History was made Tuesday when Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to confirm Betsy DeVos as secretary of education.

But the necessity of Pence’s vote reflected another kind of history, too: The decision by all Senate Democrats to reject DeVos marked a new low for the flailing party.

Democrats claim to stand for the poor, immigrants and nonwhites. Yet given a chance to actually support someone who is dedicated to improving education for all America’s children, especially those trapped in failing urban schools, the Dems said no, hell no.

Joined by two Republicans, they stood in the schoolhouse door to block vital change, casting their lot with teachers unions that fear reform the way a vampire fears garlic.

Throw away all the subtexts and subterfuge, a defense of the rotten status quo is the only explanation for the bid to block DeVos. The teachers unions pulled the strings, and the political puppets danced to their masters’ tune.

DeVos survived because President Trump is determined to deliver a government that shatters the insiders’ perks and privilege and opens the door to new ways of doing things. In education, that means giving more parents the power of school choice and taking power away from the union establishment.

Millions of children, most poor and many black and Latino, are forced to attend failure factories that rob them of America’s promise. While family breakdown is a prime culprit, the social contract requires society to do its best to compensate.

And there is no question that charter schools, vouchers and other experiments offer the best hope for bringing fresh ideas and progress to educational deserts.

DeVos, a passionate crusader for excellence in the classroom, is just one of the Trump nominees Democrats tried to block in their insane attempts to destroy his presidency before it gets started.

No president has ever had so few cabinet members confirmed at this late date, just as no president has been confronted with such open talk of assassination and impeachment.

Speaking of which, have you heard a single Democrat decry the talk of assassination? Have you heard a single Democrat denounce the violence carried out by so-called protesters?

The answers are no and no because Dems see the riots and threats of violence as legitimate expressions of disapproval — and convenient for their purposes. Their contribution to the “resistance” started when 70 Democrats boycotted Trump’s inauguration and many senators boycotted confirmation hearings and votes. Maybe they’ll soon throw rocks through windows.

The madness was on full display Monday night when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer boasted in a tweet from outside the Capitol that “While the GOP is pushing a vote on Betsy DeVos, the people are rallying outside. We’re with them.”

Think of that: The Democrats’ leader walks out on his job to play the role of a man of the people in a staged demonstration. This is a party that has lost its mind, as well as its soul.

It is noteworthy that Schumer started the Trump era by talking about a willingness to work with the new president on infrastructure and other areas of common ground. It was too good to last.

For being relatively reasonable, Schumer was denounced by party radicals and anarchists as a collaborator and got noisy, vulgar demonstrations outside his Brooklyn home.

Related Video Video length 52 seconds :52

In a flash, he abandoned any talk of cooperation and jumped on the radical bandwagon, no doubt hoping to keep the minority leader job he just got. Schumer probably also sees going along with the rabble as the only way to raise money for the beleaguered party’s candidates in the 2018 midterms.

In any case, the responsibility of leadership eludes him. Democrats created their own problems by blindly agreeing to all of Barack Obama’s ultra-liberal policies, and the fed-up response of Republican voters was to nominate Trump.

In their response, Hillary Clinton and her team poured acid on Trump and his followers, thinking they could make him so toxic that he would be disqualified. They were wrong.

Yet even now, they apparently have no idea why they failed because they are following the same script again. They continue to denounce Trump in the most hyperbolic terms, declare his nominees unfit and dangerous — and expect a different outcome.

They shouldn’t hold their breath. Trump has made rookie errors, but his resolve in picking DeVos and sticking with her proves he is deadly serious about fixing what’s broken in American education.

What, pray tell, are Democrats serious about?

NYers vetty hypocritical

Reader Harold Theurer says extreme vetting, despite its name, is rather common and cites a familiar example. He writes:

“If opponents serve on a co-op board or live in such a building that has a governing body which reviews, accepts or denies applicants to live among them, can they be against extreme vetting without being total hypocrites?”

Blas nears a dread end

Another day, another investigation involving Mayor Bill de Blasio. Make that three more investigations.

The most investigated mayor in history is busy racking up a dubious record that will, hopefully, never be broken. Reports say a deal to subsidize a private bus company is under scrutiny, as is his opposition to Airbnb.

Both probes are said to center on large contributions to de Blasio’s political slush fund, with investigators wanting to know whether the mayor improperly rewarded the donors with government action.

A third newly reported investigation involves the awarding of a contract to provide police body cameras. The winning bidder is Vievu, of Seattle.

The connection between donors and City Hall actions is the focus of state and federal prosecutors on a slew of fronts. They interviewed scores of donors, lobbyists and others, and the mayor himself met with state prosecutors and says he will soon sit with the feds.

City Hall aides and private consultants caught up in the investigations are said to be worried the mayor will put all the blame on them in a bid to save his own neck.

That’s certainly a possible scenario, but not the only one. We already know de Blasio was personally involved in soliciting some of the suspect contributions, and he alone had the ultimate power to decide what government actions would be taken on all the donors’ pending business at City Hall. Those facts alone mean it wouldn’t be so easy for him to lay all the blame on others.

That is why I draw two conclusions from de Blasio’s meetings with prosecutors: We’re getting close to the end, and he has reason to worry.

Left coast wasteland

Nice work if you can get it.

California will pay the law firm of former Attorney General Eric Holder $25,000 a month to help develop “legal strategies” against the Trump administration, according to a contract obtained by Judicial Watch.

The payment gets taxpayers 40 hours of legal chitchat. Any real work would be extra, the contract says.