NAACP, States Carry the Torch for Federal CARES Act Money
Amid a national health crisis, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is robbing public school children of desperately needed relief and diverting it to private schools.
— DERRICK JOHNSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NAACP
In June, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos launched another attack on public education when she tried to unlawfully impose conditions to redirect emergency federal aid from the CARES Act from public to private schools. In September, that rule—to require public schools to share funding with low-income students at private schools within the same district—backfired.
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh along with attorneys general from several other states joined Michigan and California in suing DeVos and asked for a preliminary injunction to stop the rule. It was granted in late July. In early September, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the NAACP, representing public school parents and districts across the country, and struck down Devos’s rule. The judge ruled that DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education violated the clear language of the CARES Act and its intent to aid public schools.