Joining the podcast this week is the Secretary of Education under the Trump Administration, Betsy DeVos. We discuss the future of America’s education system, including the evolution of school choice during COVID, the battle for and against Critical Race Theory, and the ongoing changes to Title IX.
Betsy DeVos is a leader, an innovator, a disruptor, and a champion for freedom. She is the nation’s leading advocate for education freedom for students of all ages, having served as the 11th Secretary of Education from 2017-2021. Her advocacy has led to the creation of new educational choices for K-12 students in more than 25 states and the District of Columbia and has expanded post-high school education options for students and adult learners alike. DeVos is also an accomplished business leader. She served as Chairman of The Windquest Group, a privately held investment and management firm based in Michigan. She is the former chair of the American Federation for Children, The Philanthropy Roundtable, and the Michigan Republican Party, and has served on a number of other national boards, including the Kennedy Center and the American Enterprise Institute.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, we are honored to have on the Secretary of Education under the Trump administration, Betsy DeVos. She’ll discuss with us the future of America’s education system, including the evolution of school choice during COVID, the battle for and against critical race theory, and the ongoing changes to Title IX. But before we bring her on, a little bit more about her. Betsy DeVos is a leader and innovator, a disruptor, and a champion for freedom. She is the nation’s leading advocate for education reform and freedom for students of all ages, having served as the 11th Secretary of Education.
Her advocacy has led to the creation of new educational choices for K-12 students in more than 25 states and the District of Columbia and expanded post-high school education options for students and adult learners alike. And finally, and most importantly, Secretary DeVos is married to entrepreneur, philanthropist, and community activist, Dick DeVos. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren. Secretary DeVos, it’s a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.
Betsy DeVos:
Well, Beverly, it’s great to be with you. Thank you.
Beverly Hallberg:
I first just want to start talking through your four years as the Secretary of Education. I wanted to get into what education has meant during COVID and also what it means of critical race theory that we’re seeing, and so many other topics. But just share with us a little bit what it was like to be the Secretary of Education overseeing the management and distribution of the federal budget for education initiatives.
Betsy DeVos:
Well, Beverly, it was just a huge honor to serve and to try to serve our nation’s students and to focus on their needs and doing what is right for them at every step of the way. That was the question that I asked myself daily and challenged my whole team with, was to stay focused on doing the right thing for students. And it was just a huge honor and opportunity and I’m committed to continuing to fight on their behalf.
Beverly Hallberg:
And something that you couldn’t have expected when you enter that position of Secretary of Education is that we would have a global pandemic, something that none of us had ever seen in our lifetimes, and that has meant a huge disruption to the education system. When I think about what children have gone through during COVID-19, it is vast and we don’t know how damaging it has been. I first just want to ask you, what do you make of how the education system has handled COVID? What has it meant for our children?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, of course, we didn’t anticipate a pandemic and we didn’t anticipate what would unfold. What we do know is, and we saw across the country, that particularly the K-12 system was very unable and slow to pivot to accommodate, to be nimble, and create new opportunities to ensure kids could continue learning. Learning was very unevenly applied or learning opportunities were very unevenly available. And parents are even more keenly aware today than ever before of what their schools did or didn’t do for their children and what they have or haven’t been teaching and are and aren’t teaching. And so this has I think in a strange way been a huge opportunity for the future for kids.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, you’ve said for a while that education must be reoriented around students and their families. Like you were saying, COVID provided this unique and unexpected opportunity for students to sit in the classroom, even though that classroom was in their home in a virtual way. Do you find that you’re hearing more that you have seen that parents are more concerned than ever before about what their children are being taught purely based on the fact that they actually had a chance to listen to what’s being taught?
Betsy DeVos:
Absolutely, absolutely., And I think this whole last year’s experience has only continued to point to a need for an education freedom agenda, really empowering families, empowering students to be able to take the resources that are committed to them anyway and finding a place where they fit, where they are going to be challenged, where they are going to actually be able to continue to learn. And we saw all kinds of creativity in the last year around learning pods and different homeschool environments and all sorts of different new approaches to ensuring kids could continue learning. But frankly, the ones that were most able to take advantage of that are the families with resources and it’s the kids who didn’t have those resources, whose families couldn’t make those choices and decisions that have been hurt the most. And so it really does broadly point to the need to put all families in charge and give them the freedom with the resources to ensure their kids have the right education.
Beverly Hallberg:
And speaking of the children, for those who were not able to go back to school or only in the very end of the school year this year and they had to do virtual learning, how do you think children may be harmed or have been harmed by schools taking so long to reopen?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, we know in many urban districts that failed to offer learning in-person at all over the last year and a half, these kids are going to be woefully behind. I don’t think we will know for many years the true impact that this past year, year and a half, has had on them. We know that they are the most vulnerable. They’re the ones who are most in need of the kinds of supports that they didn’t get. We know that mental health issues and suicide rates have skyrocketed. We know that harm has been done to the kids who can least absorb the harming effects of having been out of school.
Beverly Hallberg:
And even shockingly, you do have still seemingly a push for schools to not fully be reopened in the fall. Even when it comes to summer school, there aren’t enough teachers in some school districts for children to make up the lack of what they learned during the summer. Are you surprised that the unions, that some school teachers, not all, but some are still pushing, school board members are pushing for schools to not be fully reopened in the fall. Is that surprising to you?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, it’s horrifying. And I do put the blame squarely at the feet of union bosses, teachers’ union bosses who have taken this tragic situation that our country has navigated through and used it to their advantage to demand things that have nothing to do with kids continuing to learn. And it’s the kids who can least afford to be harmed who have been even more harmed as a result, and it is truly at their feet that we put this blame.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, I do think COVID opened up the opportunity for parents to see what the curriculum included. One thing specifically that has been a hot topic has been critical race theory, which seems to have infiltrated schools. What do you make of critical race theory? Did you know or was it as prevalent during your time as Secretary of Education, or has there been a huge push since the Biden administration took over to have this seep into our schools and into the curriculum like never seen before?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, I think, frankly, this has been in the works for a very long time. I think the evidence of it just became more, more widely known when parents were watching and seeing what actually was going on in their kids’ classrooms. And if anybody wants to talk about a system that is unfair racially, let’s talk about the K-12 system that has insisted on continuing to be based on residentially based school assignments, which hurt poor and minority children, which forced them to be in schools that are not working for them and that continue to do a huge disservice to them and to everyone else. This is the real problem. This is where if you want to talk about systemic racism, we should be looking, a system that protects itself, that fails to teach children for over a year, that has continued to make demands that are totally unrelated to helping kids learn, and one that keeps protecting the status quo and really keeping, in many ways, kids imprisoned in a place that’s absolutely harmful for them.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so what do you think this does tell us about our education organizations? You talk about, you just mentioned, they’re a front for the status quo. What do you mean by that? Are these political entities just having a guise of an educational organization?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, there are so many different organizations that have offices and staff and budgets in Washington that frankly are funded by taxpayer dollars that continue to protect the system that is, and it has continued to fight against every opportunity for families to have more freedom, to make the choices that they need to make for their individual kids’ educations. And it is a system that is protecting adults and adult interests. It does not have anything to do with doing what’s right for kids. And, again, I think this whole last year and a half has really laid bare this reality to parents that never considered that before. As they have seen parents who’ve moved to a “good district”, paid a higher home price in order to do it, and then had schools and systems that were absolutely unresponsive to their children’s needs.
Again, all of this pointing back to the fact that a solely government-run monopolistic system that most people are not able to escape or choose differently from, has got to change, and we have got to empower families with the freedom to make these choices for their kids.
Beverly Hallberg:
And something that has been just astonishing to me and encouraging is to see the parents who speak up at these school board meetings, regardless of what type of pushback they get, that they’re there to fight for their children, fight against critical race theory. And I think that there is some traction. Even earlier this week on MSNBC, Ibram X. Kendi, who wrote the book, How To Be Antiracist, said that he doesn’t believe White people are inherently racist and, “If school’s taught that, I would speak out against that school.” But the reality is that is what critical race theory teaches, it teaches that White people are inherently racist. Do you think that there has been enough pushback by parents where even these activists who are pushing critical race theory realize they have to back off?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, no, I don’t think there’s been enough pushback. I think we’re just beginning to see the tip of the spear in terms of parents who are awakening to what has been going on in their kids’ classrooms. And I think it’s an opportune moment to build on, to encourage that parents have the control of their kids’ education futures, be it with the resources following them or ensuring that the school boards that they elect are responsive to parents and not to the status quo to the system, which in all too many cases the school boards are.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, before we continue the conversation, I’d like to take a moment to highlight IWF’s Champion Women Profile Series, which focuses on women across the country and world that are accomplishing amazing things. The media too often ignores their stories, but we don’t. We celebrate them and bring their stories directly to you. Our current profile is Kimberly Strassel, columnist and member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. To check out her story, do you go to iwf.org, and see why she’s this week’s Champion Woman.
Well, Secretary DeVos, before you go, I want to complete our conversation talking about something that was historic underneath your leadership as Secretary of Education, and that is you oversaw a historic final rule under Title IX. Now, Title IX is the law that protects people from discrimination based on sex. What did you push forward? What did you achieve with this?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, as a mom and a grandma, I knew we had to do better than the disastrous process that the Obama administration put in place. We needed to define sexual harassment as the sex-based discrimination that it is, and we did that. This rule made the rule historic in that it was the time that it had been done under Title IX. We needed to make sure that due process rights were upheld. We knew of hundreds of cases where the victim or the complainant had to go through a whole process again because the individual on the other side of the equation felt that their due process rights were not protected. And hundreds of these cases have been overturned.
The Obama Dear Colleague Letter was a disaster for too many students and so the process that we put in place is a very fair framework that ensures that the complainant, the victim is in the driver’s seat in terms of how that proceeds and they have every opportunity to say how they will continue to bring a complaint forward, file formal complaints or not, or just ask for accommodations, and really extends a lot more protections to those who’ve been stalked or experienced online inappropriate behavior. So we went way beyond what the Obama Dear Colleague Letter did, which really in many cases ended up victimizing victims.
Beverly Hallberg:
And such an important rule it is, and we are seeing that the Biden administration has expanded Title IX even further. They’ve made a move to include sexual orientation and gender identity as being part of the definition of what title IX includes. In your opinion, what does this mean for women, especially in sports?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, Title IX was created to give women an equal opportunity to compete in sports. I don’t see how you can continue to say there would be a Title IX in existence when on the other hand you say that any individual who decides they are now female but biologically male can compete in sport. They’re mutually exclusive. And so this is an issue that I think we’re just beginning to see the long-term implications of, and my hope is that people will wake up and realize that there will be no Title IX if this trend continues.
Beverly Hallberg:
We definitely agree with you on that at IWF. My final question for you before we close is, what has life been like for you after you left office as Secretary of Education? Are you still working in the education sphere or did you decide to take a little time off and spend time with your children and grandchildren?
Betsy DeVos:
Well, I’ve had a little bit of time to have a little different pace and certainly enjoy the time I can spend with my children and grandchildren, but my work to advocate for kids and their opportunities for their education is going to continue. And it is continuing in ways right now. There’s been 12 now, nearly 13 states that have passed school choice programs, either new programs to their state or expanded on existing ones, and there are many, many more in the works. And so working closely with state legislators and governors to ensure that these opportunities expand is definitely a huge goal of mine to continue and to continue the advocacy at the federal level to support more opportunities for choices and families’ control of their kids’ education. That work is going to continue.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, we so appreciate the work that you have done on behalf of children and families while you were in office and also the work that you’ve done still to this day. We so thank you for that and also for joining us on She Thinks. Secretary DeVos, thank you so much for joining us.
Betsy DeVos:
Thank you so much, Beverly. It was great to talk with you.
Beverly Hallberg:
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