DeVos discusses control in states
Education secretary finds her audience at ALEC luncheon talk
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, booed at a college commencement and reviled by teacher groups across the nation, found a cozier audience Thursday in Denver at a gathering of conservative thinkers and policy advocates.
DeVos garnered two standing ovations from members of the American Legislative Exchange Council. She, in kind, delivered what they wanted to hear during a roughly halfhour speech, attacking teacher unions and education policies of the Obama administration and pledging her support for ensuring the most important educational decisions be left up to local schools and families.
“My job is to get the federal government out of the way, so you can do your job,” DeVos said. “The era of the top-down, one-size-fits-all mandate is over.”
She urged local school districts to create flexible learning plans mandated by the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, that emphasizes local control. “I have urged states to use flexibility and to break away from the compliance mentality,” she said.
DeVos spoke during a luncheon meeting of ALEC, an influential conservative group that crafts model legislation advocating free-market principles and solutions to policy issues including tax limitations, gun safety and environmental controls.
Its members include several corporations and nearly 2,000 legislators, according to Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization that tracks education issues.
DeVos and ALEC are on the same page on several education issues, including favoring the expansion of charter schools and school vouchers.
“The school choice policies DeVos supports have a track record of improving students’ outcomes across multiple measures,” said Inez Feltscher Stepman, director of ALEC’s Education and Workforce Development Task Force.
Colorado Secretary of State Walker Stapleton, who introduced DeVos at the ALEC luncheon, said a market-based approach to school choice that allows parents to choose their children’s school instead of automatically sending them to the neighborhood school is reaping
benefits in Colorado.
One of the top schools in Denver is a DSST charter school that is near a “failing” traditional school, Stapleton said.
“Colorado is proof that competition works,” he said.
This was DeVos’ first visit to Colorado since she was confirmed by a slim margin in the U.S. Senate as the nation’s top education official. Her stint has been marked by loud protests from critics who say she advocates dismantling public schools in favor of those run by private companies.
She was booed at the May commencement at Bethune-Cookman University, and protesters briefly blocked her from entering a Washington, D.C., middle school.
Hundreds protested and marched against DeVos in Denver on Wednesday, saying she and ALEC want to divert public tax dollars to private schools through vouchers and other means.
“Secretary DeVos and ALEC threaten our democratic process, public education and unions — the very institutions that promote justice, liberty and the common good,” said Rhiannon Wenning, who represented the Colorado Education Association at a rally Wednesday on the steps of the state Capitol.
No protesters were seen Thursday before, during or after DeVos’ speech. She did note she often attracts “excitement.”
“But I wear it like a badge of courage,” DeVos said.
Teacher unions, she added, are backing an educational system that is failing children and parents. “They make clear it’s about protecting a system rather than individual students. They are totally wrong. It’s about protecting individual students and parents,” she said.
DeVos said she is happily working on President Donald Trump’s April executive order aimed at rescinding regulation and guidance documents produced by the Obama administration that intrude on state education decisions.
Most education policies, DeVos added, should be left to local teachers, school boards and parents to decide. “Education is best addressed at the state and local level and with families.”
“We urge states to embrace creativity,” she added. “That’s the best way to break down the walls that have been built.”