Patty Murray and the DeVos Confirmation

Democratic senator Patty Murray, once called the "mom in tennis shoes" before she entered politics, is faced with a "profiles in courage" moment this week. She is the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which holds a hearing Tuesday on the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education. Will Murray cross party lines to support her: a person who has been a voice for the countless moms in cities across the country who desperately seek quality public school choices for their children? Murray often notes with gratitude that she lived in a country where the government didn't just say "tough luck" to families—federal grants and student loans made college possible for her and her siblings, her Senate website notes. Will Murray now say "tough luck" to these moms who seek an advocate?

Sen. Murray should visit Detroit. She will find great teachers and principals in both the traditional public school system and in the public charter schools. None of the schools are getting the full student outcomes they want, or that students deserve. Detroit, like many urban environments in the country, lacks enough quality school choices for its students. The educational choices are so inadequate that Mayor Mike Duggan reports that 27,000 children leave the city every day to attend another school.

These parents may take their children out of Detroit because the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress results show only five percent of Detroit fourth graders and four percent of eighth graders are proficient in math. Reading is only slightly better. Forty percent of those who remain in Detroit chose a school that is not connected to the main Detroit public school system. How hard do some mothers work to make these choices?

One prominent businessman in metro Detroit accompanied a mother as she took her kids to school in the dead of winter. He reported that they walked seven blocks to a bus, waited for 30 minutes, and rode for three miles. He then says they walked five more blocks to another bus stop, and waited another 30 minutes for another bus to go another mile. Then they walked four blocks to one school and four to another. This mother endured this every single day for her children. Where is her "mom in tennis shoes" to advocate for her choices? DeVos, through her work to expand school choice, has tried to be one.

But the New York Times and other media outlets have attacked her because of the poor performance of public education in Detroit, both at the Detroit Public Schools and in the public charters. "How Trump's Education Nominee Bent Detroit to Her Will on Charter Schools" read one Times headline. The headline and the article were inaccurate and incomplete. Reform died in Michigan because amendments to an education bill, deemed necessary to treat district and charter public schools equally with the formation of a Detroit Education Commission, were never adopted by the state senate. The interim emergency manager for the Detroit Public Schools, according to The Detroit News, makes it very clear that the intent of the bill was, in fact, to limit the number of charter schools that can operate in Detroit. The intent was not equal treatment.