Federal court injunction blocks Education Department's plan to redirect pandemic aid to private schools

A federal judge in Washington state has temporarily blocked Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from enforcing a rule that directs states to give private schools a bigger share of federal coronavirus aid than Congress had intended.

The Washington Post reports that U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein on Friday issued a preliminary injunction and castigated the Education Department over its regulation for distributing federal funds. About $13.5 billion was earmarked in the Cares Act for K-12 schools in a $2 trillion-aid package to mitigate economic damage from the pandemic.

“The department claim that the state faces only an economic injury, which ordinarily does not qualify as irreparable harm, is remarkably callous, and blind to the realities of this extraordinary pandemic and the very purpose of the Cares Act: to provide emergency relief where it is most needed,” Rothstein wrote.

Lawmakers have said that most of the funding was intended to be distributed to public and private schools using a formula—one long been used for distributing federal aid—that is based on how many poor children they serve t

But in April, DeVos said she wanted money sent to private schools based on the total number of students in the school — not how many students from low-income families attended. That would have sent hundreds of millions of dollars more to private schools than Congress had intended.

Critics blasted the plan, saying DeVos was pushing her agenda to privatize the public education system and build up alternatives to public schools.

The Washington lawsuit was not the only one filed against the Education Department’s rule. Eight states sued the education secretary in July.

At a hearing held virtually last week before U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco, Michigan Assistant Attorney General Neil Giovanatti called DeVos a “Reverse Robin Hood” who was trying to take from the poor and give to the rich. The lawsuit contends that DeVos does not have the authority to dictate how the Cares Act money should be distributed.