According to Politico this morning, DeVos had a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic caucus (not on her public schedule) which yielded this comment from Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas):
“The Secretary’s primary focus is school choice,” Castro said. “However, her statements did not encourage us that the Department of Education has a strategy — or much desire — to earnestly improve the existing public school system. We are not interested in siphoning money from public schools to prop up a shadow system that includes private, for-profit schools.”
Castro chaired the meeting and said he appreciated the visit but said they still have a "fundamental disagreements on how to best prepare kids for success in life, and the critical role of the Department in making our public schools stronger."
Castro has a mixed record on education issues, with strong support for the public system, but also strong support for the whole standards-and-testing mess. And the Castro brothers (a rising Texas brand) have been pretty friendly to the charter sector in the past. He's a successful Democratic politician in Texas, so that's an achievement in itself, but I also note that his quote opposes "for profit" schools, and as we've noted before, a non-profit charter is just a for-profit charter with a good money laundering system.
DeVos's office followed up on the meeting by saying "Glad for the meeting blah blah blah choice students." I may be paraphrasing a bit.
You have a way with paraphrasing. I say keep it up.
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