U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' Prepared Remarks to the Brookings Institution
Thank you, Russ, for that kind introduction,
and thank you for your work to develop this important report. And thank you to
all of you for taking the time to come here today.
This report focuses on something everyone
here knows I’m passionate about: increasing education options for parents and
students. It’s something I view as a fundamental right too long denied to too
many kids. My views on this were shaped early on in my time as a mother.
...
This experience led me to the following
conclusions:
First, parents know what is best for their kids. No parent should be denied the opportunity to send his or her son or daughter to a school with confidence that he or she can learn, grow and be safe.
Secondly, good teachers know what’s best for the students in their classrooms. Teachers deserve more respect than many give them, and more opportunities than the system affords them today.
And thirdly, state and local leaders are best equipped to address the unique challenges and opportunities they face, not the federal government. Locally driven innovation and customization are far more likely to generate meaningful results than are top-down mandates.
I am in favor of increased choice, but I’m
not in favor of any one form of choice over another. I’m simply in favor of
giving parents more and better options to find an environment that will set
their child up for success.
I’m opposed to any parents feeling trapped
or, worse yet, feeling that they can’t offer their child the education they
wish they could. It shouldn’t matter what type of school a student attends, so
long as the school is the right fit for that student.
Our nation’s commitment is to provide a
quality education to every child to serve the public, common good. Accordingly,
we must shift the paradigm to think of education funding as investments made in
individual children, not in institutions or buildings.
Let me say it again: we must change the way
we think about funding education and instead invest in children, not in
buildings.
There is no perfect, one-size-fits-all system
of education: A magnet school is not inherently better than a traditional
school, nor is education at a private school inherently better than education
at a charter school.
Similarly, there is no one delivery mechanism
of education choice: Open enrollment, tax credits, home schools, magnets,
charters, virtual schools, education savings accounts and choices not yet
developed all have their place, but no single one of these is always the right
delivery method for each child.
Policymakers at every level of government
would do well to maintain a humble acknowledgement of these facts. Let’s put
aside the politics of the adults and actually focus on what will best serve
kids.
And that’s what brings us here today. Too
much of the conversation on education loses sight of the thing that matters
most: the individual child. This report sheds light on how districts are
providing choices and information to parents and opportunities to students.
The Education Choice and Competition Index is
important, and unique, because it’s very parent-centric. Parents are the first
and primary point of accountability. The report makes the distinction that simply having a choice program is not enough: It must be
accessible, transparent and accountable to those who need it most.
I’m glad Russ has highlighted such districts
as Mobile, Alabama, that nominally provide choice but don’t give parents
adequate tools to take advantage of the program. As a parent, you can’t take
advantage of a choice you don’t know exists. We need to find ways of better
connecting citizens to the information they need.
The report notes that Mobile is not alone: 26
other districts, nearly a quarter of those surveyed, receive a letter grade of
F on the report’s scale – meaning they provide few to no tangible school
options. There is clearly a long way to go for many school districts, and I’m
hopeful that this report will help light a fire under them to better serve
students.
While we may be tempted to emulate cities
with a higher grade, I would urge a careful look.
The two-highest scoring districts, Denver and
New Orleans, both receive A’s, but they arrive there in very different ways.
New Orleans provides a large number of
choices to parents: All of its public schools are charters, and there is a good
supply of affordable private schools. The state also provides vouchers to
low-income students to attend private schools if they choose. Combined with its
easy-to-use common application, New Orleans’ sophisticated matching system
maximizes parental preference and school assignment.
Meanwhile, Denver scored well because the single application process for both charter and traditional public
schools, as well as a website that allows parents to make side-by-side
comparisons of schools. But the simple process masks the limited choices.
Russ has mentioned this, but I think it’s
worth repeating that, even though a district may place well on the competition
index, the letter grade does not necessarily reflect the state of education within
that district.
The benefits of making options “accessible”
are cancelled out when you don’t have a full menu of options.
Choice without accessibility doesn’t matter,
just as accessibility without choices doesn’t matter. Neither scenario
ultimately benefits students.
Consider Chicago. Chicago received a B on the
index, and improved its score because it now includes data on student growth on
its website. While this is all well and good, we cannot pretend that Chicago’s
education is “above average” for the tens of thousands of
students being left behind.
One example is Marilyn Rhames and her daughter.
Some of you may have read Marilyn’s firsthand
account.
When Marilyn taught at their neighborhood
school, she enrolled her oldest daughter there to remind herself to treat her
students as if each of them was one of her own kids.
When she tried to raise objections with the
school as a parent, she was fired as a teacher. So she took a job at a charter
school and brought her daughter with her. Marilyn’s oldest daughter graduated
from the charter school, but her youngest daughter was struggling there.
She considered the neighborhood school again,
but that school failed to meet the family’s needs.
Marilyn finally found an independent,
classical private school that she says could celebrate her daughter’s heritage
while instilling the academic discipline needed to succeed. Marilyn wrote that
while she may wish her tax dollars went to a rigorous district school that
could fit her child’s needs, the fact is that they simply haven’t. In her own
words, “Siding with my child is an unalienable right … My only real school
choice right now is private.”
For Marilyn, there was really only one choice
that allowed her to meet her daughter’s needs. The index may have given Chicago
a B score, but can we really claim that Marilyn had plenty of quality options?
Separately, the report argues that “There is
no question that alternatives to the traditional school district model are
destructive of the traditional school district model.”
Many would read this and conclude that such
alternatives (or choices) are destructive of traditional public schools and of
the students they serve. But I would argue that these alternatives are constructive,
not destructive, for students, parents and teachers.
Let me offer this example from a different
part of our daily lives.
How many of you got here today in an Uber, or Lyft,
or another ridesharing service? Did you choose that because it was more
convenient than hoping a taxi would drive by? Even if you didn’t use a ridesharing service,
I’m sure most of you at least have the app on your phone.
Just as the traditional taxi system revolted
against ridesharing, so too does the education establishment feel threatened by
the rise of school choice. In both cases, the entrenched status quo has
resisted models that empower individuals.
Nobody mandates that you take an Uber over a
taxi, nor should they. But if you think ridesharing is the best option for you,
the government shouldn’t get in your way.
The truth is that in practice, people like
having more options. They like being able to choose between Uber Pool, Uber X,
Lyft Line, Lyft Plus, and many others. Or when it comes to taking a family
trip, many like options such as Airbnb.
We celebrate the benefits of choices in
transportation and lodging. But doesn’t that pale in comparison to the
importance of educating the future of our country? Why do we not allow parents
to exercise that same right to choice in the education of their child?
The reflexive question asked, often politely,
by critics of choice is why should we not simply fix the broken schools first?
If only schools received more funding, they say, the schools could provide a
better learning environment for those being left behind.
But of course we’ve already tried that, and
it’s proven not to work. We know because it was a signature plank of the
previous administration’s education agenda: the School Improvement Grants (SIG).
Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
said just last year that the SIG program was their
“biggest bet” on education.
Well he was right on one thing: The size of
the bet certainly was big. The administration ended up spending $7 billion on
trying to fix targeted schools.
It’s interesting that the previous
administration waited until January 18 of this year to release the final
results of its “biggest bet.” The report, released by the Department’s
Institute of Education Sciences, stated, “Overall, across all grades, we found
that implementing any SIG-funded model had no significant impacts on math or
reading test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment.”
“No significant impact.”
At what point do we accept the fact that
throwing money at the problem isn’t the solution? I’m not trying to
vilify the motives of SIG’s backers. But good intentions and billions of
dollars clearly aren’t enough to give students what they need to succeed.
Let me be clear, if we can identify a school
turnaround model that shows promise, I want to learn about it. If we find
a solution that demonstrates consistent results, I want to support it.
But waiting and hoping for a miracle, while blocking efforts that can help
millions of children immediately, is simply not something this administration
will abide.
The definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results. That’s not
policymaking.
Neither is education reform without changing
the culture around education.
Changing the culture starts with shifting
away from an “us versus them” mentality. The focus shouldn’t be on whether we
have a “public” system, “private” system, “charter” system, “virtual” system:
It should be about the child, and about what is best for each individual student.
It’s important to remember that statistics
aren’t just numbers, they represent real people. I’ve been with them in their
schools and heard their concerns.
Last week, when I was at a student roundtable
at Valencia College, one student told his own story, and it pained me to hear
it.
His name is Michael B. Michael grew up
in East Hartford, Connecticut, in a low-income neighborhood. He was an average
student throughout elementary and middle school, but that all changed when he
started ninth grade at the district high school.
Michael described a school where students
were the real ones in charge of the class, and they would make it impossible
for the teachers to teach.
He was constantly bullied and became afraid
of even using the bathroom at school. This constant fear made him hate school
and made it impossible for him to focus on learning. He said, and I quote, “It
was nothing more than adult day care … a dangerous daycare.”
But, even though he was failing, the school
still gave him passing grades – D-minuses – and so he felt that he was no
better than a D-minus student.
Fast-forward some years, and Michael is a
veteran of Afghanistan, married with three young daughters. He was working as a
bell man at a hotel in Florida. He enjoyed the work, but one day his wife
asked, “Do you want to be a bell man for the rest of your life?”
He was afraid to try something different, but
with his wife’s encouragement, he was inspired.
Michael got an A in his first class. He
thought it was a fluke until he continued to earn straight A’s. He’s now in the
school’s honors program with a 3.8 GPA, and is finishing his pre-requisite
classes to be a nurse, with the goal of working in an emergency room.
He’s on the path to realizing his dream, and
Valencia College gave him that second chance.
But Michael still worries for his daughters
and other young children in America. He doesn’t want them to go through what he
did, trapped in an environment where he felt unsafe and learned nothing. That’s
why he asked me a question that fuels my passion, “What are you going to do to
change the culture of these schools?”
The culture he is talking about defends a
system at the expense of the very students it is supposed to serve.
This is a problem we can’t spend our way out
of.
We can change the culture by embracing
innovative disruptors and empowering parents and students with choice.
I think we need to change the conversation
from how we invest in schools, and what types of schools we
invest in, to investing in students. At the end of the day, if the
finest school building with the best teachers isn’t educating all of its
individual students effectively, that school is failing those students.
The education debate needs to be
student-centric. Period.
As Russ says in his report, choice alone is
not a panacea, but there is evidence it works. It works for millions of
students, through inner district choice, public school choice, public charter
schools, private school choice, and virtual and home schooling.
And it could work for millions of more
students if more options were made available.
It is an understatement to say that such a
culture shift could be accomplished alone.
If we truly want to improve education for
children, we need to come together.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but
we should not pretend that the status quo is acceptable. Because even one more
Michael, one more painful story about the failure of the system is
unacceptable. And the reality is there are Michaels in classrooms or Michaels
who have dropped out, all across this country.
So I urge us to come together to embrace
policies that actually empower parents and give kids an equal shot at the
quality education they deserve. It is the right and just thing to do.
Thank you.
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