Trump's education secretary blasts White House for pro-school reopening rebrand

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called the Biden administration’s attempts to paper over its support of school closures as “gaslighting” after a new report found students suffered severe learning loss during the pandemic.

“The only reason the Biden administration is making this claim is because they know families and voters across America are holding them accountable for the union-driven lockouts and catastrophic learning loss that resulted," DeVos told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.

"But they can’t gaslight America’s parents, who know exactly who held their kids hostage until they got their payday.”

Last week, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that average scores for 9-year-old students fell 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020. This was the largest decline in average reading scores in over 30 years and the first ever score decline in mathematics, according to the report.

The White House has been working to rebrand as champions of school reopening following the report’s release, according to the Washington Examiner.

Biden’s Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote an op-ed in USA Today the same day the NCES report came out, where he noted that average scores were not increasing before 2020 either.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press conference later that day that the Biden administration deserved credit for reopening schools because they were closed under former President Donald Trump, reports the Washington Examiner.

Critics pointed to evidence that Democrats and aligned teachers unions had fought reopening during the pandemic. One example shared on social media was a 2020 Democratic National Committee ad that attacked Trump for trying to reopen schools.

Other studies had warned of learning loss during pandemic lockdowns, like one from February that found school closures hurt low income and minority students most.

The NCES study received significant attention in part due to coverage by the New York Times in an articled titled “The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading.”

Backlash to public schools’ pandemic policies is credited with an upset victory in the Virginia governor’s race last year and the recall of three progressive San Francisco school board members in February.