Our Rural Communities Deserve Better than Betsy DeVos
Every nominee on their merits.
That’s what I have been saying from day 1 of President Trump’s nomination hearings. Will these nominees do good work for real Missourians? Will they build up our small towns, support our rural communities, and live up to their promise to make our state and country great? Missourians expect me to fight for them, not for an ideology or a party affiliation, which is why I’ve carefully considered each nominee before casting my yea or nay vote — and that’s also why I do not support Ms. DeVos for Secretary of Education. Her policies are bad for Missouri and will disproportionately hurt our schools in small towns and rural communities.
Missouri is a large state and roughly 70% of private schools in our state are located in the St. Louis and Kansas City regions. This means that even if a family is fortunate enough to have the means to afford private school in Missouri — which runs ~$6,500/year for elementary school and $12,100 for high school — they simply may not live close enough for that to be an option.
Cutting funds to public education in Missouri means cutting funds for 9 out of every 10 students in our state, and disadvantaging our rural communities — and that’s something I’m simply not willing to do.
Much has already been made of Ms. DeVos’s lack of basic knowledge surrounding core principles in education policy:
And federal law protecting students with disabilities:
I applaud my colleagues on the Education Committee for pressing Ms. DeVos on both of these troubling admissions. Just as troubling, however, are other aspects of her world view that will have a direct impact on young people across the Show-me State. Ms. DeVos doesn’t believe in public education. She doesn’t believe private schools receiving taxpayer dollars should be held to the same standards as public schools. And she wouldn’t commit to upholding federal guidelines on how sexual assault should be handled on campuses.
For all of these reasons, I voted no on Ms. DeVos as Secretary of Education.
Missouri believes in public education. In the past few weeks, I’ve received thousands upon thousands of phone calls, letters, e-mail, tweets, and Facebook posts urging me to protect Missouri’s public education system by voting no on Ms. DeVos. By my last mail count, my office had received more than 30,000 letters from Missourians — nearly all opposed to her confirmation — and more are pouring in every day. These messages are coming from teachers, students, parents, grandparents, and school administrators and they are coming from Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. In the 2015–16 school year, 885,204 young people were enrolled in Missouri’s public schools — and I refuse to pull the rug out from under them.
I believe in public education. As the Senior Senator from Missouri, I am so proud to represent our great state in the Senate and — for the record — I’ve gotten here with an elementary and secondary education from Missouri’s public school system, a four-year degree from a public Missouri University, and a law degree from a public Missouri law school. Public education works. Whether they want to be a U.S. Senator or a small business owner, a computer technician or a teacher, a police officer or a writer, every child deserves a chance to be the greatest version of themselves.
Ms. DeVos does not believe in public education. Ms. DeVos has spent her career attempting to dismantle public education in this country. In her confirmation hearing, my friend and colleague Senator Patty Murray pressed her on whether she would commit to not privatizing or cutting funding from public education:
DeVos: I look forward, if confirmed, to working with you to talk about how we address the needs of all parents and all students. We acknowledge today that not all schools are working for the students that are assigned to them. I’m hopeful that we can work together to find common ground and ways that we can solve those issues and empower parents to make choices on behalf of their children that are right for them.
Murray: I take that as not being willing to commit to not privatizing public schools or cutting money from education?
DeVos: I guess I wouldn’t characterize it in that way.
This is a big problem.
Ms. DeVos also made it clear in her testimony before Senator Tim Kaine — who, I should note, is also a graduate of Missouri’s public university system — that she would be open to private schools that receive federal funds being held to different, and potentially lesser, standards. In her home state of Michigan, where Ms. DeVos has aggressively worked to de-regulate charter schools, evidence shows that charter schools perform more poorly than their public counterparts, while taking resources away from better performing public schools.
Politico: DeVos’ Michigan Schools Experiment Gets Poor Grades
“Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card.” Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data.
Critics say Michigan’s laissez-faire attitude about charter-school regulation has led to marginal and, in some cases, terrible schools in the state’s poorest communities as part of a system dominated by for-profit operators. Charter-school growth has also weakened the finances and enrollment of traditional public-school districts like Detroit’s, at a time when many communities are still recovering from the economic downturn that hit Michigan’s auto industry particularly hard.”
Finally, I find Ms. DeVos’s refusal to commit to upholding the Department of Education’s 2011 campus sexual assault guidelines appalling. I have worked on this issue for many years and I’m proud of the progress we’ve made by working side-by-side with university officials, law enforcement, student groups, victim advocacy organizations, and Senators from across the political spectrum. We cannot afford to slide backwards in our efforts to combat sexual assault.
Ms. DeVos is the wrong choice for Missouri and the nation — and I’m going to fight tooth and nail to protect our kids’ futures. Today I was an unwavering NO on Ms. DeVos for Secretary of Education — and I strongly urge my Republican colleagues to think long and hard about who their bosses really are, and how they should have voted on this nominee. I won’t stand for people playing political games with our kids’ futures, and neither should they.
