HILLSDALE, MI - U.S. Education Secretary and Michigan native Betsy DeVos on Monday pushed for parental choice in a pro-family speech that took aim at the federal education department she leads.
DeVos’ message Oct. 19 at conservative Hillsdale College focused on school choice policies, during a time when many parents are dealing with obstacles in the education of their children amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Across America there’s massive unmet demand, especially right now,” said DeVos, who has been vocal about schools bringing students back into the classroom for in-person learning. “The COVID crisis has laid bare a lot about American education. Parents are more aware than ever before how and what their children are or are not learning.”
School choice has been a central message for DeVos, who suggested the U.S. Department of Education is too focused on “rules and regulations, staff and "standards, spending and strings on protecting the system.”
“I assume most of you have never stepped foot inside the U.S. Department of Education, and I can report, you haven’t missed much,” she said.
“When I took on this role, I said from day one that I’d like to work myself out of a job - that I’d work to empower parents not politicians."
DeVos has spent decades before taking office as an advocate for charter schools and voucher programs in Michigan. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, she has suggested if public schools fail to open, parents should get a cut of school districts' federal funding for home schooling or sending their children to private schools.
On Monday she hailed the Every Student Succeeds Act she and the department claims will give greater flexibility to state and local education leaders to do what they know is best for children, while notably ending the Common Core curriculum
She has also urged Congress to put an end to the education earmarks by consolidating nearly all federal K-12 funding into one block grant.
DeVos, without citing specific examples, later turned her family focus against “cancel culture” and what she called the “deadly disease” of socialism, describing it as a threat the younger generation is facing by its influence in government.
“Too many today, especially among our rising generation, don’t seem to understand the dangers of such a view,” DeVos said. “They somehow have come to believe that socialism is the cure, not the deadly disease it really is. Tragically, it’s because no one has taught them differently, and worse, some have been indoctrinated to believe not in themselves, but in government.”
DeVos, in her speech, also defended Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who has previously been questioned by Democrats focusing on whether her Catholic views would override her legal judgment.
She instead offered praise for Coney Barrett, noting a woman with a large family should be applauded for having a successful career.
“As if raising seven children is something to be embarrassed by, or worse, ashamed of,” DeVos said. “Perhaps that comes from a small-minded and offensive view that American women cannot be devoted to their families, be smart, hard working, faithful, independent, successful and be conservative.”
READ MORE:
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