Lawmakers Mount Fierce Opposition to DeVos’s COVID-19 Relief Guidance
May 20, 2020
Democratic lawmakers in Congress did not hold back in expressing their opposition to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s guidance about federal COVID-19 relief for K-12 schools, calling it “way out of bounds” and urging her to abandon it. In a letter sent to DeVos, Democratic leaders suggested that through her department’s guidance, DeVos “seeks to repurpose hundreds-of-millions of taxpayer dollars intended for public school students to provide services for private school students, in contravention of both the plain reading of the statute and the intent of Congress.” The guidance “says districts must share CARES aid earmarked for local schools with private school students in general, under a provision of the law called ‘equitable services.’” However, under the Every Student Succeeds Act, only certain at-risk or failing private school students qualify for equitable services.”