Warren says she’ll appoint a teacher to run the Education Department

May 13, 2019

Sen. Elizabeth Warren vowed Monday that if she is elected president, “the Secretary of Education will be a former public school teacher who is committed to public education.”

Warren, a former special needs teacher and economics professor, made the pledge in an email to supporters ahead of a town hall she’s holding with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in Philadelphia later in the day.

“Let’s get a person with real teaching experience,” the email says. “A person who understands how low pay, tattered textbooks, and crumbling classrooms hurt students and educators.”

The email also took a jab at current Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a proponent of charter schools who has never been a teacher.

“Betsy DeVos is the worst Secretary of Education we’ve seen,” Warren’s email says. “She and her team are up to their eyeballs in conflicts of interest.”

This pledge is the latest in a series of proposals to fix what Warren calls a “badly broken system” in education. It includes using her proposed “ultra-millionaires tax” to fund universal child care and pre-K and to eliminate student debt for the 95 percent of Americans who have it.