Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s attempt to give private schools a larger share of federal coronavirus relief dollars is illegal, a federal judge ruled in striking down the policy.
The Education Department announced in May that it would dole out Care Act funds to private schools without regard to “family income, residency, or eligibility based on low achievement.”
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said in a ruling Friday that doing so would be illegal because the act clearly requires money to be allocated to private schools based on the number of children from low-income families who attend them.
“In some statutory interpretation cases, courts must make sense of vague terms, contradictory provisions, or ‘inartful drafting,’ Friedrich wrote. “This is not one of those cases.”
