Hostages No More with Betsy DeVos
Overview of this Episode
In this episode of the Trust Your Voice podcast, host Sylvie Légère sat down with Betsy DeVos, the nation’s leading advocate for education freedom for students of all ages, having served as the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education from 2017-2021, to inspire you to care about access to good education right here in the US.
In this conversation, Sylvie and Betsy discuss:
Her new book Hostages No More
Examples of states that have education policies at work
A vision for what education could be in America
Find out what Parents can do to change the system
To learn more on the issue of Education by visiting the Education Saving Account Brief and the Civic Leadership Roadmap program (CLER) at www.policycircle.org
Connect with Betsy DeVos
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betsy.p.devos/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetsyDeVos
Be inspired by Betsy’s book, “Hostage No More’, and buy yourself and your friends a copy here, https://www.amazon.com/Hostages-No-More-Education-American/dp/B09S84D3D7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1LXA0XEWN6NNT&keywords=hostage+no+more&qid=1660236999&sprefix=hostage+no+more%2Caps%2C124&sr=8-1.
To know more about Betsy and her advocacies, visit her website https://betsydevos.com/ and learn about School Choice.
We hope you enjoy the episode! Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple podcasts. Stay tuned for more episodes and be sure to subscribe to the Trust Your Voice podcast on your favorite podcast player.
Read the Full Episode Transcript
Sylvie Legere 0:02
Have you ever felt challenged with making life changing decisions or leading in the public square or simply aligning your thoughts with your actions? Well, then you're in the right place. Welcome to trust your voice podcast. My name is Sylvie Legere. And as a civically engaged entrepreneur, and mom, I understand the challenges of advocating for yourself and others, while attempting to balance your personal and professional demands. I had to develop a personal system of success in every area of my life. And now, I want to help you build your unique system and truly trust your voice, even and especially when it shakes. By the end of each episode, you'll be energized to spark your creative leadership make purposeful connection, and confidently prioritize the matters that bring you the most joy. So let's start the show. Have you thought about the state of education the US lately? Did you know that we are in the top five countries when it comes to spending per student but we're not even in the top 10 In terms of educational achievement? In fact, we're 37 in math, and the US is outpaced by countries like the UK, Germany, China, Russia. Is that okay with you? Well, my guest today will inspire you to care about access to good education for everyone. Right here in the US. Betsy DeVos is the nation's leading advocate for education freedom for students of all ages, she served as the 11th US Secretary of Education. And for the last 35 years, she has been tireless in her pursuit of public policy reforms that optimize the government's role, foster innovation, and allow all students the freedom, flexibility, resources and support that they need to choose where, when and how they learn. Her advocacy has helped create new educational choices for K 12 students in more than 25 states. So Betsy, welcome to the show. Well, it's
Betsy DeVos 1:55
Well it's a pleasure to be here. Sylvie, thanks for having me.
Sylvie Legere 1:57
You know, Betsy, you just published a book titled hostage no more. And I have to say it's excellent. It tells your story, and also presents a vision of what education could be in America, I'd like to open our conversation with when did you decide to actually trust your voice, step out of your comfort zone, and really dedicate yourself to cause of education?
Betsy DeVos 2:18
Well, I've been working on Education Policy for 35 years now. And it really began as a volunteer in a little school, a faith based school in the heart of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live. And very soon after getting involved there, I realized that the policies that supported K 12 education didn't really support children, they support systems instead of the kids themselves. And so it's really been a progression of involvement, starting with nonprofit work, giving scholarships, raising money for scholarships, and then moving into the advocacy and the political work to actually help get people elected, that are going to vote for these policies and support these policies to really focus on what students need.
Sylvie Legere 3:06
Yeah, it's a tough decision to actually decide to attack the system, instead of just focusing on the actual mentoring the school.
Betsy DeVos 3:17
Yeah, so it was really a natural progression for me, I've been politically involved my whole adult life in some way. And so really focusing on the politics of education, and how that does preclude so many kids from getting a great education. It became even more convicting over time.
Sylvie Legere 3:37
So let's unpack the problem of education to us right. In your book, you mentioned the Nation's Report Card, which is a view of the state of American education. And it found that in 2019, I couldn't believe this 34% of fourth graders were below basic readers, meaning that they did not comprehend a basic grade level assignments. And you point out that this trend has been downward since 2012. This is not a new problem. So tell us how you frame the problem of education in the US. Let's start with that.
Betsy DeVos 4:09
Well, very broadly, there are millions of kids who are not learning, they're not being prepared for a fulfilling adult life. In most cases, they're assigned to schools that for some reason are not a fit for them or simply aren't working for them. The Department of Education was founded in 1979. With the goal of closing the achievement gap, it was Jimmy Carter's pay off to the teachers union. And since then, we've spent over a trillion dollars with the goal of closing the achievement gap. And not only has it not narrowed one little bit, it's actually widened in many cases, the numbers you cited one glimpse of the nape The Nation's Report Card. We're actually pre pandemic. And we know that kids who have been locked out of schools for months on end, I think have kids here in Chicago NGO in particular who were deeply harmed as a result of being shut out of in person learning for extended periods of time, we won't know the full extent of their learning loss for probably several years. But we know it's devastating.
Sylvie Legere 5:15
Right. And this trend has started since the contract in 2000. Yes, so it's not new at all, not
Betsy DeVos 5:22
new at all, and only exacerbated in multiple ways because of the effects of the pandemic and the decisions made by the system.
Sylvie Legere 5:30
So people say that, you know, sometimes more money is necessary. And we're here in Chicago, and it's a city where spending per pupil really exceeds the national average. And yet, only 24% of middle school students test at or above proficiency in reading and then 21% in math. So it's a tragic picture. And in your book, you explain that more money is not the solution. And tell us about like some examples that demonstrate that that money does not necessarily result in better educational outcomes.
Betsy DeVos 6:02
So I mean, the trend over several decades now has been increasing the spending both at the federal level and state levels. And just to be clear, we spend $750 billion a year on K 12 education in the US, that's an average of about $15,000 per child. In some cases, like in Chicago's considerably more other places less, but on average, $15,000, a child and the results, you mentioned the nape every way you look at the nape numbers, with the exception of some states, where they have actually introduced education freedom to find a good education fit. And in those states, some of the nape results have been promising and improving. But generally, our national results have been very disappointing at best and inexcusable at worst. When we look at our comparison with international peers, we are 13th and reading 18th in science and 37. In math, and yet we spend the most of any real nation there are two small nation states that spend a little more than we do per child. So money is not the issue, we have continually invested more and more and more resources, the issue has been, we are living in a 175 year old industrial model, one size fits all top down system that was started with the express purpose of putting in children on the front end and bringing them out the other end all conforming to pretty much the same thing. And as I've said many times, education is the least disrupted industry in our country. And so this notion of bringing freedom to education, by empowering families with those resources, I like to use the metaphor of a backpack, kids go to school every day with the stuff they need in their backpack, we need to metaphorically attach the money already being spent on that child to that child's backpack for their family to figure out where they're going to get their best shot at a great education. And we see it happening in Florida I cite frequently is the state probably that's been at this the longest. But just this week, Arizona became the first state to pass a statewide universal education savings account plan, which will allow every single child at 1.1 million children in Arizona, if their families decide their assigned school is not working for them, they'll be able to take 90% of what the state spends, and go find the right education for each of their children. And Arizona has been really leading the way with innovations around these little micro pods or learning pods small cadre of multi age children where they have a teacher calm, and it's essentially the new one room schoolhouse. And so there are lots of creative solutions that were developed out of necessity during COVID that Arizona students and families can really pursue. And Arizona I think is going to continue to be a model or it will be be a model for many others to actually emulate.
Sylvie Legere 9:18
Yeah, it will be interesting to see I think in your book, you do outline you provide like some data in terms of the academic achievement and improvement of students right now in Florida versus the national average. So that's really incredible. So here it was interesting your book prompted me actually look at compare Illinois and Florida and I come to realize that there's about 1000 school districts in Illinois, and there's 82 in Florida for roughly the same amount of schools
Betsy DeVos 9:49
Think about all that’s been done by the administration and infrastructure. Yes, I mean, it's building system itself has really existed to serve the system. You It has not existed to serve individual kids and their needs. And that's become evermore evident in the last two years when families had a front row seat with their children's experience in their K 12. Education, and many are very unhappy.
Sylvie Legere 10:16
Why do you think it's such a maybe you touched on this a little bit? Why is it such a battle to bring change to education? Like, why is it that we don't have all of us have in mind this idea of children's academic achievement, as the priority and even I can see, you know, school districts not even having as a key performance indicator, academic performance of their schools, right, like so. So what you know, you touch on the system, but describe a little bit what this system is because you have, like firsthand experience in the States, as well as the federal level.
Betsy DeVos 10:50
I think the performance of the system over the last two years has, again really revealed some of the family many of the failings that many of us have seen for many years before that, whether it was extended lockdowns, mask mandates that came and went distance learning that wasn't actually learning curriculum that families found appalling, or perhaps other curriculum that they saw as non robust. And with very low expectations around what students should be doing, almost every way you measure it, the system itself is really existing and focused on serving itself. And you see that across the board, when you have a federal department that basically invests eight or 9%, of the overall education funding, yet regulates and, and really pulls the strings on states and districts, you have a very slow to respond, and in many cases, totally non responsive situation. And then when you have something like the pandemic, shutting everything down for a couple of weeks, instead of most schools, finding solutions and getting back open and serving their students, they found ways to continue to stay closed to continue to not teach. You know, I think about the LA Unified School District where months into the pandemic, the teachers were only required to actually have two hours of week of instruction. Now, how are kids going to possibly learn particularly kids in a distance environment, many of whom didn't even have the computer capabilities to do distance learning, but then to have two hours a week, it really did lay bare the many failings of a one size fits all essential monopoly, which is what the government run traditional public system has been.
Sylvie Legere 12:46
Yeah. And also, I think you outline and you decry the fact that the number of administrators in education has increased at an incredibly rapid rate versus the student population. Right? Absolutely, which just makes the system embrace, like you said, the system and the surgical and no change. And if I
Betsy DeVos 13:07
could just add in the system, the key component of a great education, the teacher is really lost, and not really honored and respected and not elevated to the professional level that they should be. And when I was in office, I was very curious about teachers who had been Teachers of the Year in their states and in their districts. And very shortly after they had had their year victory lap around the state. They had quit teaching. And I wanted to know why. Because these were great teachers, and almost to a person, they said, it was after they had had their day in the sun, they came back to their schools and their classrooms. And were essentially told, okay, you've had your moment now get back in the box, and, you know, be on page 34 of that particular textbook on this day. And don't stick your head out and don't do anything unusual. And I think how demoralizing for really great teachers. And I think about how many of them have left teaching because of a system that really smothers them to
Sylvie Legere 14:19
Hi, Sylvie here, do you need a starting point to engage in your community? Well visit the policy circle.org. The policy circle launched recently an interactive leadership course it's called Clear the Civic Leadership Engagement Roadmap. And it's a three month virtual course designed for women who want to learn how to take intentional actions to become impactful citizens and connect with other civic minded women. So there's one that's focused on education policy, so visit the policy circle.org. Now, let's get back to the episode. In your book, you give so many amazing examples of great things that are happening across the country in education and you Share this story of, you know, a vision of education and you kind of take us through the day of different students, maybe you can share with us, you know, this vision of what education could be because I felt it was impactful.
Betsy DeVos 15:13
I think about in a city like Chicago, a single parent who has a long commute to work every day and is concerned about what their children are going to be doing before and after school. And like, it's always a struggle to actually put things together to serve their children. And I think about an education freedom environment, that there could be more than a few choices of schools that would say, well, we're going to actually serve the students for as long as families need them based on what their parents needs are. So maybe we're going to be open. And we're going to have the kids from seven to seven every day, and bring in the community services that are right now scattered about and in multiple locations, and have a really holistic opportunity for that child to be in a safe and nurturing environment for that day. And oh, by the way, maybe we'll be a bilingual school that focuses on ensuring that all children know two languages very, very well. That's just, you know, one quick example of what could be right now, schools can't do that, because they have to fit within a very defined framework, you can only operate this number of days. And oh, by the way, why do we shut down for nearly three months in the summer, and have kids where they have the most massive learning losses over extended periods of time, outside of continued learning? Why don't we have schools that will be your around and have, you know, more frequent breaks throughout the year, or maybe you have a really ambitious Middle School daughter, who she's taking one class in the morning at a charter school. And, you know, it's the latest teenage or preteen author who is teaching 50 different classrooms from a remote location. And he's going to come in and lecture and talk to the kids in a few weeks. And, you know, he never would have been an instructor or a teacher, absent the opportunity to impact 50 different classrooms at the same time. And then this daughter maybe goes to another school for her sciences and maths. And then later on in the day, maybe goes to her church for English and linguistic development, education, but more customized approach to how a student can experience learning. You know, we have had such a one size fits all approach for so long, we can't really even begin to think about, or imagine the number of ways that we could see education provided. But I have every confidence that the creativity and ingenuity of Americans across the country can and will rise to the occasion, when there are actually empowered families to make these choices and decisions. And it would be just a very short period of time before we would see a whole menu of options to customize a child's education.
Sylvie Legere 18:25
Yeah, and I think like you referred you one quote is, public education is any institution that educates the public, right? So it just become all in into helping children just achieve their potential and learn the way they learn best. It's amazing that we live in this individualized world where everything can be customized, except the way we actually learn where where we know we all learn differently. In Canada, it's interesting in Quebec, the public schools have started to offer sports program that are really based on their location. So to attract kids and have a sports and education focus, and each school do something a little different. And that's what kind of school choice have kind of created there. So you know, in your book, you give some recommendations as to like what parents can do to kind of do their part to improve education. And one of them is to ask about academic performance of your school, like How are children doing right? And then the other is to also demand some curriculum transparency, asking to see what kids are presented in their classroom. What else can parents do? Or also any citizens can do to change the education system? Give us like a few. And you give everyone read the book, and there's a list of actions that people can take, but maybe you can, you can point to your favorites. Sure,
Betsy DeVos 19:43
lots of action steps, but I would say first and foremost, pay attention to who's running for office, your state legislative candidates, your gubernatorial candidates, people who make policy around education and support the ones that are going going to vote for education freedom to empower these families to make decisions other than their assigned school. If the assigned school isn't working for them, that is a really, really important step to take. It's most important at the state level, because that's where most state policy is made. But it's also important to have it reflected at the federal level as well. And then demand for you know, the schools that your kids are in currently, demand curriculum transparency, demand to see what the finances are, how they're spending, the money that they get, and how it's actually being utilized, and to what effect. And there are a lot of things that the system tries to hide and obfuscate part of the federal law, governing K 12. Education actually requires financial transparency. Most states and most districts have been very cagey about sharing that information. These are really important questions to be asked. But I would say first and foremost, support people who are going to support education freedom, because that is going to have the most fundamental change for kids today and down the road.
Sylvie Legere 21:08
Yeah, or consider being yourself a candidate who enjoys education freedom, right. You know, I just like to close, you know, the one question, you know, through the years, you work tirelessly on this issue. And sadly, you've been received with a lot of protests and vitriol and you've had even like, threats to you. And even though you're just trying to empower families to choose the best education that fits their child, right? And so tell us, what do you do in face of adversity? Because all of us face adversity, when we trust our voice when we stand up for something? So what do you tell yourself? And how do you how do you face this?
Betsy DeVos 21:45
Well, all I have to do is think about the many young people that I've met whose lives have changed because of the opportunity to find their education, freedom, their place where they fit, and where they have been able to really thrive, and just talking to them and hearing their stories is very convicting. And I've never been really dissuaded by the pushback, because I know that, you know, when you're taking incoming fire, you're pretty much over the target. And so I know that what I and many others have been advocating for for a long time, which has really increased in momentum and possibility because of the pandemic. And everybody realizing the failings of the system. It really is very simply convicting. And it's easy to stay focused on doing the right thing for kids focus
Sylvie Legere 22:37
on the results that you've seen, and then that they hit when you're over the target. Right, so Well, thank you so much. Thank you for writing this book. And for really recording the audio version yourself. It's really well done, I invite everyone to read it because as we discuss here, the hostage no more presents a vision of education and so many examples of great schools around the country. In closing, I just want to read a passage from your book, hostage no more. Education must be about students and not the special interests that control the system. This is our movement. This is our moment. And while the chapters that follow tell my story of fighting for education, freedom, this is really a story of our cause, the cause of ensuring that every single child in America has access to a world class education. So thank you, Betsy. Thank you for taking the time to being with me today. And thank you for writing this book and recording it also really. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for joining me Silvija on my trust your voice podcast. I hope that this episode brought you a new way to think about your voice, how to trust yourself and how to use your voice for good in your life and in your community. If you like this podcast, be sure to leave us a review in Apple podcasts. And subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player again.