WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, voted against Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos on Tuesday during the HELP Committee meeting. After meeting with DeVos privately and questioning DeVos during a HELP Committee hearing earlier this month, Murphy expressed opposition to the nominee. He also joined U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and four other HELP Committee members in raising concerns about DeVos’s potential conflicts of interest, particularly those in for-profit higher education. Murphy said the following during the HELP Committee meeting:

“…During Mrs. DeVos’s hearing, she displayed a really disturbing lack of knowledge about basic education law and policy. She didn’t know the difference between measuring growth and measuring proficiency. She got tangled up on what’s required of states when it comes to educating kids with disabilities. Incredibly, instead of talking to me – the Senator representing Sandy Hook – about the danger of mixing guns and kids, she told the committee that she would support a federal law taking away the right of local schools to ban guns because of the threat of grizzly bears.

“…I’ve never seen folks in Connecticut respond to a nominee like they did after that hearing. Since the hearing, 11,000 people from my tiny little state called and wrote into my office to oppose her nomination. Almost no one called in support. That’s extraordinary...I’ll be voting against her nomination today.”

In 2015, Murphy successfully led efforts in the Senate to close the achievement gap and enable the most vulnerable students to succeed by ensuring that schools with low graduation rates, low- performing subgroups, or well-below average achievement are identified, made eligible for federal funding, and receive additional support through accountability and improvement systems set up by states.

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