease racial discrimination in schools, and rewrote Title IX regulations in order to allow for those accused of sexual assault on college campuses to cross examine in real time their accusers as well as narrow the scope of sexual harassment to behavior that is “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive”. Of the Obama era rollbacks, the Title IX regulation reform is the one most likely to outlast the administration, due to it being a rewriting of the regulatory language that would take time for a new Secretary of Education to undue. However, the other alterations in guidance could be undone with the stroke of a pen, because they are simply guidance given to schools and not regulations that districts must follow.
Higher Education
Devos’ tenure did not feature much time spent dealing with issues of higher education except on one key point: reforming regulation of for-profit colleges. The Obama administration, amid the closure of Corinthian College due to fraud, instituted a rule known as the “Borrower’s Defense”, allowing those who obtained student loans and attended for profit universities to petition for federal student loan discharge if they felt they were defrauded under state law. Devos’ Department ignored these petitions and rewrote the law to force students to prove they were intentionally misled by the college in order to qualify for debt forgiveness (while at the same time expanding the deadline for a petition to be filed to 180 days after a student discontinues enrollment). The rule was considered so extreme on a bipartisan basis that Congress attempted to repeal it legislatively, though it was saved due to a veto from President Trump.
Devos also repealed the “gainful employment” rule, which penalized colleges that had graduated students with too much debt relative to their post graduate earnings. 98% of these colleges had been for-profit institutions, according to the survey done by the Education Department in 2017. Federal aid was supposed to be cut off from these institutions, a penalty which Devos, claiming for-profit institutions were unfairly targeted, chose to delay.
To her credit, Devos’ Department had done some good actions, mostly for community colleges. Her administration clarified rules for what could constitute as online education and reduced regulation for students who could demonstrate competency in coursework to obtain credits without needing to complete unnecessary credit hours.
COVID 19
While Betsy Devos was a major proponent for re-opening schools, the Department never issued clear guidelines as to what would constitute as an environment that would be safe to reopen. The only notable action that Devos has taken during the COVID 19 pandemic was the decision to exclude undocumented students from emergency student grants provided in the CARES act. While this decision was overturned in several states by the courts, it remains in place for much of the country.
The WSOEOAT?
Admittedly, it feels a bit harsh to designate anyone the Worst Secretary of Education of All Time, even someone as polarizing as Betsy Devos. But to judge Ms. Devos on her accomplishments is to judge her primarily for a bill that has never made it on to the floor of the halls of Congress, advocating for a vision of education in America that is not realized, while grappling with the fully realized cruelty of the policies that she did implement. Much of her policies will likely be overturned in the next few months with the simple stroke of a pen, the regulatory reforms that will remain will do so likely for only a few years. In an increasingly polarizing and volatile administration, and in one of the most volatile times for education, Devos has failed to make an impact that would truly alter the way we conduct education in this country. And that will be her legacy.