We are delighted to have some very good news to share!

This week a federal judge issued a blistering decision that temporarily stops Betsy DeVos from taking federal COVID-19 aid away from the poorest students in order to provide well-off children in private/religious schools a windfall of federal funding.

The preliminary injunction, issued on Wednesday, August 26th, by Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court Northern District of California, prohibits DeVos and the US Department of Education from enforcing its rule until a decision on the merits of the case can be rendered.  

The decision states,

“The Department may prefer to give CARES Act funds to private schools more generously than Congress provided, but it is Congress who makes the law, and an “agency has no power to ‘tailor’ legislation to bureaucratic policy goals by rewriting unambiguous statutory terms.”

In a nutshell, this decision affirms that federal COVID-19 aid is not Betsy DeVos’s to dole out based on her personal agenda.

In Pennsylvania, this means that we can hope that $50 million in CARES Act aid that DeVos ordered districts to send to private schools to educate well-off students will instead stay in our public schools, where it will be used to increase resources available to students who are vulnerable and have greater educational needs.

To every person who sent letters to your members of Congress urging them to stop DeVos from looting our public schools–thank you.

On every front, school privatizers are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to drain funding from public schools and put it in private pockets. It is critical for state and federal lawmakers to hear from their constituents–frequently–so that they understand that we oppose the privatization of public education. As lawmakers look forward to additional federal aid for education, we need them to ensure that desperately-needed funding will reach the students in public schools who need it the most. 

For additional background on this issue read our July 19th blog post.