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They're both believers in school choice and a smaller footprint for the federal government in K-12. They both like the idea of a slimmer bureaucracy.
And they're both politically polarizing.
Mick Zais, the nominee to fill the No. 2 spot at the U.S. Department of Education, has some big things in common with his would-be boss, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
As state chief in South Carolina from 2011 to 2015, Zais cut about 10 percent of the staff at the state department of education. He championed a tax-credit scholarship for students in special education, charter school legislation, and an expansion of virtual schooling. He fought against the Common Core State Standards. And he was reluctant to take federal Race to the Top money and funding to preserve education jobs, even after a protracted recession.
Some South Carolina school choice proponents say Zais brought a fresh perspective to the state's schools. But he had a strained relationship with many educators and their advocates. They describe him as aloof, ideological, and largely ignorant of the day-to-day operations of school districts.
"I had a 40-year career in South Carolina, and I never worked under or with a more inefficient superintendent in my career than Mick Zais," said Tom Chapman, who was superintendent of South Carolina's Anderson County schools during Zais' tenure. "He was noncommunicative. He isolated himself at the state department. He would not communicate with superintendents at all."
But Ellen Weaver, the president of the Palmetto Promise Institute, a South Carolina-based think tank, described Zais-who was a brigadier general in the U.S. Army and college president before becoming state education chief-as a breath of fresh air.
"As a retired general, Dr. Zais takes a no-nonsense, action-oriented approach to his work," Weaver said. With South Carolina's education system ranking low nationally, "I think many folks outside of the system appreciated his sense of urgency on behalf of students."
Rejecting...