While I have long respected Barbara Bush’s advocacy for family literacy, her endorsement of Betsy DeVos for secretary of education (Commentary, Jan. 13) is misguided, at best.

DeVos’ vision for education reform – primarily focused on the expansion of for-profit charter schools and funding private (often parochial) school vouchers – is neither innovative nor effective. Voucher programs are extremely expensive (requiring additional state funding) and have shown only marginal efficacy.

Similarly, for-profit charter schools have failed to achieve significant student gains in districts across the country. This includes Mrs. DeVos’ home state of Michigan, where her advocacy organization (referenced by Mrs. Bush) has spent over a million dollars lobbying for the deregulation of the state’s charters, leaving the door wide open for ill-prepared profiteers to set up shop.

Tragically, the influx of funds hasn’t translated to higher student achievement: Detroit remains one of the lowest-performing urban districts in the country, and Michigan maintains reading and math scores well below the national average as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Research has shown time and again that students from low-income households are already at a vast disadvantage academically, an achievement gap that is closed only when they are given the opportunity to attend high-quality, well-resourced schools with high expectations for student learning and data-driven methods of instruction. Our best means of providing this is to invest our resources in best-practice public and nonprofit charter schools. Unfortunately for our children, Mrs. DeVos brings neither experience with nor support for such reform to the table.

Abby King, Ed.M., M.A.T

Brunswick

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