are able-bodied and working age. we think if you look at arthur brooks' work, they become self sufficient, then their lives are more fulfilling and much happier. toyou go from dependent being self-sufficient. we think it is a huge policy opportunity, in a humane way, to move towards self-sufficiency. fails,a that capitalism that there is misery everywhere, it seems to be a high demand for that view, but it is not consistent with what we see in the data. >> i don't want to find out what lindsay will do to us if we go longer. thank you. [applause] >> among those speaking at the national review institute's ideas summit was education

secretary betsy devos. this is just over 30 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us. please welcome to the stage j north linger and u.s. secretary of education, betsy devos. [applause] >> those names were definitely announced in the wrong order. took a pleasure to have secretary devos. she is from michigan. as she puts it, she went away to school to grand rapids at calvin college. dick got married. he is a member of our board. they have been involved in education for decades as philanthropists, reformers, and political warriors. i'm glad you are ed secretary. [applause]

i'm glad you are education secretary, are you? >> i am, indeed. most days i am. >> did you ever think you would be secretary? you were in the trenches so long, and here you are at the levers of power. or dreamr had a goal about being education secretary. when the opportunity arose, i could not say no. i have been involved in , advocating for education freedom and school choice for more than three decades. this is a natural extension of what i have been doing all those years. summit, andn ideas you have big ideas, one of which is education freedom scholarships. sounds good. what is it? education freedom

scholarships is a proposal from the administration. it has corresponding bills that have been introduced in the house and senate. what it will do is create a federal tax credit that individuals and corporations could contribute to voluntarily and states could elect to participate or not participate, it is a choice. if they do participate, they would be able to create a program, or programs, to expand choices for families and students in k-12 education in that particular state. we think it is a great way to help continue to build on the momentum around education choice, education freedom nationally. there are many states that have adopted some programs, but this allows them to jumpstart in the states that have not done it yet and take a bigger leap in states like florida that have been a leader in this area. >> you told me once illinois was

pretty good on this kind of issue. surprisingly within the last couple of years, passed a tax credit scholarship program. the new governor has threatened to do away with it. it's under attack. it was passed in a state that is the bluest of blue. many students today are able to find the right fit for their education because of this opportunity. devos, she says school, werethink must question everything about the way we do school in this country. there's no more time 14 during around the edges. >> you sound like a radical and revolutionary. would you like to see the break up of the public school system, or the public school monopoly, as some call it? iswhat i really want to see

every child has a great opportunity and equal opportunity to get an education in k-12. today, far too many kids are not achieving at the levels that they could, they are stuck in schools that don't work for them, and they don't have the suburbs,move to the where there is a good school, or to pay tuition to go to a school of their parents choice. we know giving students those kinds of opportunities and empowering families with that kind of option has made a difference in the lives of kids that have been able to take advantage of it. i also know that for 100 years, we have been doing school the same. here we are in the 21st century, technology has changed and revolutionized almost every industry. education is really the last industry. let's be very clear, it is an industry, that has not undergone

the kind of revolution because of technology. ist i really dream of seeing a lot more approaches to how to help kids learn and get educated. we see some small examples of these across the country today in personalized learning, competency based learning, but there really has not been the kind of ground swell behind some of these ideas. in order to accomplish that, we need more education freedom. >> do poor parents ever think you secretly, or not secretly? do you have quiet support? >> indeed. it is interesting. in this job, i come in two places like this usually through not the most glamorous entrance. peoplei am greeted by

working behind the scenes and encouraged quietly, saying keep up the good work. also had the great opportunity to talk with hundreds of parents whose have been able to make the choices we were able to make for our children because of efforts at the state level. most of them with tears in their eyes talking about what huge a difference it made for their child. it is gratifying and keeps me moving forward. >> wilton freeman used to lament the public was not receptive to school choice, and why not? it seemed like such an obvious good. is your sense that the public is now more receptive to school choice? >> the support for the concept of education choice and freedom has continued to rise and grow. the most recent data i have seen on it at the beginning of this calendar year suggests that two

thirds of the general population is supportive of the notion of empowering parents and families to make the right choice and find the right fit for the child. 75% of millennials support this notion. around 70h 60's to ethnic populations and racial populations. there is growing momentum. let's face it, the kids that are being most helped today and the programs that are most onesficant in states are that have high percentage of african-american and hispanic children taking advantage of them. gore is no where i where the opportunities have been unleashed that i don't hear from parents and teachers involved in that choice that this is a terrific thing and we need more of it, not less of it.

you.re's a statement from you are talking about rethinking school. why assign kids to school based on their addresses? why group kids by age? why force all students to learn at the same speed? it all sounds good to me. this grouping by age. and i'm a little slow, and i'm in a class with 8 year olds or nine-year-old, it's stigmatizing. when the rubber hits the road, socially it is very awkward. >> if you are the only 10-year-old, that is one thing. the competency-based education that i alluded to earlier is really based on the notion that kids learn different subjects at different speeds and grasp concepts at different rates.

i think about a school that our oldest granddaughter is in. directed, student directed school, where each of the kids are in charge of their own learning. they have options of curriculums to pursue. they set goals for themselves daily and weekly. they are in a multiage studio or classroom. each of them are learning at their own speed in one subject area, they may be racing along, and in another, they may need more time. they are also working collaboratively. if i can grasp a subject area more quickly and i noticed one of my classmates is struggling in the area, i will come alongside them and try to help. i think there are many kids that can thrive in that kind of a learning environment. right now, that particular

school is a private tuition-based school. in states that have the opportunity for parents to make those choices, it can be a choice for those kids for whom that kind of learning environment would work. question, there are still some conservative diehards who think there is no real federal role in education. we have had education for a long time, since the 70's in the department. are you at peace with the idea of the federal rule? what is it? i know you are a local list, a state person, county person, tom person. get us down to the neighborhood level. >> i'm very much in favor of shrinking the federal role in education and have been trying to do so in all the ways i'm empowered to do as education secretary and will continue to. wsere are a couple of la

that have to be administered and observed. i think the most important consideration is to empower states in a way that was originally intended. when you think about the fact that only about 8% of education spending in general comes from the federal government, the federal government has had a very outsized role for it's investment. i think we need to get that very much back in balance. in that took a big step direction, at least on paper, when they passed the every student succeeds act. the past administration came in writetarted to regulations that would have encumbered the every student succeeds act plan with a lot more federal role. that was done away with when

this administration came in and congress did a congressional review act and eliminated those regulations. we will keep those -- we are not going to reinstate any of those. continuing to push state leadership to take advantage of the flexibility they built into that every student succeeds act. it was a really important piece of legislation to send the signal back to the state that this is your role and responsibility. i would argue it needs to go -- the most local level, the parent. should the education department be a bank? i had never heard of this. say it again. what many people don't realize is the department has

responsibility for all of the federal student aid. today, there's $1.5 trillion in student loan debt that is part of federal student aid. it was not originally set up to is the largestit loan holder in the nation, larger than any private bank. in the sameperated kind of -- with the same kind of rigor that a bank would. we are in the process of many things, with regard to federal student aid, chief among them ofng getting a clear picture what is actually inside of the loan portfolio. we have increasing talks about student debt and the implications of student debt, both individually and collectively. i think it is a really important discussion that needs to involve congress and congressional

action, ultimately. i will argue it needs to reframe how federal student aid is organized and operated ultimately. lousy, somehers are are great, most are in between. i know we agreed that in general, this is a noble profession, not to mention a necessary one. i see teacher strikes in places like west virginia, arizona, i'm sort of reflexively anti-strike. yet, i listen to people who say some of these teachers have been underpaid for a long while. i wonder how to think about teacher pay. is it strictly a local matter and we all have our views, it depends on where you live, where the schools are? in general, the teaching profession has become very ways.fesionalized in many

it is very much like the whole school system, a1 size fits all approach. there are prescriptive steps teachers have to follow within their system. they are not really given the kind of autonomy and flexibility to run their classrooms and really be their best, because they are within a system that makes them very conformist. not all of them. i wouldn't say that as a blanket timement, but i have spent and intentionally had multiple roundtables with teachers, some of whom have left the profession. listening to the reasons why, even though these had been teachers of the year in their almost to atrict,

person, what i took away was we don't feel respected and we don't feel -- that is manifested in not being able to have the to do what wemy know is best for the kids we are in charge of. we are to be helping to learn. one of the proposals that we have put forward as part of our next year budget is to establish money to establish professional development vouchers for teachers to choose and control their own professional development. that was one big area they said they have not had any kind of say in. they've had to go to whatever the district told them and check the box.

it has not been beneficial or relevant for them. we think that giving them some control of how they continue to develop themselves professionally is a great idea and should be supported. we also think that helping to create an environment for them setting toimental allow really great teachers the opportunity to become teachers of teachers. consistently for a teacher to continue on a career cases it is to leave the classroom and go into administration. i don't know about any of you, but if my child had a really great teacher, i would want that teacher to help other teachers become better teachers, rather

than go into administration and never be in a classroom with children in a teaching environment again. mentorship and residency program for teachers to become teachers of teachers a new careere path opportunity. it is beneficial to the teacher and learning teacher to come alongside the experienced ones. >> we were talking about merit pay. we are all for merit. be hard to assess in a school. some teachers have terrific student that were easy to teach, difficult students and it's a struggle to get through the day, and so on. pro-merit, why not, but how do you assess such a thing? the general view is we leave it to the locals and the feds should do what they should do. >> this is a contentious issue.

it is a difficult issue to get right. i cannot point to specific state or locality that has gotten it specifically right. i know there was a lot of discussion in the recent denver teacher strike around the system they adopted a dozen years ago. my understanding is going through the unrest, they ended up at the same place they were before. it is difficult to get right, but i think it is worth working on to get right. the tendency without having an opportunity to reward those who are doing particularly well on behalf of kids is sort of subtle in the middle -- settle in the middle and be ok with mediocrity. anshould be instilling

attitude of excellence in every school setting. not settle for okay or average. inon't think the environment the system that has been perpetuated now for decades really lends itself to that. >> george w. bush used to say we just waive the kids through without assessing if they learned something and should advance. >> when you consider the fact that compared to the rest of the developed nations, the u.s. is 24th in reading, 25th in science, and 40th in math. >> i'm afraid i may contribute to the math problem. [laughter] >> when you think about how upset americans get when we don't do well in the olympics, and lookn be satisfied

the other way with those kinds distressingi very -- is very distressing to me. >> let's go back to college. you don't think very much of free speech zones, do you? >> no, i do not. that is accurate. >> you think the whole place should be a free speech zone? >> i think it should be. learning is about the exchange of ideas. if you don't have the freedom to freely,nd discuss ideas you don't really have learning ultimately. i think there is a real issue with many campuses today. i hear examples regularly of effortsubtle or overt to silence some discussion and

elevate other discussion. we are not doing any young person a service by doing so. our president and i have both continued to speak out on this issue very vocally. i think that is helping to foster more discussion about what that means and what it looks like. i think we have to keep the pressure on institutions to really do what -- to really fulfill what their role is as a that isd institution, to be a facilitator of idea exchange. are a daughter of free enterprise, your father was a great entrepreneur, a legend in our home state, you are a champion of free enterprise. i think you did arguing with your professors who were socially conservative, maybe

economically a different way. do you recall any of that? >> yes i did. i majored in business and political science. i managed to avoid the worst of the professors while i was there. then, thatttle even many years ago. i fear it has gotten must worse for most campuses. especially the areas of economics, sociology, business. mindedhave a single viewpoint expressed in classrooms and are not invited to really present an alternate view, and in fact are either overt or subtly punished, it is not doing anyone a service. really argue it has

begun to show up in this millennial population. >> in my view, the word diversity has been warped to so on,ce, ethnicity, and but diversity in education is a wonderful thing. different points of view, being exposed to this, you can settle down and do political activism and all of that later. >> i had the benefit also at the same college to have 2 professors that went on to become congressman from our district. one was a political professor. brainhe died from a tumor, he was succeeded by my physics professor. ehlers.ry and vern >> i have to ask since we are on the subject of congressman from grand rapids.

when you were a girl, did you ever meet jerry ford? >> i did indeed. i attribute his campaign in 1976 to getting me involved in politics to begin with. i was in college at the time. i think between my freshman and sophomore year. i became a scatter blister for jerry ford. a group of college students that were deployed to go door to door campaigning for jerry ford. we went in michigan, ohio, then i wentconsin, to the kansas city convention and we blitzed there. nd would go and create noise a enthusiasm. >> to defeat the reagan forces.

i know you would join them later. back, it was a very interesting and informative time. >> i heard president ford speak in crisler arena. i guess it was the first president i ever laid eyes on. here's a question from one of our guests. how will your policies affect low income rural communities with few nonpublic schools available? >> this is a good question. rural communities have unique challenges. let's just take a hypothetical. a rural community with a k12 students,a couple 300 even if that school is the finest possible for the students attending, there's probably a handful of kids for which that particular approach to learning may not work.

kids be ablethose school ina micro that same building that may have a different approach to how that child was educated? recently,mississippi areaool in a very rural that had a hard time hiring teachers, even for the primary subjects, much less ap physics. that school partnered with a thatrofit organization provided a teacher that -- a yale physicist, that taught those physics students asynchronously. each of those students were also matched with a mentor, a physics

student in college somewhere else in the country, and they would connect virtually and work on whatever problems they were working on. it was a very practical solution and a choice that required additional or a different deployment of resources. i used that as an example of what rural communities could and should think about, in terms of providing more choices to the students they are serving. not to suggest that by introducing school choice, another building should go up next door to the existing building, but to think more broadly and creatively about what introducing choices can be or could be. >> you are for letting 1000 flowers bloom in education? >> essentially, yes. haveell over 150 years, we been approaching how we do education in very much the same

way. for too longer relevant many kids. >> we have about two minutes, let's do 2 more. this celebrated decision creating a right to work. will it affect the teachers unions and put a dent in the monopoly? >> i think it is already affecting the teachers union. i am so thankful for supreme court's decision to free up those who have been coerced to be participants in something they didn't want to participate in. tohink it is one way continue to elevate the profession of teaching by allowing the teachers that have been forced previously to be part of this to not be. i think often the challenge in an actual school building, and i

have heard this from too many teachers to know this is not an isolated case, if the pressure notuch that those who opt to be a part of the teachers union are punished in some way, that ultimately is not healthy for anyone. it is certainly not healthy for the students they are trying to teach. i think there will be increasingly impactful implications. >> will give you a grand total of 30 seconds to pronounce on a question many books have been written about. this has to do with the american experiment. will it succeed? you have been in government for a couple of years, after being around it for a very long time. are you bullish on america? are you more cynical? what is your impression? >> i've always been an optimist.

i continue to be very optimistic about the future of this nation. i am even more optimistic when i the excitementee in their eyes for the futures they have envisioned. of educationssue and how we ultimately supportand approach education is a fundamental to grapple with. if we insist on supporting and keeping the same one-size-fits-all system for every student that can't afford to go somewhere else by paying to do so, that future is not as bright. i think it will be bright if we do let 1000 flowers bloom. >> ipo to you bruce cotner, who said he knows of no one in the

education field more selfless, more devoted, more right than the secretary of education betsy devos. thank you very much. [applause] >> the chair of the fcc, ajit pai, was one of the featured speakers at the national rivera institute ideas summit. he spoke for about half an hour. >> please welcome charles c w cook and the fcc chairman, ajit pai. >> thank you for joining us. >> great to be with you. keep it clean. >>