U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos slammed Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) on Tuesday. “A choice of two days per week in the classroom is not a choice at all,” DeVos said in a call with the nation’s governors.
The secretary reiterated her message on Tucker Carlson’s national television program. “They had an absolute disaster this spring,” DeVos said of FCPS. “And now this fall they’re suggesting that as a way to start school again, you can choose zero days a week for your child to be in school, or two days a week. That’s not a choice — that’s a pretense of a choice.”
Fairfax County GOP Chairman Steve Knotts cheered the secretary’s comments, in a statement issued Wednesday morning. “Frustrated parents and taxpayers have a true friend and powerful advocate in Betsy DeVos,” Knotts said. “Now more than ever, we need real educational choice in Fairfax County. If FCPS won’t offer five days a week of instruction this fall, then parents should have the right to use their educational tax dollars elsewhere.”