Schaffer’s ‘unsafe school choice’ policy gets new life under Trump
By Evie Blad | Education Week
When the Trump administration urged states to use a little-known provision in federal education law to boost school choice, the congressman who helped author the language 24 years ago had an immediate reaction.
“It’s about time,” said former Congressman Bob Schaffer.
In a May 7 letter, Acting Assistant Education Secretary Hayley B. Sanon urged states to ease their criteria for labeling schools as “persistently dangerous"—a designation that legally comes with an obligation to offer families an option to transfer to another public school.
“The number of persistently dangerous schools reported nationwide appears low particularly given the number of violent offenses in schools reported” in federal data, she wrote.
It’s a message that Schaffer, ...