Hearings for Top ED Department Officials Start at 2:30 PM Today

– Zais, a retired Army brigadier general, checks off a lot of conservative boxes. He was most recently superintendent of South Carolina schools until he announced in 2014 that he wouldn’t run for reelection. As superintendent, Zais refused to participate in the Obama administration’s signature Race to the Top program, which encouraged states to adopt more rigorous academic standards like the Common Core in exchange for federal grants. Zais saw the standards, which were never mandated by the Obama administration, as federal overreach.

– Ranking Democrat Patty Murray could raise concerns about Zais’ past support for expanding school choice and his skepticism over early childhood education, according to prepared remarks shared by a Democratic aide with Morning Education. Zais previously opposed expanding public kindergarten for 4-year-olds, citing costs and that it could put private- and faith-based programs out of business. He has also been skeptical about the lasting benefits of early childhood education, citing studies of Head Start, a federal preschool program for low-income families.

– Murray could also raise concerns about Zais’ past support for abstinence-based sex education and about comments he made in 2014, reported by The Post and Courier at the time, about the teaching of natural selection in schools. Zais said, “We ought to teach both sides” of the principle “and let students draw their own conclusions.” Murray is expected to tell Zais that his comments “make me question your ability to help set a course for this agency based on facts, science and evidence.”

– Blew, in turn, is the director of the advocacy group Student Success of California, which advocates for performance-based systems for teachers and supports charter schools. He has also served as president of Students First, the national advocacy organization founded by former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Murray plans to raise concerns about Blew’s history of supporting school choice, noting that the office he has been nominated for “is critical in developing and implementing policy – which impacts every student in the country. So your record of promoting school vouchers gives me pause that you will not stand up for students and public schools.”

– Chairman Lamar Alexander is expected to say that Zais “has an excellent and deep background” for the position of deputy secretary, according to prepared remarks provided by a Republican aide. Alexander will also note that Blew has spent two decades working to improve “educational opportunities for families and children by overseeing grants to low-income, high risk schools.”

– Absent from the hearing will be Michigan state Rep. Tim Kelly, after the Trump administration this week formally pulled his nomination for a top career and technical education post at the Education Department. Kelly, a Republican, was axed because of statements that he made on his blog, the “Citizen Leader,” between 2009 and 2012. In his blog, Kelly called for banning all Muslims from air travel, said that women aren’t interested in science careers and labeled low-income preschool parents “academically and socially needy.” In an interview with POLITICO last week, Kelly accused the “deep state,” “haters” and federal employees who don’t like President Donald Trump for making the nomination process “toxic” and “intrusive.”