At events and media appearances over the past few weeks, the White House and administration officials have repeatedly insisted that the nation’s schools and universities must physically reopen classes, and that online instruction, in whole or in part, it is not a suitable alternative. They have threatened to use federal funds as leverage to push schools to physically reopen them.
The Trump administration has made clear that it is concerned that schools that remain closed are an obstacle to the economic recovery that the president expects before the November elections. “If we don’t reopen schools, that would be a setback to a true economic recovery,” said Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser this week.
Trump criticized Los Angeles school officials earlier this week for a “terrible decision” to keep the country’s second-largest school district online only when classes start in several weeks. Many other large school districts across the country are also challenging Trump’s demands to physically reopen.
“It is not a question of whether schools should reopen, it is simply a question of how,” DeVos has repeated several times in recent weeks as he has become a primary spokesperson for the Trump administration’s push to reopen schools. . Schools, he said, “must be fully opened and fully operational.”
But the Trump administration’s focus on in-person instruction in traditional school buildings is a sea change for DeVos, who has been a fervent advocate of virtual schools and individualized digital learning options for students.
As Secretary of Education, she has also taken steps to promote online instruction in both K-12 schools and higher education, directing money and grants toward digital learning options and reducing federal regulations to promote distance education.
Last year, DeVos toured the country on a “Rethink Education” tour in which he repeatedly called on education leaders to question long-standing assumptions about what K-12 and higher education looks like, what which, he pointed out, has not changed much in several centuries.
“It is high time to ask some of the questions that are often labeled ‘non-negotiable’ or simply not asked at all,” DeVos said during a 2018 speech. Among them: “Why do students have to go to a school building first? “
DeVos also touted “high quality virtual charter schools” as a “valuable” option during its confirmation process. She and her husband were previously investors in K12 Inc., one of the largest virtual school companies in the country.
Kevin Chavous, the longtime Democratic education reformer who previously served on the board of DeVos’ school choice advocacy organization, the American Federation of Children, is now a top executive in K12.
“Overall, the administration has supported parental choice, “Chavous said, but acknowledged that the message” feels more confusing when you try to truncate choice options into one option or decision “between fully online and physical options.
“School districts can find a way to open up by finding fully online options in a thoughtful way or combined options depending on the status of the virus in their jurisdiction,” he said. “We really should adapt our approach in a way of solutions rather than having a political conversation.”
“Emergency remote or online learning since it has been administered by some school districts is not the same as online schools run by people who know what they are doing,” he said.
Chavous said K12 Inc. has seen “unprecedented” interest from school districts and parents since the start of the pandemic, adding that the company is seeking to hire 1,300 new teachers.
John Bailey, who served as the White House’s internal policy adviser to President George W. Bush, said there is a puzzling disconnect between Trump’s criticism of schools opting for online education and the prior celebration of local elections by its Department of Education.
“I can’t understand it because it just shows a completely dysfunctional federal government,” said Bailey, who is also a member of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the American Enterprise Institute. He said the Trump administration’s criticism of online education in recent days has been a “distraction” for schools that only have several weeks to plan for the fall.
As coronavirus cases skyrocket in many parts of the country, Bailey said he expected most schools to adopt some form of combination of online and in-person instruction this fall.
“Everyone knows that online learning was not great for many teachers and students and in the spring,” he said. “The focus now should be on how we provide the best hybrid learning and online learning, without debating, ‘Should the school be open five days a week or not?'”
As an example, Bailey said, a major problem this spring was how little time teachers and students interacted through online platforms. She cited census data showing that virtual instruction in American homes averaged just a few hours per week. “We should encourage more instructional time, not reopen schools,” he said.
Also in higher education, DeVos has spent most of his time in the office looking to advance online education as an innovative way to lower college costs.
The new regulation proposed by DeVos on online learning in higher education, which was unveiled in the midst of the pandemic but had been in process for more than a year before, would facilitate access to federal student aid to universities. online.
“It is pretty clear that the rhetoric we are hearing right now is fully politically motivated because of how inconsistent it is with what the administration has been doing,” said Clare McCann, deputy director of federal higher education policy in New America.
McCann, who also worked at the Obama Department of Education, has criticized the Trump administration’s deregulatory approach to online learning, as have other critics and consumer advocacy groups, who argue that there are very few federal barriers to quality in the programs.
Those critics see irony in Trump’s sudden criticism of the quality of distance learning as he rushes to reopen schools. “There is no question that online education is really difficult to do well,” McCann said. “At the same time, quality is not a big concern for this administration when it comes to online education.”
Beyond trying to change the regulations, DeVos also launched a lifesaver to one of the nation’s most prominent online schools, Western Governors University, rejecting an inspector general’s finding that the school violated federal law governing how much and how often instructors and students should interact. to qualify for student aid. The final online regulations that DeVos finalized also alleviate the requirement for “regular and substantive” interaction between instructors and students going forward.
In March, the Department of Education also used emergency powers to loosen the rules on how accreditors could approve online learning in higher education, telling universities that they did not necessarily have to adopt elaborate online learning platforms to obtain the approval.
During a discussion about reopening schools at Louisiana State University this week, DeVos gave a more careful tone on the role of online learning that Trump called inappropriate.
“While distance learning works well for some children, it does not work well for others,” DeVos said during a roundtable discussion with Vice President Mike Pence. “That is why I have always believed that education should meet the needs of students, not the other way around.”
Angela Morabito, a department spokeswoman, stressed that DeVos wants schools to reopen completely in the fall, but acknowledges that “there may be some exceptions to the rule depending on the local health situation.”
DeVos is focused on getting schools to provide “a full academic year of learning” that respects each student’s unique circumstances, he said. “All hybrid plans are not created in the same way.”
