



Yesterday, DeVos was on Capitol Hill, testifying at a House Appropriations subcommittee, where the education secretary was eager to defend Donald Trump’s budget request for directing taxpayer money to private and parochial schools. Most of the hearing went about as one might expect, but an exchange between DeVos and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) was of particular interest, because it focused on the voucher movement’s Achilles’ heel: taxpayer-subsidized discrimination.



Slate had Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is having an interesting week. On Monday, for example, the Republican opponent of public education argued that “defenders of current system” of education are “ flat-earthers .” I don’t think she was kidding.Yesterday, DeVos was on Capitol Hill, testifying at a House Appropriations subcommittee, where the education secretary was eager to defend Donald Trump’s budget request for directing taxpayer money to private and parochial schools. Most of the hearing went about as one might expect, but an exchange between DeVos and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) was of particular interest, because it focused on the voucher movement’s Achilles’ heel: taxpayer-subsidized discrimination.Slate had a good piece on what transpired:

Clark used Bloomington, Indiana’s Lighthouse Christian Academy as an example. The school currently gets more than $665,000 in state funding through a school voucher program, Clark said. It also openly reserves the right to deny admittance to any student in a family where there is “homosexual or bisexual activity” or family members who practice “alternate gender identity.” If Indiana applies for federal funding for schools like these, Clark asked DeVos, would her Department of Education require them to stop discriminating against LGBTQ students and families?



DeVos didn’t say yes or no. She just smiled and stuck to the generations-old cover for violent oppression in America. “The states set up the rules,” she said. “I believe states continue to have flexibility in putting together programs.”