he will be holding a briefing later today on his state's hurricane recovery efforts that you can see live at 6:15 eastern here on c-span. coming up tonight starting at 8:00 eastern, two events from iowa, first from bernie sanders hosting a town hall in cedar rapids to promote the democrats $3.5 trillion budget plan. if the senate budget committee, the most consequential piece of legislation for working families we have seen in this country since the new deal of the 1930's. that is tonight starting at six -- 8:00 eastern. ed 9:40, florida center, marco rubio joins iowa senator joni ernst at a fundraiser hosted by the iowa republican party. the two centers discuss a time on capitol hill and talk about their childhoods and what drew them to politics. that is tonight here on c-span, you can also watch anytime online at c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app.

♪ >> this year marks the 28th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. join us for live coverage from new york, the pentagon, and pennsylvania starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern, saturday, september 11 on c-span. watch online at c-span.org or on the c-span radio app. ♪ >> your opinion matters, but your words be heard with c-span's video competition, be part of the nashville conversation by creating a documentary that answers the question how does the federal government impact your life?

your five to six minute video will be on whatever policy affects you in your community. the competition has $100,000 in total cash prizes and you have a shot at a grand prize of $5,000. entry for the competition will begin to be received wednesday, september 8. four competition rules for tips, and more information on how to get started visit our website at studentscan.org. ♪

>> next, former tecra areas state mike pompeo the potential 2024 potential -- presidential candidate speaks at an event hosted by the club for growth. from concord new hampshire, this is about one hour. >> hello, i guess we will get one of the mics. i'm david mcintosh, president of the club for growth, welcome to our first of a series of national forms on school choice. i want to thank everybody here at the new hampshire state bank theater, they have done a great job of helping us get set up. it's great to be in concord. let's all be from the grant state thank you, you are such welcoming people. we have an exciting program and i can't wait to present to you.

this is a leading national musician to fight for economic growth, and freedom. this is the first of a series of several forms where we will be presenting the case for school choice across america. last year, with covid schools shut down and left 70 students and parents stranded. they opened that -- that episode opened their eyes to politicians and bureaucrats who care more about their interests and they do about making sure that every student has the best possible education. we are partnering with former trump secretary of education, betsy devos, and other conservatives, like mike pompeo, to capitalize on this moment and present unique ability of school choice to lift our students and

give them great opportunities for a fantastic education. it is frankly a structural solution to many of the problems we have been seeing. without further ado, i want to bring forward our first guest, secretary of state -- secretary of education betsy devos, leader and innovator, he might say disruptor, and champion for freedom and education. for more than three decades, betsy devos has fought tirelessly to get the government out of the way and allow students and parents the freedom enforceability, and resources and support they need so they can choose where, when, and how they learn. without further ado let me bring it to divorce. [applause]

>> thanks everyone. thank you so much david and everyone for hosting this form and providing this opportunity to talk about this important subject. i want to thank former secretary of state, mike pompeo, mike i really appreciate you being here today. and come into our many distinguished guests. especially i want to have a shout out to frank. [applause] this last year has really made

many of the problems many families have experienced in a whole new way and the forces of the status quo, the union bosses and all their allies and bureaucrats that support everything about the status quo have i think overstepped and overreached and now is an important moment to really introduce policies that are going to empower families and kids to find their fit for education and so we thank you for being here today to talk about this important subject with us and i look forward to that conversation. thanks. [applause] mr. mcintosh: our next speaker, secretary of state mark pompeo served under the trump administration in that position and as director of the cia. he was elected to four turns in congress from the kansas district prior to that. he has an illustrious career in

business before and graduated top of his class at the united states military academy. after that, he served in a patrol unit in the iron curtain. he went on to graduate from law school from harvard law and has spent two decades in business. i want to also ask him take a pause from our topic of school choice, given everything that has been happening in afghanistan and the president's recent remarks to maybe say a couple of comments on that. mike, come on out. [applause] mr. pompeo: thank you, everyone. [applause] mr. pompeo: thank you. thanks, everyone. good afternoon. good afternoon, everybody. thank you for coming out. david mentioned the president

just spoke about afghanistan and i know we are here to talk about education and freedom and the connectivity between those two and how important that is but it is worth taking a moment to talk about freedom and what has happened in afghanistan. i worked tirelessly on behalf of you and president trump to deliver a path forward where we could get young men and women home from afghanistan but to do so in a way that was consistent with american values, our history and traditions, to make sure we got every american, equipment, out and did so in a way that protected us from a future attack. unfortunately, this administration made a different place -- cchoice. it picked an arbitrary date, september 11, i handful of dates from the 20th anniversary of that tragedy. they departed from the major airfield and never made a plan

to make sure we had all the americans out in the end result was chaos that ended up resulting in the death of 13 amazing young people. we know those soldiers are marines who served in afghanistan the past 20 years did noble service on behalf of the united states. they kept us all safe. we should thank every veteran who served in that place for the work they did to keep us safe. we should make sure as we think about our leaders for the future, they are leaders who are determined to protect american interests and when we do that, when we set arbitrary dates to put people at rest, this is a mistake. turning to today's topic, you may think it is odd the former secretary of state is here with you. i must say i have a son who is older now i consider myself an educator.

i taught sunday school. [laughter] mr. pompeo: being a fifth-grade study schoolteacher is the best preparation for secretary of state you could possibly imagine. [laughter] mr. pompeo: as i traveled, i watched bad actors. there is nothing, no threat, not the chinese communist party, not valid mayor pugh did, not the time i met with chairman kim and north korea. there is nothing more likely to undermine our way of life that our failure to educate the next generation. [applause] mr. pompeo: it is not a close call and we are on the cusp of losing it. here is the simple packed and we will talk about this. the simple packed is this. we know the kinds of things our kids should be talk -- taught and we know the decisions should be made by children and families.

they should have the capacity to make good children's for their kids, the things they want them to learn. this is why freedom, school freedom, school choice, is such an absolute imperative. we want to make sure these young people learn real american history. the noble founding of this exceptional country. [applause] mr. pompeo: it is absolutely imperative. we want to make sure they can read. [laughter] mr. pompeo: and right. and do math. these are the things our teachers for so many years have taught and we have walked so far away from them with the junk being brought into the classroom today. we know that schools are places where character and civil institutions are built so we need our schools to reflect that understanding that our founders brought to us here. we get those things right. with real american history, if we make sure our kids learn character that will lead them to be able to be a good and

productive life, we have a real opportunity. it will continue to be great education for the next 200 50 years. hopefully my great grandkids are here. thank you for being here and sharing your concerns about america's educational system. thank you all. [applause] mr. mcintosh: thank you. the next person to introduce is chris wilson, a nationally renowned pollster who has directed research for public research firms and presidential candidates, and everything in-between. he is a regular political analyst on fox news and msnbc. i am surprised they let him on. [laughter] mr. mcintosh: he is brilliant. we asked him to talk to parents, experts, and americans across the country and the -- elicit

from them what they care about in education and school choice. then, share that data with us. the great thing about chris is he lets the facts speak for the argument rather than make up the argument and get the facts into the pure --- that. without further ado, chris wilson. [applause] mr. wilson: if i interrupted your forum, i'm sure everybody got up excited to see polling this morning. david gave me two instructions for today. one is 10 minutes. trying my best not to put everybody to sleep. i do want to talk about the extensiveness of the study because it is one of the most thorough, academic, and research programmed i have ever been a part of. you see up here, if you read that, thousands of americans to

look at what their attitudes were on the issue of school freedom. the second thing we did, though, that is not listed here is before we started, we talked the subject matter experts and we did some online studies in which we collected literally millions to arrive at the conclusions i will present to you today. the first one i will say is probably intuitive to most of you in the room. the covid 19 pandemic created a tremendous opportunity to foster school choice around the country. second is over the last six years, opinions have shifted in favor of school choice and school freedom when respondents learn what it is. third, i'm in the undoable position of a school choice form and informing people that school choice creates negative role at -- reactions in a large number of americans who support the program but not the terminology. the conclusion beyond that is

the branding needs a new book. i will talk about how we arrive at it in a moment. a new effort that teachers school choice -- features school choice, supportive messaging, and brings it to students and parents across the country. the first part talks about satisfaction. what has happened before and after covid and what you see there is on the left is overall satisfaction and then its growth since covid-19. the number satisfied has dig -- decreased by 12 point. a 23 point movement overall over the course of the last year and a half, two years, specific to the issue. i can think of no other issue that has seen that tectonic of a shift in such a short period of time. this shows going back to 2015 -- what has happened over a while? if you look at the red, this is on the issue of school choice. utilizing the terminology, sup port-oppose.

i won't go through the numbers but the greenline goes up a little bit. the redline goes up a little bit and i will talk about what -- why that is. this is the terminology. we use something called the discrete choice, a joint analysis for anyone who is a stat geek like me. this methodology is used for testing a product, hypothetically television, you attest attributes of the television, the price, the built-in operating system, the screen itself. within that screen, you would parts of the screen. maybe lcd or 4k or 8k or led or plasma. that is what you arrive at. what other components within the product that cause someone to buy a television over another? we looked at multiple terms and those terms were randomized. any of those words ended up with other words.

what you see is utilizing this methodology i have used for multiple fortune 500 companies to sell products, we found the word school freedom causes people to be more supportive of the program. as i said, to show the terminology has a negative effect on the movement is the term school choice and parental choice. that is not because there is something the farias or arbitrary about those terms. it is because they have been used by opponents of school choice and because they have been targeted toward other aspects of the program -- negative aspects to create those ideas. my point today is when we talk about school freedom and the program of school choice scholarships as a component of the program are the best ways to talk about what it is we are here today vouching for. i want to show simple percentages. what i do here as i break it

into urban and non-urban. the term school freedom works with urban and nonurban areas and it works better than anything else. those are the top five. their simple navels -- labels at work. there is no question school freedom elicits the most support. if you think about my tv analogy, the screen is what works best and what is a component of the screen that causes people to support it? we tested different features and messages there. to break it down by party, i won't read them all off because i know it is available, but overall, the terms the top feature is good access to education that everybody can enjoy not just a small few. that was a better one with democrats. with republicans, the top issue was crt. it doesn't work with everybody else. i showed you party first,

suburban, urban, and roll up your what is fascinating to me is you find different messages. access to good education works for everyone in urban areas. [indiscernible] they want to know their students are invested in and not the school itself and rural areas have seen great amounts of movement and attitudes -- in attitudes and it has showed them they don't need to accept what their local school has to give them access to other types of education, maybe through zoom or otherwise. the messaging. go through the features and messaging. here, republicans and democrats in urban and nonurban. the best message with democrats in urban areas is allowing students to access the classroom to help them grow. that is what school choices. the freedom is what pushes it. with independence, --

independents, they want to decide whether children's education go. that is been the greatest mover we have seen in the legislative battles. by race, working with her urban messages, if you look at whites overall, school freedom causes tax dollars. with african-americans, it will cut barriers. it will personalize education or disadvantaged students. now, the other thing i want to talk about is one of the things to look at is because education decreased, who is it people see at fault? that is who americans see as at fault for education decreasing overall peer politicians and union bosses. they don't see teachers unions. even though we saw a lot of blowups of school boards, i will say the one exception in urban areas, they see it to be about inadequate teachers.

it comes down to politicians, union bosses, and your aircraft. -- bureaucrats. i want to talk about what not to say when you get in the situations. it is important to know what words work and what don't. overall, you don't want to make it about unions were teachers. the thing we found nationally, and i pointed this out in a room full of people who are as frustrated as i am, crt does not work with anyone besides republicans. moving into general elections this year, virginia and new jersey and we look at the republican primaries and democrat primaries around the country. this is a major issue. having said that, it works in primaries, not generals. i think of everything is political. in conclusion, i want to go through again. first of all, no questions. the last 24 months has diminished the satisfaction that children's education has. second point is school taurus

warriors have kept the battle steady. educational choice opponents have been successfully landed school choice as a term that doesn't mean anything more than vouchers. you should support vouchers but if you don't, don't support school choice. there is a difference. school freedom is the way forward. the issue requires a rebrand and as i pointed out to david, it's -- that's where we start. the public does not blame teachers for what is going on. they don't blame teachers unions. crt is effective vermont's republicans and no one else. it is important to point out. the messaging varies by demographics. there is tables because it is important to know there is no quality message that works overall. the feature of access is stronger amongst different groups. no one, single message --it requires to understand who

you're speaking to and where you're speaking. i will hand it back over to david and i appreciate that. [applause] mr. mcintosh: thank you, chris. that brought tears to my eyes. betsy, the stage is yours. ms. devos: thank you alt for enjoying and appreciating that testimony from awesome people, many of whom have become my personal friends. mike, thanks for being here. i really appreciate it. interested in talking to you about the topics. you are a west point grad who served in the military for five years. small business owner. served in congress. head of the cia. took our nations top diplomacy

job as secretary of state. you have a unique perspective on how students are prepared to take on college, to enter the workforce, or to serve their country in various ways. very easy first question. why do you think school freedom or school choice is important? mr. pompeo: we all should work on tuesdays. [laughter] mr. pompeo: what a lovely young, gracious man filled with love. that was glorious, betsy. we know so often that there are families who look at where they are sent to school and they are not satisfactory. they want something that is unique and special for their kids. whether it is special ed students or someone who just has a special love, they are trapped in a place where they cannot get out and they cannot get the education they need. there are very few places in the

american economy where monopolies dominate and where people are restricted in the products they can choose. parents should have the ability to choose the products they want to choose for their child. that can change over time. our son attended private school in early years and went to a big public high school. he worked for our son. every parent will make a different set of choices but it is so important on the individual level for kids to come out of school with confidence and the power of the knowledge they have gained and you should know, too, we are competing all around the world. we want to make sure our children are raised up with a character and values and intellect they need to compete on the global stage so they can create jobs and raise their families, too. it doesn't have freedom for students and -- not just for those students but for all of us, to improve the quality of life. ms. devos: this year has been a banner year thus far for school choice, for school freedom.

21 states have expanded or improved or started new programs, in part due to school closures and mask mandates and all the things associated with the last year and a half with covid. talk about the impact you think the shutdown, driven by the unions and the establishment, has had on the expansion of school freedom, school choice. mr. pompeo: this became politics, not science. [laughter] mr. pompeo: i have been traveling. they are angry --parents are angry about what school systems did to their children. whether the union bosses or the school boards, they denied their students the opportunity to learn sometimes for years, sometimes for longer, in an environment where they can absorb the information they needed to move from middle school into high school or third to fourth grade. it would be unprepared for that. you only get 12 years, right?

and they took 8% or 12% of that away from these young people. it also gave a lot of parents a lot of insight. you saw this testimony by parents who were teaching their kids at home but had to go back to work. they got a chance to see these curriculums and i got to see them meeting their needs and the way it was often the classroom where they dropped them off in the morning or pick them up in the afternoon and got a chance to see the substance of what was being presented to the children and there is nothing like a mama bear who is not happy. [laughter] mr. pompeo: there were a lot of unhappy mama bears and i think that is fantastic because they will be more ambitious and empowered. we see what happened in new hampshire. state legislators made that happen in new hampshire and were empowered to do that. god bless you for doing that. you will make new hampshire better and every one of those students who have access to the program, you will give parents the freedom to make good choices

for their kids. ms. devos: you are absolutely right and parents have a window like never before on their kid'' education and many of them are displaced. we also know that over one million kids did not do any learning at all, like never participated in the business of learning, and over 11 million that were in some way at a huge deficit. over 20% of the kids in the public schools. this has been a really challenging year for kids across the country and you have talked about how the curriculum decisions may be influencing how parents in america are viewing education. anything you want to add to that or david, you want to chime in? mr. mcintosh: what we saw in chris's polling is the attitude of the parents when they got frustrated was i want something different. i want something new. among parents who had children

k-12, the support for school choice, mccright, republican, independent, is at 80%. 80% of them want to have more impact on the decisions schools are making, more authority over what is happening, and i think school choice, education freedom program will empower those parents and together, they will be able to make sure the schools provide that good education. mr. pompeo: that is been the most were markable thing i think we saw in the data was the increase of support for something that many of you have worked on for years. you've worked on it for decades. we know it and believed it and now, now the american people -- certainly those who have students in school -- they are seeing the light and it gives us an opportunity to move forward. mr. pompeo: can i say one more thing? i don't know who that other 20% are. i found it remarkable a parent say whatever the school provides

to my child, i don't want any options. i want my child to be locked into the system, which could be a good point. it may not fit their students two years later. i think this. i think americans appreciate freedom in the opportunity to make decisions for their family. this is the first step of that. [applause] ms. devos: when we served together, i worked hard as president trump -- with president trump on introducing a policy initiative called education freedom scholarships. it would be the most transformative and significant investment in kids from the federal level. it is a tax credit to bolster state driven initiatives. states who choose to participate or not. it would provide fuel to efforts going on in states. once it is law, and i say once it is all because i think it is inevitable, it is only a matter

of if, not -- when, not if -- it will significantly impact millions of kids' lives. do you believe the next administration in congress could pass -- should pass a bill like that? mr. pompeo: look, i was working in a different space. ms. devos: i know that. mr. pompeo: i know this legislation and you talk about that -- you should know it was great in two ways. one, it was not washington driven. you think you will hand this over to the washington folks? [applause] mr. pompeo: that department of education and those professionals there think this is an attack on them. right, they have a power base they want to keep control of. i want the lovely people of new hampshire to make good decisions through their school boards and state representatives, their state elected officials to make good decisions for their kids and this piece of legislation did that. it provided federal resources

tied to the good decisions at the state and local level to provide emphatic support for the capacity for parents to make good decisions for their kids. this is a fundamentally libertarian, liberty-based freedom-loving idea. i hope we will find a federal legislator willing to do it. not sure we have the right ones yet. [laughter] mr. pompeo: we are only 14 months away from the next wing of this. ms. devos: absolutely. mr. mcintosh: let me comment on that. you in the trump administration also put forward an idea during the covid relief package that the additional money that was going to schools should be directed to parents and let them choose to the public school or private schools or homeschooling. when you start thinking about directing the public money toward schools, school choice or school freedom becomes also

freedom for the public school students as well. they will have much more direct authority over the school board, over an administrator or bureaucrat, if he has to go to the parent and say we need to check off the covid money. it is a tremendously empowering proposal. somebody in the senate, when they had the new congress, the democratic congress and the president biden to offer that amendment, it failed by one vote. very partisan lines. what we are seeing is more and more awareness that if we direct the money to the parents, bette is a way to accomplish school freedom. ms. devos: absolutely. i like to talk about the metaphor of kids with a backpack going to school with the same thing every day and having those resources attached to that backpack to find directives for

them. let's with top it's a little bit. -- let's switch topics a little bit and talk about america's standing in the world. an international test that test students from all countries, all participating countries around the world is showing americans, american students are badly lagging in reading and math and science. the last data from the test were from 2018, before the pandemic. we have a chart up on the screen here that shows the mean science reading and math scores. it also shows we are ranked 22nd. need an out by many economic competitors. -- beaten out by many economic competitors. we are also four years behind our counterparts in china especially in math. that is shown on this chart. how do you think that impacts our long-term economic

competitiveness and what are the implications of this? mr. pompeo: there is near-term challenges and real long-term implications for the country. the near-term challenges, the best and brightest workers from abroad will want to come here and our businesses will want to hire them. that is great because we want them to be successful. we would like them to work with kids educated in the united states. if they will compete in the market space, selling products around the world, they have to have the intellectual talent to deliver that. the longer-term challenge is this will put america in a second or third tier with respect to our innovation and capacity to deliver. we haven't been in that place in american history. you can see this. this is a long-term trend going on for a while. one of the reasons for this is almost certainly the absence of competition in school space.

and you have a monopoly, when you can teach the kids the things you want to teach them and choose not to teach them the things you don't, there is no incentive to teach them the things they will need and their parents want them taught. this is the central conundrum on why freedom makes so much sense. i am reminded, too. my sister is a teacher at public school. her husband, my brother-in-law, is also a teacher. there were a lot of things i am confident that given freedom to actually create a curriculum and grow kids in her pod or space, she would have been all over but she was restricted. that doesn't fall to the teachers. the fact that our kids are behind on an international stage does not fall to the great people who have chosen a career to educate our next generation. it falls to the bureaucracy and the union leaders who sit on top of that who want the status quo and are prepared to beat today's challenges where you see other countries around the world who have managed to confront them. ms. devos: that is absolutely

right. thinking about teachers and they are the central figures they are in this equation, more freedom gives teachers ultimately more freedom to teach as they need and want to. are you concerned also about our ability from a military and counterintelligence perspective vis-a-vis russia and china and the taliban? mr. pompeo: i'm worried about a lot of things. [laughter] mr. pompeo: for four years, i paid for all about. it is absolutely the case that we have been able to for the last -- oh goodness--at least since world war ii, to provide our intelligence operators and our military, our service members, the finest equipment in the world. they had the farthest and the best ability to see the battlefield.

our pilots had the best equipment in the best technology underneath them. countries wanted to buy american equipment with american intellectual property inside that. to the extent that we lose and do not have the best american scientists raised in america and the best businesses and mathematicians to deliver this and the people who understand semi conductor technology, in the absence of the best and at scale to deliver these complex components to our fighting forces, we do absolutely run the risk. we will have to send our young men and women in harm's way with equipment does not meet the world spend -- standard. this would be unconscionable to do to those young people who have decided to serve america in uniform. ms. devos: let's assume in on our own students preparedness to advance from grade to grade and then continue into the workforce for college.

you see the achievement gap continuing to widen between the high-performing and low performing. examples from the nation's report card are from 2019, the most recent data we have. i focused on fourth-graders. the achievement gap between the highest and lowest performers has widened and this is after over $1 trillion spent since the department of in existence specifically to close the achievement gap. you can see from the chart that the students in the bottom 10% are actually doing worse than they were a decade ago. you were a soldier at west point. nearly one third of students who want to enlist cannot pass the academic portion of the entry exam for the military. his education failure also a national security issue?

mr. pompeo: it is. this gap is real. you should note that in my view, the gap is the least important because of the complete absence of freedom of choice for schools. kids that come from parents with resources can make choices. one of the parents can same home and send their kids to a school that teachers kids what they want to learn if they are talented in drama or map. they can get the child to the right place. what new hampshire has done and we are advocating for here today is to get those other parents, the parents who do not have all of those options, the same chanc e --why would we give parents the capacity for school freedom but not give every parent that same capacity to make the choice? it is the right thing to do for the individual. to your point, betsy, it's the important thing for the country.

to raise up not just a handful but the many. there are 300 plus million of us today. we need to make sure not ust -- just my son and your kids but every child can go to to a place that will prepare them for the workforce in higher education and prepare them for whatever it is they choose to do in their lives. ms. devos: amen. let's talk a little bit again about the role of the federal government in education. as i mentioned, more than $1 trillion has been spent at the federal level, specifically to close the achievement gap, and it has not worked. in your view, why has that not -- top-down approach not work? mr. pompeo: i have one thought and then i will get your take. you had a chance to see this up close and personal running that department. there is a big bureaucracy, too.

my sense is that if you tried to do this at a national level, you cannot appreciate all the different conditions. think about my home state. in the western part of our state , a big city would have 500 people and a community might have one high school that would manage to have 600 kids. you go to wichita where i am from arkansas city and you would have much more urban environments. very different situation. culturally very different places as well. it is not possible for folks in washington dc or bureaucrats in the d.o.e. to take on that variability. it is possible for the school board in comanche county, kansas or kiowa county, kansas or johnson county in the eastern part of the district. it is possible for them to get it right. that is my sense. my sense is this. it is not necessarily their bad people or not trying but to capture what is going on and to understand what students really

need, you need to empower parents and families instead of bureaucrats in washington. [applause] ms. devos: one of the things i proposed with block ranting federal funds to the states and local districts. if you were back in washington in a leadership role, would you commit to limiting the role of the federal government in education and how would you e nvision it? mr. pompeo: this is been a long-standing conservative idea. [laughter] mr. pompeo: i only lived in washington 10 years. forgive me. the truth is there are resources that come from washington to protect us and keep us secure and that is the important place for that to be.

when we get to the things that impact communities and schools and families, those are best left to local communities to make good decisions, whether it is block grants for education or the same thing in how we think about delivering health care, all the things that impact families and lives every day, such a complex country which --with places like alaska. different environments. to dry those with a uniform national standard is too big. sign me up. we should drive this money down. if it is been collected through federal taxation to disperse it in a way, block grants gives the decision-making authority to states or local governments, i think we will see an improvement in the capacity to educate our children and more chances for freedom of education for those kids. [applause] mr. mcintosh: thank you. i'm a big fan of getting the decision-making out of washington.

my heart would say let's block grant it to the parents and let each of them decided where that money should go in their school system or private school. and take the government out of it and let it go back to the schools. ms. devos: absolutely. absolutely. [applause] ms. devos: we talked about the fact that school choice, school freedom enjoys broad, bipartisan support and it is exponentially --one of the rare value added investments the federal government makes in education is the d.c. opportunity scholarship program. i know that you fought hard in congress during the obama a dministration. it is under attack now in the biden administration. even a liberal like dianne feinstein supports this program. talk about why you supported the program over the years and what should be done to protect it.

mr. pompeo: these kids impacted live in the most difficult places, some of the most difficult communities in the country. every state has nearly every state has places like this but this fund was put in place on a bipartisan basis good it was not political. at school freedom should not be remotely political. it was working. there were happy families and an enormous demand. there was more demand than supply for these particular scholarships. then it became all messed up in union politics is my best guess. i watched democrats start to walk away from the commitment to the kids who were in difficult conditions, some of whom did not have parents around to help them make those choices but all of whom had people who were loving and wanted them to do better and for the life of me, i could never figure out why there was so much opposition other than to say that there were folks inside the unions. ms. devos: it should be noted

also that washington, d.c. is the only place the federal government actually does have a role in education because of the unique nature of the district and thank you for your chance to make that continued important program. mr. pompeo: if you want to see more about how that program, there is a movie about west virginia that does an excellent job of showing how some parents really hung in there and rose up and worked against politicians to get a passed and save it. ms. devos: it is a great movie. we know school choice and school freedom is a political winner. governor desantis is a beneficiary of the support for his program and his state and he won because a lot of democrats who support school choice voted for the =--- him including a lot

of minorities and female voters that may not have otherwise supported him. do you think conservatives should be leaning into this issue more? mr. pompeo: i worked on this a long time ago now before i lost my mind and ran for congress. [applause] mr. pompeo: yes. it was a kansas group i was part of. we were working on ---we had a good sized homeschool organization inside kansas but not good charter school laws. the freedom for students to get outside the government monopoly schools was not widely available for kansas students and what i could see was it was in the finest conservative tradition to give power to those families. i hope we will see everybody across the political spectrum recognized it is not just politically useful. it is important for those young people. ms. devos: absolutely. we are coming to the end of our time but i do have a last

question here. we are in the heart of back-to-school season. we are seeing a lot of activities around schools in arles of our communities. what is your message to parents and students across the country as they go back to school? mr. pompeo: you know, it reminds me of what i used to tell my son. he would say finish the sentence. [applause] -- [laughter] mr. pompeo: i would tell my son lots of things but most importantly work hard, tell the truth, and keep your faith. i think that applies to the young people headed back to school. be a voracious learner. make sure you are in a place that learning is rewarded and you burn things that your parents want you to learn. work hard at this. keep your faith. understand who you are. be centered in the things you know to be imported and then we later -- leaders, parents, people involved can set the

course. we have a responsibility to reward those young people who make those choices to work hard and keep the faith and tell the truth. if they do those things, we have an obligation to them and i hope as the school year builds with kids back in school in the classroom getting to learn all the things they learned -- reading and writing -- being around their peers, engaged in all the things we learned in the social environments as well. it's very important we get our kids back to the classroom and that we have schools that parents love and want their kids to be a part of. ms. devos: thank you for the great conversation. [applause] mr. mcintosh: thank you, betsy and mike, very much. as you were talking about, your question to mike -- should leaders be talking more about this? i want to turn around and ask

our guests in the audience. you all are from new hampshire. at least every four years, you see a lot of politicians who come and go. maybe by a round of applause, would you like them to talk more about school freedom ? [applause] mr. mcintosh: that's right because in order to encourage school freedom, we will need an army of grassroots folks and leaders who will step up regardless of party and do what is right for the children. i appreciate you all coming here but in your bulletin, there is some paper you can fill out if you want to be in contact with what we will do around the country. let me ask betsy or mike, would

you like to make closing remarks, any last remarks? ms. devos: thank you for this opportunity to talk about this important issue in a way that is really forward-leaning and i think we have such good ideas are proven in states across the country. we need to build on them and support children's and their families to find that right fit for them because we know it is critical to the future of our country to ensure that every single child has the opportunity to fully develop themselves. again, thank you for this opportunity and thank you so much for your commitment to this issue and to expanding opportunities for kids. mr. pompeo: thank you for giving me this opportunity and to you all for being here. this is an important issue for

the next generation. you all took time to come here on this afternoon to be here with us. the talk about this and be part of this. thank you for that. thank you to new hampshire for heading down this path in a serious way. it is incredibly important. keep driving hard. make sure you hold your elected officials accountable to get this right in new hampshire. we will do our part to make sure other states do it. thank you all so much. [applause] mr. mcintosh: that concludes our program. thank you all. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021]

>> watch online at c-span.org on september 11 or listen on the c-span radio app. >> president biden will travel to louisiana tomorrow to meet with governor john bel edwards about the response to hurricane ida. the governor will hold a briefing later today on recovery efforts you can watch that live at 6:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. president biden earlier talked about the federal response in the aftermath of the storm. here are some of his remarks. pres. biden: now, a lot of private companies and public

entities are doing their part. today, i'm calling on insurance companies not to obey the responsibility to keep the priorities they made to their customers and the promises they made and help some folks were hurting. here is the deal. fema is providing critical need assistance for example to help the hotel bill because you couldn't stay in your home during a hurricane. the department of housing and urban affairs is offering assistance to families and impacted areas but we are hearing reports of some insurance companies denying coverage for additional living expenses unless the homeowner was under a mandatory evacuation order. peoples pay their insurance premiums and are supposed to get payments from their insurance companies for relocation costs. but insurance companies in the face of the strongest storm since 1850 said no.

it will not pay what we owe you. the fact is parishes in louisiana like new orlenas and st. john's issued a voluntary order at first and may not have even had enough time to make a mandatory one as the storm moved so fast. other parishes suggested residents could tried to protect themselves by sheltering in place against the ferocious winds. we can all understand why folks felt safe leaving their homes and going elsewhere. out of the path to a devastating storm. no one fled this storm because they were looking for vacation or road trip. they left their home because they felt it was flee or risk death. there is nothing voluntary about that. i'm calling on