Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents: Column

Betsy DeVos, our new secretary of Education, claims that she wants the federal government to become more responsive to the will of the American people. As she argued at her Senate confirmation hearing: “[I]t’s time to shift the debate” about school reform “from what the system thinks is best for kids to what moms and dads want, expect and deserve.” The solution for what ails public education won’t be found in Washington, D.C., she added. “The answer is local control and listening to parents, students and teachers."

Fair enough. So when it comes to public education, what do the American people want?

Judging by her support for President Trump’s budget proposal, DeVos thinks that most Americans want the Department of Education to spend a lot more money to promote school choice programs (a $1.4 billion increase, including more than $400 million for public and private school tuition vouchers) and to spend a lot less money on just about everything else. Overall, the budget would slash the department’s funding by $9 billion and, in the process, do away with programs that support teacher development, after school services, literacy instruction, college access for low-income students and more. 

But is that really what Americans want? Since 1969, PDK International has conducted an annual poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. The methodology is rigorous, the questions are vetted by a politically diverse group of advisers, the data are robust and the results suggest that DeVos hasn’t been listening very carefully.

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Consider school choice, which DeVos has placed at the top of her policy agenda. Our poll reveals that, in general, Americans like the idea of choice in public education. On the specifics, though, DeVos’s positions are out of tune with majority opinion, particularly when it comes to school vouchers. Most respondents tell us that they disapprove of using public funds to support voucher programs. Since 1993, we have asked Americans 20 times whether they support allowing parents to choose a private school at public expense, and every time a majority has said “No.”

DeVos is equally tone deaf when it comes to charter schooling, which is her other favored means of promoting choice. While charter schools themselves are quite popular — 64% supporting, 25% opposing in 2015, the last time we asked this question — the secretary’s views on charter school governance (specifically her fierce resistance to any kind of public oversight of these schools) are less mainstream. We asked Americans four times in the early 2000s whether they wanted charter schools to be held accountable to the same standards as traditional public schools and the response was overwhelmingly “yes.” The country is more split now, but 48% still say they want the same standards to apply to charters, compared with 46% who don’t.

The bottom line: While DeVos may claim to be speaking for millions of average Americans (and at her Senate hearing, she lauded herself as “a voice for parents”), the evidence suggests otherwise. If she hears an insistent clamoring for new investments in voucher programs and unregulated charter schools, then she’s listening to the wrong station.

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If not vouchers and unregulated charters, then what do Americans want? In general, the poll results are complicated, suggesting that attitudes toward public education are much more nuanced, even conflicted, than policymakers admit. On some key issues, though, public opinion is quite clear. For example, a clear majority of Americans tell us that they trust teachers, value their work highly, respect their skills and expertise and want teachers to be paid more. Further, our data have shown consistently over many years that a majority of Americans favor spending more money on the public schools, especially on their local schools (which people tend to rate much more highly than the public schools in general). A majority of people even say that they would be willing to pay higher taxes as long as the money goes directly to education.

Secretary DeVos may have her reasons for wanting to cut back on some federal programs and to ramp up funding for her preferred forms of school choice. But let’s be honest: Those reasons are grounded in ideology, not in practical experience (she has none) or evidence (she cannot cite any). Her enthusiasm for the president’s budget proposal has nothing to do with the will of the American people and it is more than a little disingenuous for her to claim that she has listened to or speaks for millions of moms, dads, teachers and students.

Joshua P. Starr is the Chief Executive Officer of PDK International, a professional society for educators.

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