Heidi Alexander: “today the Senate is finally voting to confirm James Blew, who has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Planning…”

“today the Senate is finally voting to confirm James Blew, who has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education. He is well-qualified to lead that office. For 20 years, in various roles, he has advocated for improving educational opportunities by overseeing grants to low-income, high-risk schools. He has a M.B.A. from Yale University. He will be in charge of helping to manage the Department's budget and ensure that programs are working as intended. Mr. Blew's sin with some of my friends on the other side is that he is in favor of giving low-income children a choice of a better school and in favor of public charter schools, which gives teachers more freedom to teach and parents more freedom to choose the school for their child. No one should be surprised that a Republican president would nominate such an Assistant Secretary of Education. Every Republican president has nominated assistant secretaries of education and secretaries of education--I was one of them--who support giving low-income children more choices of good schools--the same choices that wealthier children have--such as public charter schools. As far as public charter schools go, every Democratic president since 1990, when the first charter schools were formed, has supported public charter schools. Mr.…”