Former U.S. Department of Education (DOE) Secretary Betsy DeVos spoke during the Moms For Liberty National Summit in Tampa, Florida, on Saturday and called on abolishing the federal agency she once served.
“I personally think the Department of Education should not exist,” DeVos said during the summit, according to the Florida Phoenix.
DeVos, who ran the education department during the Trump Administration, has continued advocating for school choice for American children.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, DeVos said Republicans have talked about shrinking or eliminating the department for “many, many years.” However, she said taking practical steps like block grants to the states — a proposal recently introduced to Congress — could turn the tides and create a feasible option to make the idea a reality.
“Just watching how the system has performed or not performed the last two years, I think makes this argument of shrinking the department to be much more potent,” DeVos told the Daily Caller.
Over the last two years, the education system had kept children hostage — many of whom could not escape.
She laid out a five-point plan to reform education for Republicans to implement if the party can dominate Congress after the 2022 Midterm Elections come this November.
In addition to eliminating the department, the Daily Caller reports that her plan also includes supporting multiple pathways to post-K-12 education, federal student aid reform, and restoring Title IX. However, educational freedom, which would give parents a choice to send their children to various schools, marks the former department head’s most important reform.
“The solution to that is to have policies that will actually allow the resources to follow the family, to follow the child, to wherever their family decides they’re going to learn best,” DeVos said.
The Department of Education recently announced a National Parents and Families Engagement Council that claims to find “constructive ways to help families engage at the local level” with “listening sessions” to help students recover from the pandemic.
DeVos called the council “laughable” to Fox News, adding that parents across the country remain upset about how the system handled their children and how out of touch with reality the “folks in Washington” have become for protecting the system by sending the FBI to investigate parents as domestic terrorists.
The former education department head joined more than 20 speakers during the summit, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Dr. Ben Carson, and Dr. James Lindsay.
Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of the Moms For Liberty, said according to the Florida Phoenix, the organization “loves teachers” but called the teacher unions a “K-12 cartel” while advocating for the two groups to separate.
Tina Descovich, a co-founder of Moms For Liberty, called parental rights a nonpartisan issue.
“Everyone has the right to raise their child,” Descovich told ABC Action News. “To direct the upbringing of their medical care, their education, their moral and religious upbringing — it’s important to us, and it should be important to all.”
Source: Dailywire
