When you localize education and get the real stakeholders involved, you end up with Maria Montessori. When you federalize and get political stakeholders involved, you get Bernhard Rust.
Deep down, when we talk education, I think we all want the same thing: a more prosperous country through equal opportunity to successful schools, a way to afford post-secondary training and education, and effective and inclusive special education. But how we're currently doing it is over-complicated by federal gimmickry and, as a result, it is crumbling after years of decay (since 1980?) at the whim of an ever-changing federal political machine. Meanwhile, good teachers and families are handcuffed to a broken machine. I'm refusing to drink the Kool-aid that makes me hallucinate a vision of a centralized,federal education regime (of unelected political cronies) as a panacea.
Betsy DeVos may be an abomination, OK, but why does anyone even need her or the feds? The Feds are the problem; not the solution. They only provide about 8% of the funding, all of which (over)pays a bloated cadre of administrators to do nothing other than prove compliance with the litany of fads in education, forced by a federal cabinet department that changes (along with the fads) about as often as most change their underwear. Why not ditch the fad-ridden, behemoth federal "oversight" and let you and your community take control? In the end, who stands to benefit from the Dept of Ed? Hint: not your children.