Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education
For the past four years, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has fought for educational choice across America. She began working with children in her home town in the early 1990s, and now she’s one of the main education philanthropists in America. She’s donated over $35 million to educational causes, including underprivileged schools.
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” DeVos said that students are her top priority, and that they come first. Leslie Stahl asked some hard questions about the success of educational choice and whether it actually used tax dollars to pay for private school.
DeVos denied this, stating that her opponents simply didn’t understand how it worked. Student choice programs allow students to select a school outside of their school zone. This works in cases where a student may have to attend a failing school because of where they live, or if they simply want to go to a different school due to the curriculum.
Magnet programs are part of educational choice. These are schools with special courses that teach students about medical sciences, business law, economics, agricultural, or a number of other different subjects. For example, students can apply and attend a magnet school outside of their school zone if they want to go to international studies classes. Students are then allowed to enroll in the magnet school and don’t have to attend the school where they are zoned.
Parents love educational choice because their children get a better education, especially if they were about to attend a failing school. Thanks to No Child Left Behind policies, thousands of America’s schools are in jeopardy of losing their resources each year, as testing performance is now tied to funding.
DeVos knows that it shouldn’t be this way, but she says that student choice is the best way to get around these issues for now. She has campaigned for all states to have educational choice programs, and she has succeeded in doing so. Now all states have some form of educational choice options, whereas it was only 17 states at the start of her term in 2017.
DeVos has also changed a lot about school safety, creating new policies to prevent gun violence on school campuses. She started the campus guardian program to add a police guard to every school who investigates and prevents threats. These guardians are also responsible for leading the school’s response policies and leading students in drills.
To learn more, visit www.betsydevos.com.