go right in cities all across america as a result of your philosophy of how we ought to move the country forward. >> i believe there is a lot that has gone right in detroit and wr schools. and the notion there hasn't been accountability is just wrong. it's a false news. it's not correct at all. the reality is that charter schools in michigan have been accountable, fully accountable to their overseeing bodies and to the state since their history. >> why are there so many failing charter schools in michigan. >> 122 charter schools have been closed continues charter schools came into existence in michigan. reality today is students attending charter schools in the city of detroit are getting 3 months on average more learning than their counterparts in the traditional public schools.

the recent legislation brings all schools in detroit under accountability including traditional schools. there has never been a traditional public school closed due to poor performance. so for the people of detroit there is accountability across the board and i'm pleads and thankful that's the case. >> i'm out of time. i would like to say this, mrs. devos, thank you for your willingness to do this. i would like to invite you to the denver public schools if you would be willing to come, to see what we are work on there. >> i would love to do that. >> senator young? >> thank you so much for putting yourself forward for this position. i think you will make a fine secretary of education. i would like to bring to your attention something we discussed in our office. we spent quite a bit of time talking about teachers. you started talking about teachers.

i was even couraged in your prepared remarks you said we are blessed beyond measure by educators who poured themselves into their students. i have four children aged 10 and under. i appreciate how essential it is to have prepared teachers, teachers empowered to do their best work and immersed in an atmosphere that's supportive. that's my objective in part in sitting on this committee is to try and play a constructive role in that process hopefully working with you. my wife, her family is full of teachers. a number of them are still teaching today in a low-income town in indiana. i would like to look to the evidence and i'm always open to evidence from all comers. but there is a 2007 study by mckenzie and company.

they examine education systems all around the world to try and figure out what works. what makes for an effective education environment it wasn't the amount of money spent per student. we tried that in our country. adjusting for inflation. it's $165,000 per student. we know right there it' not money. what mckenzie found the most important factor is the quality of our teachers. we need to remove barriers to quality teaching and enable and equip these teachers to do their best work. i would like to get your thoughts on how we might do that. >> i did he joy our meeting in your office as well talking about some of these issues. i believe let me restate again

that a quality teacher cannot be -- the importance of a quality teacher cannot be overstated. i think the opportunities abound for empowering and rehe powering teachers in a new way. unleashing and unencumberring them with a lot of rules and regulations today that prohibit and inhibit creativity and innovation with their student. when you take a step back and look at how we deliver education today. for the most part it hasn't changed significantly in a century and a half. yet the world has changed significantly. so i think there is a great opportunity. and this goes for teachers of all kind of schools and all varieties, and that is to empower them in a new way to do what they do best. and i know that in a couple of

the states when charter schools were actually introduced, the -- those that found the charter schools were actually teachers want to go express themselves in a different way, and found a new opportunity to unleash from their previous circumstances. >> my remaining 90 seconds, i'll emphasize i spented the last four years in the house of representatives that focused in the main trying to ascertain whether or not our social support programs, those programs targeted toward helping the poor, the needy, the vulnerable, those who need a hand up in society. whether those programs are working. there are roughly 80 of these programs. of those 80. only 12 have ever been rigorously evaluated using the gold standard of eve valuation

and only one has been found to meaning any work and even that one is -- meaning an meaningful. and even that is complicated. do i have your assurance that you will operate in this fashion, a threshold issue for me? >> absolutely, senator. i think it' a great opportunity. if confirmed, i look forward to working with you on that. >> good evening, mrs. devos, welcome to the committee. it's reputed at least that sigmund freud said there are times when a cigar is just a cigar. and there are times when charter schools are just charter schools. and i think when that's the case, everyone in this room supports them.

we have a very strong charter school community in rhode island. but there are times when it appears charter schools are used as a evening to attack public education. and the signals of that tend to be that failing charter schools are protected compared to failing public schools. that the standard aren't there. in rhode island we demand a lot of our charter schools. they succeed very well. we are proud of them. but i have read that 80% of charter zmools michigan are run by for-profi- -- charter schooln michigan are run by for-profit entities. we in rhode island wouldn't want that system moved into rhode island or moved to a national

level. second signal is when the charter school advocates fail -- you recognized that there are on going costs anresponsibity that a traditional public school must continue to shoulder, even as student leave with their funding for charter schools. and that is so clear a proposition now that the investment service moody's has written about it and talked about the danger of a down -- oa downward spiral because it adds cost when you have to maintain the public school and the charter school until the system can adjust. can you assure us your desire for charter schools is sincere, and as the secretary of education you will steer away from efforts to deny traditional

public schools the money they need to manage the transition and assure that chatter schools have to live up to their promise. >> let me just begin by stating that my advocacy and my orientation is really around parent and student and their choosing the right education for their children. so when parent choose charter schools they are doing so because they think it's a better spot for their children. you have my commitment that i will be an advocate for all great schools no matter their form, their version. you'll be an advocate for parents being able to make those choices. >> do you understand that when the parent makes that choice and

the child moves to the charter school and the funding moves with the child. that leaves founding gap at the previous school that it can't instantaneously or magically fill. that's a real problem. >> indeed. i think this is a good example of an issue that is best addressed at the state level by each state and across knowledging that each state will have unique circumstances in that regard. >> it will be hard to address that at the state level if you make the federal department of education a crusader for moving children to charter schools without recognizing the legacy costs to the public school system. that's where we need you as secretary of education to recognize there is this problem and you will keep in mind not only the charter schools and the parents going there, but the

traditional schools and the parents staying there. >> certainly. as we spoke in your office. i think this is an issue and it's probably unique to some state more than it is to others. but again i will refer back to the implementation of the every student succeeds act and the opportunities they have to address the unique challenges of their states. i will be a crusader for parents and students and the quality of their education not for specific systems and not for specific arrangements of how school is delivered. >> let me ask you one quick question. for 10 years you served on the board which calls climate change unfound and of undue concern. it went so far as to represent

the dover school district over the adoption of a biology textbook involving intelligent design. if school districts around the country try to teach students junk science, will the department of education be with the student or the polite cool entities trying to force the junk science into the science programs. >> the expectation is science is taught in public schools, and i support the teaching of great science, especially science that allows students to exercise critical thinking and to really discover and examine in new ways. and science is to be support at all levels. >> i would have liked to make some inquiries about pell grants to follow up on some of these answers which were directed

toward the question, but maybe not completely responsive to the question and ask about where the department will go on this nightmarish problem of college for profit that have taken these kids and robbed them of their ucation and money and set them loose with a piece of paper that isn't worth anything. and as i said, i'm very fond of you and this committee and i don't recall ever being told you could never have a second round in a hearing as a matter of principle before. >> thanks, senator whitehouse. i'm going to take my five-minute round now and go back to something that mrs. devos brought up and something several senators have brought up. i want to talk about the law that the president called the christmas miracle that this committee produced, no child left behind, that was passed in december, 2015.

under the current administration the plans are under a law we call essa, senator franken may have bent first person to suggest that. the department is planning -- is on a path to say to the states -- every state will have to get their new title one plan to get federal money and title two plan to take advantage of the innovation states have wanted and the flexibility we have given them. the current administration is on a path to say to states, get your plans in, and we'll approve them the spring or in the summer. and you can then implement the plans in the school year that

begins next year. will you -- is it your intention to continue on that path -- on that schedule? >> absolutely, senator. and if there is any confusion or question around transition, rest assured it will be a high priority if confirmed for me to insure that the plan is adhered to and the law is implemented as you all intend. >> my questions is in most our states plans are being circulated among various groups and if you are confirmed you can get your plan in. we had considerable differences of opinions in the committee and we resolved them well enough.

we worked out difficult issues. we worked out what senator murray likes to call guardrails on the states. and we even put guard railds on the secretary of education which my colleagues on the democratic side may think better of that we did that. ways yr attitude toward respecting the authority that congress gives you and trying to implement the law according to the way it's written rather than trying to legislate from where you are? you believe strongly in giving low-income parent more choices of schools. we debate that and only got 45 votes for senator scott's bill and my bill. would you write a regulation to implement that even though congress couldn't do it? >> it would be my goal if

confirmed to implement laws as you intended them. i acknowledge it's your role to write laws and pass laws. it would be the department's role to implement as intended. and that's my commitment. >> you wouldn't be -- no matter how strongly you feel about school choice, you wouldn't be prepared to mandate washington state or tennessee to adopt a particular school choice plan. >> no, i would hope i could convince you all of the merit of that in future legislation, but certainly not a mandate from within the department. >> the scholarship for kids legislation that i pro poatds that got 45 votes which wasn't enough. and senator scott proposed a limited version that had to do with students with disabilities. it said we can take the $24 billion of federal dollars we

now spend. and a state could choose to take its share of that money and turn it into $2,10 to scholarships and let it -- $2,10 to,100 scholarships and let it follow the student to the school. so in that case it would allow the states to make the decision and the parents to make the choice rather than washington make an order you have to do school choice. is that the kind of proposeddal you would support? >> yes, absolutely. we have seen a wide variety of choices in the states where prrams exist. it would be dependent on each state's political realities and

culture and how they wanted to approach that opportunity and that option. or if they wanted to expand it. that would be another alternative as well. >> thank you, senator baldwin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to weigh in also i hope we'll get additional opportunity to ask questions. i would like it to be not in writing, but to give the american people a chance to heart exchange and responses. i also associate myself with the concerns raided by our ranking -- raised by our ranking member with regard to holding this hearing prior to the receipt o of the office of ethi. mrs. devos, you had the chance to answer questions about your and your family's indirect

investments in education-related for-profit come any including social finance and performance which i understand to be a collection agency that specializes in student debt collection. so i won't repeat those there, but let me get to that ethics agreement that will be forthcoming. what decision you will need to make is whether to take advantage of section 1043 of the internal revenue code which aloud you to defer capital gains tax on the sale of assets divested in order to comply with ethics rules. this provision can allow wealthy individuals to save hundreds of millions of dollars. it's why when i became aware of this that i joined senators

white house and warren on this committee as well as our colleague senator feinstein in introduction a bill to close this loophole or limit the amount of capital gains that could be deferred to $1 million. because we don't have your financial information yet from the office of government ethics, my question to you is are you planning on taking advantage of this tax loophole? >> thank you for that question. let me just restate that i look forward to the ethics agreement finalization with the office of government ethics and committed to ensuring i have no conflicts and will go forward with no conflicts. with rezpoac -- with -- with reo that specific question i do not

plan to take advantage of that loophole. if confirmed i will only take a salary of $1 so i can be official, but i don't intend to take a salary either. >> i also listened carefully to your opening statement and your exchange with senator franken related to your sizable donations to a number of anti-lgbt organizations that have been associated withed a voaf today i for the discredited practice of conversion therapy. i was heartened by your response, i will say. but i would note that these same organizations, anti-lgbt organizations, also have been hostile to non-discrimination

protections, issues like adoptions, marriage equality. given the alarm that parents have expressed to me about these donations to anti-lgbt organizations, i -- i guys wants i want to ask, i assume there are lgbt students and their parents watching tonight. what would you say to them that you are going to use your position as secretary to support lgbt students or their parents? >> i embrace equality. and i firmly believe in the intrinsic value of each invidual and every student should have t the assurance of safe and discrimination-free place to become educated. i want to restate those

principles, those values for me. let me just comment to the contributions that you referred to again, and suggest that you may be confusing some other family members in some of those contributions. and also looking at contributions from 18 or 20 years ago. i want to refer to my approach. if i had -- as a mom i just can't imagine having a child that would feel discriminated against for any reason. and i would want my child in a safe environment. >> i note that i have run out of time, and mr. chairman, i have many more questions i would like top ask. i would say if you think there is -- we have been fairly general given our restricted

time, about the issue of charitable contributions or contributions to the lgbted a voaf today i organizations. if you feel like there has been a family member who has contribute and you are biddingified and the public record is incorrect, please in writing foul. but i have seen information quite to the contrary. >> thank you, senator baldwin. senator roberts. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the ranking member as well. mrs. devos, thank you for being responsive, articulate, informed, man my view specific. i suppose mr. chairman, all members could submit any specific questions they have for the record. and we could have a time period

on that. if they have concerns they can always speak on the senate floor. thank you for coming by my office. we had a nice visit. i let you know that back -- way back, i had the opportunity to teach while trying to put out a newspaper on the west side of phoenix. not kansas. but phoenix. at any rate, i know you fully understand one size fits all education system just does not work. you just said that in your testimony. i told you i held a round table discussion in kansas in topeka with 12 college presidents. 12 business stakeholders, very important to those universities, to discuss higher education and workforce development given the fact we are going to attempt to pass a higher education bill.

in particular i heard from the higher education leaders about the impact of federal programs obviously, policies, but more especially regulations on kansas institutions of higher education. during our meeting last month in my office, i shared with you an information chart -- i need a bigger chart, like the guy who said he needed a bigger boat with a shark coming at him. maybe that's not a proper allegory. these are 34 topics of federal regulations. some of them are very important. but the collective judgment was they were so intrusive, time consuming and expensive that they had to get an office of come plains just to look at the federal regulations, then they assign bad news bears to tell the various departments that make up the johnson county

community college -- which by the way has the highest enrollment of any college or university in kansas. these 34 areas of federal regulation basically indicate we need to work together to eliminate many of these burdensome regulations that hamper our main goal of educating our students effectively and efficiently. as you know, and i think i would have agreement on the other side as well. regulations are one of the key areas this committee will focus on as we work on reorganization of the higher education act. will you be a partner in addressing many of these time consuming regulations? >> nor, thanks for that question and thanks for the meeting in your office.

i appreciate seeing the chart again. i'm a visual learner so i appreciate that one in particular. if confirmed i will look forward to working with you and this committee on that act and on the regulations it referred to. and wanting to help free our institutions of higher learning to the greatest extent possible to do what they do best.

yardstick if you will but that didn't happen. the person in charge that was supposed to get back to me was his top gun. dennis was in charge of war and peace and other things. i'm going to recommend that maybe you ought to do regionally. obviously we have had people from rural areas in urban areas. it's going to be terribly important that we get to somebody they can actually see the problem report back to you or to somebody else in your department. you can't do all of this. i don't know anybody that can but at least we have a real problem with the universities or for that matter five or six saying hey you are the regulations just doesn't make sense. can we at least address it. maybe we can tweet it and maybe we can get rid of it or maybe we

can do better. i hope you to work out some kind of s.w.a.t. team if you will with regards to overregulation. that really was the number one issue that i heard. >> thank you senator. i think that sounds like a great idea. >> thank you senator roberts. senator murphy. >> thank you mr. chairman. if senator alexander decided to allow us more than a meager five minutes for questions. would you be able to stick around and answer those questions? >> i'm going to defer to the chairman on this. >> i assume you don't have other obligations but let me just count myself in. i think this is a real shame, this inability to allow the public to see this debate and parroted to get this hearing and before we have all the information. think it really violates the best traditions of this country country and its suggest this committee is trying to protect his nominee from scrutiny and i hope we would reconsider.

ms. devos let me try to rush through these questions in the time that i have. your family has been investors in a company called k-12 and for-profit on line charter operator. it's 80% of its money from the federal or state taxpayers and it paid its ceo over $1 million in the first year and made millions and millions of dollars in prophet. i could go through a long litany of examps in whi people have made their fortune off of public education dollars, charter school principal school principal in our land who got a 519,000-dollar payout when her school was closed for poor performance. i guess my question is simple. do you support companies and individuals profiting from public education dollars essentially taking money away from students to pay salaries for ceos in return for investors? >> thank you for that question. let me just say that when it comes to education i think what's important is what the outcomes are and what the

achievements are and i don't think the delivery mechanism is the issue as much as it is our students receiving the benefit of a great education. >> have you met many principals in detroit that say that they have enough, that they don't need more? >> i can't really answer that question. i haven't asked them specifically if they have had enough. >> so we can agree that folks shouldn't get rich off of school maybe we can agree that they shouldn't be getting rich off of terrible schools. you and i had a chance to talk my office about the accountability regulations that were a big part of the underlying new federal education law. the department has issued final regulations that incorporate comments so basically everyone in the education field make sure to extend public dollars are in puic schools that they meet real standards. th accountability regulations supported by the council of

chief state school officers come this school superintendent operations. can you ensure this committee that all schools are performing and not implementation into chaos for states and districts around the country? are you going to implement those accountability regulations? >> senator let me just restate again that i think accountability is highly important and i support accountability for all schools which is why i support the most recent legislation in michigan that is now holding all schools including traditional public schools accountable for performance and i will continue to support accountability and i will continue to support the implementation of every school succeeds acts as congress has intended it. >> so let me ask you again, are you going to support the implementation of the existing regulations again supported by a wide cross-section of the

educational community that requires schools to come up with their own accountability stimpert, state and local based, that will require that all schools need some basic performance standards? i'm asking you a specific question about this existing regulation and whether you supported or you will use your position to undermine it or to change its? >> well as of the tradition and the change of administration i will look or to reviewing that andegan i wilrestate my orieation to pro accountability and pro responsibility to parents in tax periods. >> i think that's going to raise a lot of questions for administrator's and school superintendents who are trying to implement that regulation. one final question do you think the guns have anyplace in or around our school's? >> i think the last two locales locales -- if the underlying question is. >> you can say definitively

today that guns shouldn't be in school's? >> well, i will refer back to senator enzi and the school that he was talking about in wyoming. i would imagine that there is probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies. >> if person jump moves forward his plan to ban gun free school zones we support the proposal? >> i will support what the president-elect does but senator if the question is around gun violence and the results ofthatt leads and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence. >> i look forward to working with you but i also look or two coming two to connecticut in talking about the roles of schools.

>> thank you senator murphy. senator scott. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for your time coming here and your role to serve. a couple questions i have is a relates to kids who are consistently attending schools that are underperforming. if you look at the outcomes of those lives of the children which i think is very important and should be a central part of this conversation that we are having. how is education system that our kids are involved in preparing for the future that we hope will include achieving the american dream by gloomy look at the underperforming schools and specifically schools in the rural areas. many schools are still underperforming. kids that come from those underperforming schools consistently have significantly higher rates of incarceration. they have significantly higher rates of unemployment. the importance of education can't be emphasized enough for

the film. the responsibility of the government will bear because of that poor education system so what we can do to make sure that there's access to quality education in every zip code should be of paramount importance for this nation, for this committee and for the entire senate. i would love to hear your thoughts on that before you get into the tv programs. >> senator thank you for that question and for the thought and your observations and experience behind it. i couldn't agree more that we have continued to do a disservice to so many young people in our country by continuing to force them to attend schools that are simply not working for them or not working for many. the fact that 1.4 million students drop out of school every year, that's one every 42 seconds. it's a human tragedy. when you think about the loss to

potential and as you have mentioned essentially a pipeline to prison for so many of those students, that's why i continue to be an advocate for allowing parents and empowering parents with the opportunity to make the right choices for their children i understand that there is a full range of those choices based on the realities of the states and that's why states really need to grapple with this issue in a meaningful way, and if confirmed i hope to be able to talk with governors and legislators about opportunities and options that they have too addressed the needs of the students to whom you have referred. >> thank you very much. i think there's another part of the education apparatus that doesn't get enough good attention. so often we think of technical schools as a subpar choice, as the place to go if you can't get

into a four-year school. it's as if we have this bachelor's addiction that may not be in the best interest of the student. i hope that you are committed to taking a serious look at encouraging and providing great support for high-quality technical schools. i know in south carolina the importance of our technical schools cannot be overemphasize pygmy think about the high-tech manufacturing hub it really for us starts in our technical schools, the pre-chavez sectors in the transportation sector, the boeing 9000 jobs in charleston south carolina in the bmw's, the mercedes's the bridgestone's. a technical schools are the reason why we are succeeding on the high-tech manufacturing jobs one of the things i have noted is we have had a robust conversation about making sure

there is flexibility in the coursework at some of the tenical schools because there are almost 6 million in this country. 75% of not require a college degree which means that if we could align what is available in the marketplace with the training and the technical schools we might solve the major part of our unemployment. >> absolutely, senator. i think students as they anticipate higher education really need to have a full menu of options shared with them and they need to know and understand where the opportunities are, where the costs are, the various avenues that they might take and certainly technical schools, community colleges, apprenticeships. there is really a wide variety of alternatives and pathways to a really great future if those students are really made aware of them.

>> i am out of time mr. chairman touches to finish, you may be familiar with the 529 plan. think you can put $50,000 in for college education. i think 529 plans could be a wonderful apparatus to be able to pay for or subsidize some of the cost of k-12. i would love for us to have a conversation on that. >> i look or to that, senator. thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> yankee senator scott. senator warren. >> as the only other party to the so-called president we don't have a second round i asked my staff to actually pull the records from the hearing we had and you said when you called on me i think we have time for a second round. senator warren you can be the first in the second round. it just turns out i'm the only one that had questions.

>> that's why we had time. >> understood that president meant if you have questions for second round he could stay in assam and while we are doing precedence i also understand the president was that president obama's nominee came before this committee had filled out out there's ethics forums and those were available before the hearing so we would have a chance to ask questions about it in public. so i'm a little confused about what precedent means here. ms. devos many of my democratic colleagues have pointed out the last experience in k-12 public schools but i would like to ask you about your qualifications for leading the nation on higher education. the department of education is in charge of making sure that the $150 billion that we invest in students each year gets into the right hand and students have the support they need to be able to pay back their student loans. the secretary of education is essentially responsible for managing $1 trillion student loan and distributing

$30 billion in pell grants to students each year. the financial futures of an entire generation of young people depends on your department getting that right. now ms. devos do you have experience in running a bank lacks. >> senator, i do not. >> abbey of her manager overseeing the trillion dollar loan program? >> i have not. >> how about a billion dollar loan program? >> i have not. >> okay so no experience. how about participating in one? it's important for the person in charge financially to understand what it's like for students and their families who are struggling to pay for colge. mrs. devos have you ever taken out a student loan from the federal government to help pay for college? >> i have not. >> after children had to borrow money for college? >> they have been fortunate not to. >> if you have personal experience with a pell grant? >> now personal experience but

certainly friends in students with whom i have worked with. >> do have personal experience with college financial aid or higher education? mrs. devos let's start with the basics. do you support protecting federal taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud and abuse? >> absolutely. >> oh good, so do i because now we know the president-elect trumps experience with higher education was to create a fake university which resulted in him paying a $25 million to students that he cheated. i'm curious about how the trump administration would protect against the waste, fraud and abuse and similar for-profit colleges. here is my question. how do you plan to protect taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud and abuse in colleges for taking millions of dollars in student aid? >> senator, if confirmed i will

certainly be very vigilant. >> i'm asking how. how are you going to do that? >> leave individuals with whom i work in the department will ensure that federal monies are used properly and appropriately and i will look forward to working with you. >> so you are going to subcontract making sure that what happened at universities that cheat students doesn't happen any more? you are going to give that to someone else to do? i just want to know what your ideas are for making sure we don't have problems with waste, fraud and abuse. >> i want to make sure we don't have promise with that as well and if confirmed i will work diligently to make sure that we are addressing any of those issues. >> let me make a suggestion on this. actually turns out there are some that already written and already parents so he have to do is enforce them. what i want to know is where you commit to enforcing these rules to ensure that no career college

will use federal funds unless they can prove that they are actually preparing the students for gainful employment and not cheating them? >> senator i will commit to ensuring that the institutions which receive federal funds are actually serving their students well. >> so you will enforce the gainful employment rule to make sure that these career colleges are not cheating students? >> we will certainly review that role. >> you will not commit to enforce its? >> and see that it is actually achieving what the intentions are. >> i don't understand about reviewing it. we talked about this in my office. there are already rules in place to stop the waste, fraud and abuse and i don't understand how you cannot be sure about enforcing it. you know, swindlers and crooks are out there doing back flips when they hear an answer like this.

if confirmed, you will be the cop on the beat and if you can't commit to use the tools that are already available to you in the department of education, then i don't see how you can be the secretary of education and i look forward to having a second round of questions. >> thank you senator warren. senator collins. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. chairman i could not help but think that if my friends on the other side of the aisle had used their time to ask questions rather than complaining about the lack of a second round they each would have would have been able to get in a second question and use 15 seconds of my time to make that point. mrs. devos first of all let me say that i have noted out that you care deeply about the education of all children and i

say that despite the fact that you and i do not agree on all the issues. given your lifelong work and commitment to education, any suggestion such as was made earlier that your nomination is linked to your political contribution is really unfair and unwarranted and i just want to say that for the record. i now would like to move on to some questions about how you view the federal role in education verses the state and local role. i want to put aside the opportunity scholarship program because congress's relationship to the district of columbia is unique and i want to ask you, at what level of government do you believe that decisions about

charter schools and vouchers should be made? is that a federal role or is that a state role? >> well thank you senator for that question and let me just say i really enjoyed the conversation we had in your office. let me respond to your question about federal verses state and local role by saying i absolutely support the fact that it is the state role in the decision of what kind of offering there might be with regard to choices in education and as we discussed in your office maine has some unique, it has a unique situation with students attending school on islands and in rural areas and to suggest that the right answer for maine is the same as the right answer for indiana or any other state is just not right and i would not support a federal mandate in a federal role in dictating those.

>> i am glad to hear that. i have heard repeatedly from school officials whether superintendents, teachers or school board members that the single most important action that the federal government could take would be to fulfill the promise of the 1975 individuals with disabilities to education act to fund 40% of the additional cost of educating a special needs child. it's been many years since that law was passed. we have never come close to the 40%. would you commit to taking a look at the funding of the department to see if we could do a better job of moving towards fulfillment of that promise?

that is an action that would help every single school distctn this country. >> senator absolutely i would commit to that if confirmed and i actually think this is an area that could be considered for an approach that would be somewhat different in that maybe the money should follow individual students instead of going direct to the state but again i think that's something that we could discuss and i would look forward to talking about it with the members of this committee. >> another of my concerns having worked at a college level for a period of time is the low rate of college completion. there is nothing worse than a student being saddled with educational debt and not earning the credentials or the degree that when a -- would enable them to pay off that debt.

i am a strong supporter of the federal trio program which helps prepare students for higher education and helps to raise aspirations particularly of children who come from families without experience in higher education. do you have any thoughts on how we can do a better job in supporting college success programs so that we can ensure that students are able to complete their degrees or earn their credentials? >> senator, thank you. you think we can do a better job with preparing students and before they enter college. another trio program helps to mentor in prepare students that might not otherwise have an opportunity and i think that's a very important and valid one to look at for perhaps is there another and more effective way

to advance that or to replicate that or use that in a new way to help increase the participation of students that may not otherwise pursue higher education and complete its? >> thank you. >> thank you senator collins. senator hassan. >> thank you mr. chair and ranking member mario. i certainly look or were too working on this committee with all of you and i appreciate the opportunity to participate and mrs. devos it's nice to see you again. thank you for being here today and your family as well. i think all of us here share a commitment to public education and understand its relationship to our democracy. i would echo my colleagues call for another round at least of

questioning because i think our job here is not just to talk about ideas that actually to drill down on how things actually work in practice. so i want to talk about one of the situation that we began to touch on in my office when we met. it echoes a little bit of what senator collins was just talking about in terms of full commitment to our students with disabilities and what senator cassidy was talking about access to quality education for children with dyslexia. he can't speak, he can't use his fingers on the keyboard and he doesn't walk but he is smart and the best kid on earth if i can say so myself. he got a quality public education at our local schools. he is graduate of exeter high school in exeter, new hampshire and the reason he got there was because countless advocates and

families before the hassan family worked so hard to make sure that he had the right education. and i am concerned that when students to experience a disabilities receiving publicly funded voucher to attend a private school, they often don't receive adequate resources and in some cases have to fight over their legal rights under the individuals with disabilities education act. do you think that family should have a recourse in the courts if their child's education does not adequately meet his or her needs whether it's at a school where they get a voucher or in a more traditional public-school? >> thank you senator for that question and again i appreciated our meeting earlier last week. let me begin by saying i appreciate and am thankful that you had the opportunity with

your son ben to find the right setting for him and i would advocate for all parents to be able to have that opportunity to choose the right school for their child. >> i have the opportunity to send them to the same public school that my daughter went to because the law required that schools provide him resources that were never provided before that law was passed. the question is will you enforce the law with regard to kids with disabilities? if your program did allow them to go someplace else and the school says it's too expensive, we want to do it. >> i think they are great examples of programs that are already underway. ohio has a great program and in fact sam and his mom are here today, beneficiary of the john peterson special needs scholarship program. >> i understand and because my time is limited excuse me for

interrupting but what i'm asking you is, there is at least one program in florida the voucher program which make students sign away their rights before they can get that voucher. i think that is fundamentally wrong and i think it will mean that students with disabilities cannot use the voucher system under your leadership from the start so i want to know whether or not you will enforce and whether you will make sure that children with disabilities do not have to sign away their legal rights in order to get a voucher through the voucher program. >> i would love to come into the kay scholarship progm in florida where i believe today 31,000 students are taking advantage of it. 93% of the parents that are utilizing that voucher are very pleased. as opposed to 30 some%. >> i'm sorry but that isn't a

question i asked. for right now i'm going to move on to one final question but i really do wish we had a second round because there is a lot here that is critical to our children especially with disabilities and with all due respect ms. devos has not answered my question to the other question i have again because we don't have a second round i'm trying to follow up on an answer you gave earlier to some of my colleagues. i understand that the acura and elsie prince foundation which i take as a foundation named for your parents. is that correct? >> it's my mother's foundation. >> it's her mother's foundation and use it on the board? >> i do not. >> when it made a 5 million-dollar donation to focus on the family you didn't know anything about the? >> my mother makes the decisions for her foundation. >> thank you. >> thank you senator hassan. senator burr. >> thank you mr. chairman.

ms. devos thank you for agreeing to serve. .. education as your life's purpose but you did. i'm sure you and the senator from minnesota can come to an agreement on what the numbers were he was talking about.