Last weekend in Tampa, about 500 members of the conservative education advocacy network Moms for Liberty gathered for their first national summit. True to the spirit of a group that has helped drive many of the most heated school board confrontations of the last two years, the summit's most headline-grabbing moment came when Betsy DeVos, the former secretary of education under Donald Trump, called for the abolition of the Cabinet-level department she used to run.
"I personally think the Department of Education should not exist," DeVos said, sparking cheers and a standing ovation, during a lunchtime session named for her recent book, "Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child." It's hardly the first time DeVos has suggested as much (she did so just last month, at an event for conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute), and she's also hardly alone, as a growing number of Republican politicians and conservative leaders have called for demolishing the DOE in increasingly strident attacks on public education, including a 2021 bill supported by right-wing House Republicans like Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz.
