Ever since her days at Calvin College, Betsy DeVos knew she wanted to work with children. Her mother was an inspiration as she was a school teacher. This made DeVos think about the other side of education and how she would be able to help families. In the 1980s, she worked to help students and families, building up communities in her home state of Michigan.
However, her focus switched to education reform in the 1990s after she started visiting schools in western Michigan. There were many schools without enough resources to help students. She began donating to these causes and helping students go to better schools, including private schools. This started to gain popularity under the term ‘educational choice.’
Unfortunately, the programs got a bad reputation at first. These were students who were able to choose where they went to school thanks to philanthropy, who were able to go to private school because their tuition was paid through these scholarship programs.
However, as DeVos was appointed to the U.S. Education Secretary position, she faced serious opposition due to her school choice policies. That didn’t stop her from going to every state and working with legislators until educational choice programs were implemented in all states.
When she began her term, only 17 states had educational choice programs. Florida was the most successful with a tuition-based scholarship program that any lower income student could apply for once accepted into a private school or charter school. These programs were designed to help students who wanted to select where they attended school, particularly when the only option in their school zone was a failing school.
Failing schools have been an issue for public education for many decades, but the problem was compounded during the Bush administration under the No Child Left Behind policies. These tied school funding to standardized test performance, which is something DeVos opposed. She spoke out about the problems with standardized testing and common core method.
While many of the issues facing education reform are still unresolved, DeVos always said during her term that students came first and worked hard to protect and help them succeed.
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