Largely because of her efforts, Detroit has the nation’s largest concentration of charter schools. Many of them are low-performing, and the supply exceeds the demand in some places, within a system that has little oversight and has been derided as chaotic. At the same time, Detroit’s public schools, among the worst in the nation, have continued to deteriorate.
Last year, Detroit officials and a bipartisan group of state lawmakers backed legislation to create mechanisms for permitting new charter schools and closing failing ones. But a group Ms. DeVos created, the Great Lakes Education Project, fought against the bill and won. Ms. DeVos said the Detroit public school system should simply be shut down.
