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(bright music) (bell rings) - Hello.

Welcome to the City Club of Cleveland where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It is Wednesday, June 15th, and I'm Patty Shlonksy.

I'm the partner-in-charge of the Cleveland office of the law firm Ulmer and Berne, but more importantly, I'm a member, an enthusiastic member, of the City Club Board of Directors, and co-chair of the Program Committee.

I'm pleased to be here to introduce our forum today, a conversation with the Honorable Betsy DeVos, the former United States Secretary of Education.

She is the author of a new book, "Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child."

The title comes from something written in 1844 by Horace Mann, who is known as the father of the American Public School.

He had served as the secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education.

In one of his annual reports to the board, he wrote, quote, we who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.

Those were the very early days of public education when public education was a radical innovation in American life, and seen as a key to helping prepare young people to become citizens.

In her book, however, Secretary DeVos suggests that children are, in fact, being held hostage by the public education system.

In our conversation today, we will hear more about why she believes that to be the case.

There are a few facts that seem important to recognize about the 11th Secretary of Education, things you might not necessarily know.

Secretary DeVos never met Donald Trump until the day she interviewed for the job, and, in fact, she had not contributed to the campaign.

She was recommended for the position by another Republican candidate in the race, Jeb Bush.

She had been involved in politics long before the Trump administration serving as chair of the Michigan Republican Party in the 1990s, and again in the early 2000s.

Similarly, she had been involved in education policy for decades serving as chair of a number of policy shaping organizations, including the Alliance for School Choice, and the Great Lakes Education Project.

And I know we will learn a great deal more about her today in this conversation with City Club CEO, Dan Moulthrop.

If you have questions for Secretary DeVos, you can text them to 330-541-5794, that's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet them @thecityclub.

City Club staff will try to work them into the second half of the program.

Members and Friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming the 11th Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

(audience applauding) - [Dan] Madam Secretary, welcome to the City Club.

- [Betsy] Thank you so much, Dan.

Please call me Betsy.

- If I do that I'll get in trouble with a lot of people.

So I'm gonna keep calling you Madam Secretary.

The book here, "Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child" I wanna start with that idea of education freedom because it's a concept that runs through the whole book.

Also, a philosophy that I think drives you, one that doesn't fit neatly into the categories, and the rhetoric that people typically use around education.

So when you say education freedom, what are you talking about?

- So education freedom to me is when every single child, and their families are empowered with the resources that are already being spent or designated for that child, are empowered to make the decision for their children on what the right fit is for their education experience, talking about the K-12 years, to find that exact fit for every child, knowing that children are all different.

Dick and I have four children, they're all grown.

We have 10 grandchildren and they're all very different.

And yet, today, the system that was created in the middle of the last century, the previous century, two centuries ago, that system remains very much intact, and that's the experience of millions of kids across the country.

And so when we talk about education freedom, I think more broadly, not necessarily about this school building versus that school building, but this experience of learning versus a completely different experience of learning that might not yet even be created.

When you think about it, education is really the least disrupted industry in our country.

Virtually everything else, our experience of everything else has changed significantly in the last several decades.

And yet how kids experience their K-12 learning years has remained essentially unchanged.

Now, I visited while I was secretary many schools that were doing things somewhat differently.

That was one of the things I endeavored to do, was to find places where they were doing things creatively, and differently, and try to highlight those, but those were the anomalies more than they were the rule.

And so, again, talking about the term education freedom to me is a much broader concept than simply saying school choice, and choosing between this school building versus another.

- You and I talked before and I said, this is how the conversation's gonna go, and I'm immediately changing that, just so you know.

- Oh, good.

- Of the schools you visited, the hundreds of schools that you visited while you were Secretary of Education, what are some of the experiences that really stuck with you because of the curricular innovation, or the way in which education was happening that felt so different from the standard?

- There are several that come to mind.

I think about an elementary school I visited in Casper, Wyoming, where the entire Casper District, the community had decided they were essentially gonna make the schools into what we probably know broadly here as magnet schools, so they all had different themes.

The one I visited it didn't have any administrators.

It was totally teacher and parent run.

It didn't have specific grades.

The grades were blended.

Some kids were further on in third grade, perhaps in their reading, and maybe still in second grade math, so those years were more blended, but it was an unusual school for a traditional public school in that it was operated differently, and the kids' experience of their education was very different, so I think about that one.

I think about, and I talk about this in my book, the Kansas City Academy, a small private school really focused on the arts in Kansas City.

And I talk about it at length.

It was a beautiful place for kids for whom that was a fit for them.

And I could tell they were thriving and loved being there.

I think about the Zoo School in Lincoln, Nebraska, where kids would go for a part of their school day to the actual zoo and take classes right there hands on.

And, yeah, those are just a handful that come to mind.

There's many more recounted in the book that are really interesting.

- There are.

When you think about, I mean, in a way education freedom, I mean, there's a lot of what you're talking about that's still kind of school choice comes under that in some ways.

There's a philosophy about that, that we ought to create more options.

And then as a result, you say that traditional public schools will also improve.

Can you talk about that, can you connect some of those dots?

- Sure, so the state I often like to reference is Florida that has really come the farthest in empowering families to make the choices, and find the right fit for their children.

And, interestingly, in the districts in which the greatest number of students are choosing a different school than their assigned one, the achievement outcome the outcomes, the achievement levels for the students in that district all improve.

I don't know that they've been able to do a study to determine exactly why that is, but logic would tell you that it's probably a combination of things.

First, the kids for whom their assigned school wasn't working have found a place that presumably is working for them.

And, second, of the kids who remain in their assigned schools, perhaps the leadership there is making different decisions, and doing things slightly differently to improve the experience for the kids who are there.

I think it's probably a combination that the ones that weren't fitting are somewhere else, but also the schools are making decisions that are helpful for the kids that are remaining there.

- There was this kind of caricature of you, and your policy vision that became very popular, that sort of suggested that you wanted to, like, do away completely with public education, and reading the book it's very clear that's not the case at all.

- No.

- What do you see in a nation like ours where you have whatever the figure is, the overwhelming majority of students of K-12 students who are attending public schools, what do you see as the role of public schools?

What should they be doing that they're not doing?

- Well, first of all, I wanna affirm what you have claimed here, and that is I'm not looking to do away with public schools.

In fact, there's many very great traditional public schools that are working well for children.

And yet within each great traditional public school, there's probably a handful of kids for whom that school is not working that may do better if they have a choice to go somewhere else.

Again, we need to think more broadly about what public education really is because I would define public education as any place that a child learns that ultimately helps prepare him or her for an effective and successful adult life.

That is serving the public good, and I think we confuse the notion of public education with how education is run, in this case, public education being government run schools.

- So if you could, if you were given the power to start from scratch, right?

I know, actually, you and Dick have started a school, so this is maybe not such a hard question, but if you could start from scratch, both at the systems level and the school level, I mean, what would school look like?

And this is really, I'm kind of teeing this up for you 'cause you have a whole chapter on it, but go ahead.

- Well, before I specifically address that, I would just like to say that in order to get to that vision, I think we have to agree that if education is about educating individual students, we have to be focused first on doing what's right for each student.

And that really entails funding each student.

So I often use the metaphor of a backpack.

Kids go to school every day with whatever they need in their backpack.

Metaphorically, we should be attaching those funds to that child's backpack for that family to take, and either send them to a different school building, or to maybe customize their child's education.

And I talk a little bit about what that could look like.

Just to put a hypothetical out there, a young man who's living in a rural area in one of the Dakotas let's say, and lives on a large family farm that he's interested in maybe someday being a part of, but isn't sure, wants to learn more about engineering, and how engineering can intersect, and help yield better results for this large farm.

So in the morning he may be enrolled in a course at Columbia on the Great Books series, and he's out in the fields while listening to whatever book is being discussed at that moment.

He takes his literature and English classes that way.

Then he may go to do an apprenticeship at the John Deere factory, or not the John Deere plant, an operation that's not too far away, and learns from the brightest and best engineers on artificial intelligence, and engineering and that confluence.

And then perhaps he goes in the afternoon to a charter school where he takes some of his core subjects in person with some other classmates.

And then maybe later in the afternoon he goes for football practice to the community football team, which now includes students from all schools, or all education experiences in that particular community.

And now they have a winning team because they've actually enhanced the skills with bringing in other students who hadn't necessarily maybe been part of that school originally.

- See, I think a lot of people would get behind a lot of what you said, but the thing about, like, getting rid of the one high school's football team, like, that's gonna be your third rail right there.

- Especially down in the South, right?

- Yeah.

The whole system, I mean, you're talking about a broad, broad systems change at that point.

How would you do that?

How would you accomplish that if you couldn't do it as Secretary of Education?

- Well, first of all, states are moving in this direction, a number of states, and Ohio has been a leader in this regard.

There are approximately 70,000 kids in Ohio going to schools other than their assigned school with monies funded by the state of Ohio.

And how you get there is you change policy primarily at the state levels to empower families, and students with those resources, and let them really direct and guide what that means for their child and their children's futures.

During the last two years, many families have taken it upon themselves to find alternatives for their children out of necessity.

And we're seeing a lot of creative solutions that have begun developing as a result.

That could be enhanced, again, by policies that really support that continuance, and that notion that empowering individual families with those resources will ultimately bring about a lot more creative options and opportunities, but the policies, the public policy is what really needs to change in order to facilitate the creativity that we could see.

- There's a number of people in the room, others listening when this is broadcast or re-broadcast, and they're fans of their public school system.

They love their local public school system.

They chose the community that they live in because they love the public school that they bring their child to, that their child gets on the bus and goes to.

And I think that they may fear in your vision the loss of something.

- Sure.

- Speak to them.

- I can understand that reaction, but the reality is nothing about what I propose or suggest would force anyone to make a decision to change their current option or situation.

It would only allow those for whom that current option, or situation is not working an alternative to do something that is gonna work for their child.

I think it would ultimately really enhance everyone's experience of those K-12 years because we would, again, see a lot more interesting approaches to how we provide kids the learning tools they need for these years.

And we've seen little glimpses of this in states across the country, but we have not been able to see it at any kind of scale because the policies have not supported it.

It really has maintained the system that we've known since the mid 1800s.

- Let me just mention for our radio audience, and podcast audience, that we're talking with Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

She's a former Secretary of Education, the 11th Secretary of Education.

I'm Dan Moulthrop with the City Club.

Her book is called "Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child."

One of the areas that is a place in the book where you make the case for why we have to do something is in the international comparisons.

The PISA score, which I can't even remember what PISA stands for, and the NAEP, and all of that, but I wanna let you, as the former Secretary of Education who knows the acronyms, describe what it is that's happening right now, and what we might learn from other nations.

- The PISA data is really around all countries that participate in this regular survey of achievement in reading, mathematics, science.

And there's an occasionally one or two other subject areas that are tested.

When it comes to how the United States does vis-a-vis the rest of the world, we aren't in the top 10 in anything.

We're 37th in math, we're 13th in reading, and we're 18th in science.

Now, I don't think any of us would be satisfied with those kinds of outcomes for our Olympians, or, I mean, come up with any other sort of comparison.

And so why we continue to be okay with this is just beyond me.

I don't understand why there is not more outrage around our continued lack of progress and achievement.

When we look at the Nation's Report Card, the NAEP data, even before COVID, children across the country were failing, falling behind, and then since COVID, we won't know for years what the actual result is from the kids who for months, if not more than a year, were locked out of in-person learning.

The early studies have demonstrated that most of them have lost a half year or more in many cases.

I would argue that it's going to be well more than a year for many of these students that were out of school for almost a year or longer, but going back and looking at the NAEP data, the Department of Education was founded, the Federal Department of Education was founded in 1979, and in the years since then, has spent more than $1 trillion at the federal level alone with the express goal of closing the achievement gap.

Now not only has the achievement gap not narrowed one little bit, it's actually widened in many measures.

And the most recent data, again, pre-pandemic, suggested that those at the top end of the achievement scale had pretty much plateaued out, and those at the bottom end had actually plummeted further.

And so one has to ask oneself why we would consider just expending more resources into the same approach, and expect different results for kids in the long term.

It's not gonna happen, it hasn't happened.

We've spent a lot of money trying to make it happen.

In fact, my predecessors, the previous administration from which I served, spent $7 billion with the specific goal of improving outcomes in failing schools across the country.

Several very highly regarded studies have concluded that there was zero outcome and zero result from that $7 billion.

And so I go back to this notion of education freedom, and empowering families directly because when people are empowered to make choices themselves, they're going to make choices that are better for themselves, and better for their children, and they're going to demand better for their kids.

- I wanna circle back to the international comparisons.

What are the other nations doing that we're not?

- That's a very good question, and it varies from nation to nation.

I can't say that I'm an expert in everyone, but many of them have a lot more freedom for families to be able to choose.

In fact, I think several of the top performers, the top 10 really do allow for full-on education freedom.

So they have many different kinds of educational approaches, and school experiences.

Some of them are a lot more, I would say demanding of their expectations.

And that's another area where I think we've had erosion around expectations in our country.

Instead of really aspiring to do better every year for everyone to do better, we've seen a lot of places where the expectations have been diminished.

I think about the state of Oregon that has now thrown out all the requirements for high school graduation in the interest of bringing everyone into equity with one another.

This is just untenable for the future of these students, and it's untenable for the future of our country if that's the direction in which we continue to go.

- Some of these nations also have strong apprenticeship programs.

- Yes, so I had the opportunity to visit in Switzerland, and talk and visit at length, and visit a number of businesses that host apprenticeships, learn a lot more about this unique approach they have to apprenticeships.

I believe there were at the time, well over 300 different kinds of apprenticeships that a student could be a part of.

The most interesting thing to me was how limiting, when we think of the word apprenticeship here, we generally limit it to building trades, and those types of experiences.

The eye-opener for me in Switzerland was you can really be an apprentice in almost any kind of a profession.

And both the CEO and the president of UBS Bank had started out their banking careers as apprentices in their high school years.

And their unique approach in Switzerland is that employers decide what kind of opportunities they have.

They get together in one of their states with similarly-minded, or similarly situated employers, and they put the framework around what would be useful for a new type of apprenticeship.

Then they go to the educators in that state, and work with them on how they're going to programmatically accomplish that apprenticeship.

And once that's all accomplished, they go to the federal government in Switzerland.

And that's basically just a stamp on what they've already decided, and they supply a small part of the funding, but the notion is that it's very much driven by the opportunities that are developing, and they're very quick, also, to discontinue apprenticeships that are no longer relevant for the opportunities in the country.

And I think that's something we can very much learn from here.

I think about a young woman I met, there's a Swiss company Baler that has operations up in Minnesota, and this young woman was 21 or 22 years old.

She had decided to pursue an apprenticeship with Baler post high school.

She actually started in high school, post high school continued.

At this time I met her, she owned her own home, car, had her own 401(k), and had just received a promotion with a move to Switzerland to work with the company.

And then I think about her as compared to some young people who pursue college, a four-year college, and a year or two into it are perplexed as to what they wanna do.

And now they've taken on a bunch of student debt in the meantime.

So apprenticeships are really viable options that, again, I think we need to become much more serious about exploring.

- You know, it's interesting, some folks here I think are aware, or are involved themselves in the workforce development conversations that are happening throughout our community that have recently evolved into these sector partnerships, which sounds like the beginnings of what you're describing, but the connection between those sector partnerships, and the K-12 education system is a connection that's still needs to be forged.

I have a lot of other questions.

We're just about at the time for the Q&A, but before we do that I wanna ask you, I mean, you mentioned student debt, there's a whole chapter in here about your thinking on higher education and student debt.

I wanna encourage somebody else to ask that question 'cause there's this other question that needs to be addressed as well.

It's the epilogue of your book ends on with your reflections on January 6th and the day following.

And I would like to ask you, we haven't talked at all about what it was like to work in the Trump administration, to be among the longest serving cabinet members in that administration and why you left it.

And I wanted to give you a chance to explain.

- Sure.

Well, I was very honored to go and serve in Washington as the Secretary of Education, and as was mentioned in the introduction, my passion for 35 years has been to change public policy, to allow kids to find their right education fit.

So going there for me was a continuation of the work that I did and an opportunity to do it at a whole different level and scale.

And so that was my focus.

I was there to serve my country, to serve students.

I fortunately had a boss in the president who was very supportive, who articulated policies that I was excited about, and was very supportive of the work that I, and my team did at the department.

And so my head was down focused on doing that work.

January 6th was very hard, a very hard day for me to see what was going on.

I kept thinking about kids who might be at home seeing these images on TV.

Again, my focus was on students and on kids, and I knew that I just could not, I could not continue even though it was just a couple of weeks before the end of the term, the end of the administration.

I had completed the work that I could complete on behalf of students.

I made the decision that I had to make the statement that this was just not acceptable, and that it was time for me to articulate that as I did in a letter.

I had wanted, I had wished we were talking about all the things that we had accomplished, and taking victory laps on that.

And I was very disappointed that we weren't.

- You and the vice president discussed the 25th Amendment.

- I spoke with the vice president that day.

I will keep my specifics of the conversation in confidence, but he has been a longtime friend, and I wanted to express my support for him for whatever he was deciding to do.

- Betsy DeVos, ladies and gentlemen.

(audience applauding) We're about to begin the Q&A with all of you, and any of you watching on our livestream.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here at the City Club, and we are joined today by the Honorable Betsy DeVos.

She's the former Secretary of Education who served in the administration of Donald J. Trump.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, and those of you joining us via livestream at cityclub.org.

If you'd like to tweet a question, please tweet it @thecityclub.

You can also text your question to 330-541-5794.

The number again is 330-541-5794.

In either event, our staff will work to get those questions into the program.

May we have our first question, please.

- Thank you.

Society doesn't just provide for education, and provide funding for education.

It goes beyond that.

This interest of society apparently are enough that society requires education.

So we have compulsory education laws, I believe, in all of our states.

Your argument is that education freedom involves freedom for the families, for the student, and so on.

What are the interests of society in the decisions that the family makes?

Does society have anything to say about the decisions that the family makes, including the decision to educate the child at all?

- Well, I think all children definitely should be educated.

I think that is certainly a collective goal for society to see a rising generation that's prepared to take leadership in the future.

And so let me just go to I think the experiences that I've had over the years of talking with parents who want something different for their child, and want their child to do better with their education, and yet they're not, but they don't have the resources themselves.

They cannot move.

They cannot go and pay tuition somewhere.

All they want is a different opportunity, and a better chance for their child.

And I know from experience there are millions and millions of families that want this for their kids, and we just need to make sure that they have the ability to make that decision for their kids rather than be assigned to something that simply doesn't work for them.

Again, I go back to this notion that with education freedom, every child would be able to find a learning environment that works for him or her, and every family would be more invested in ensuring that actually happens.

And so, again, seeing parents over the years, and talking with children whose lives have changed, the trajectory for their life has changed, because they have a different experience, gives me great hope and great optimism that this is the right direction to take.

- [Audience Member] Hi.

- [Betsy] Hi.

- Secretary Betsy DeVos, hi.

I certainly agree with your assessment of January 6th.

Thank you for saying that.

And I wonder if we can't find a little bit more common ground.

As Education Secretary, you changed the definition of sexual harassment under Title IX to mean, any unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person would find so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive.

The Republican majority Ohio House just passed a law requiring internal and external genital checks of any child who wants to play sports that any person suspects of being transgender.

Would you consider mandatory internal genital checks of children to play sports to meet your definition of sexual harassment?

- Well, let me just say, I'm not going to get involved in Ohio politics, but I have very grave concerns about the direction that this current administration seems to be heading with the whole issue of Title IX because if you are a supporter of Title IX, which guarantees the equal opportunity to pursue education, and also sports for everyone regardless of sex, then you cannot also say that a biological male can compete on a girl's team or a woman's team.

Those are kind of mutually exclusive.

This is something that is going to have to be reckoned with as an issue state by state, but I would also argue that the Title IX rule that we put in place in the last administration is one that addresses those issues in a way that is fair and balanced, and has a reliable framework for those institutions that must navigate those unfortunate issues.

- I hear you and I really understand not wanting to get into Ohio politics.

I'm a mother, I know you're a mother.

I have young children, and the idea of requiring external and internal mandatory genital checks, this can be raised to be required of any child of any person raises a concern or an objection.

And I just wonder if we can't all regardless of party, come together and say you know what?

We're moms, we're not doing that.

We might have disagreements on policy, but we're not gonna do that.

We're not gonna treat our children that way.

Can we find common ground on that?

- Well, I would encourage you to talk with the senator here that's in the room and let him discuss what they're wanting to do in that regard.

Again, I go back to let's make sure we are protecting all women's abilities to compete as female athletes in sports, and not compromise that for the future.

- [Dan] We're gonna hear from, thank you, thank you.

Senator President Huffman, welcome to City Club.

- Thank you for calling me out, Secretary.

I appreciate that.

As the speaker mentioned, this is a House bill that was passed in the dead of night without conversation with any of the senators.

Senator Roegner here does have a bill, which we plan to move in November, December, that deals directly with the issue that you're talking about.

The checks that the speaker was talking about.

I'm not sure why that's in the bill.

It's completely unnecessary.

All of these tests can be done with a simple DNA swab, and so that is a highlight that a lot of people would like to talk about because it outrages a lot of people, but it's not necessary, it's not going to happen, but we do need to address the issue that you described, and we will in the Ohio Senate.

- [Dan] What a fortune coincidence to have Senate President Huffman in the audience.

Thank you, sir.

(audience laughing) - [Audience Member] Let's get it out of the bill.

- Got it, question here.

- Secretary DeVos, you mentioned that trying to explain to children of January 6th was the reason you resigned.

I would like you to tell that to, how would you explain to a child when the president of United States says that Jews are not going to replace us, and he calls them as good people.

And when he says Muslim ban, and when he says Mexicans that are coming over are all murderers and drug dealers, how would you explain that to a child, and get them to understand that we have all kind of people in this world, and not all of them are one or the other?

- Well, there's a lot of things that adults say that I can't explain to children, and I've experienced many of those over my years, and I won't try to explain things that our former president has said, or that many others say.

What I will try to do is continue to focus on doing the right thing for children in a policy perspective to ensure that they have the opportunity to develop into everything that they're meant to be.

My faith tradition has me believe that every single child, every single individual is a uniquely created person.

And I hold respect for every uniquely created individual.

And, again, that's what brings me around to my love of advocating for kids and their futures.

And that's what I'm gonna continue to do.

- [Dan] Next question.

- Good afternoon, Secretary DeVos.

My name is Piet Van Lier.

I'm with Policy Matters Ohio.

I have a question.

In Ohio, public schools educate about 90% of the students of children in the state that in private schools, even though they're getting increased funding, they are able to turn students down for academic reasons, or for differing cognitive ability.

Charter schools also increased funding over the past 20 years and continuing.

They are notorious for pushing kids out for various reasons.

So how does that reality, the facts on the ground in Ohio square with your, you know, the idea of freedom to learn, but it should be for everybody?

In rural areas across the state there are no choices, and many people can't afford the choices that are there even with a voucher.

So how does that square with your idea of what you're promoting in terms of school choice?

- Well, I would say that Ohio has basically dipped its toe in the water thus far with actually providing full education freedom.

There's a lot more opportunity to empower all Ohio families, but most programs start with those at the lower to medium income levels, and rightfully so.

I posit that when more families are empowered with those opportunities, that you will see more families actually making those choices.

And there's lots of data, even more data recently, that suggests if families did have that opportunity, if policies did support that, that a large percentage of them would choose schools, or learning environments other than the ones to which they're assigned.

And so until we actually empower families to do that, a lot of it is a hypothetical, but with the advent of that, I think again, we are going to see all kinds of creativity around how kids can learn and where they can learn.

I've mentioned an example of a school that I've become familiar with.

I haven't visited it yet, and I don't plan to visit it in January or February because it's an outdoor school, and it's in Michigan my home state, and kids are learning outside almost their whole day every day.

And they choose to do this, and teachers choose to be part of this school.

It's under such high demand, they are adding another section of each grade every year.

And it's right now a younger elementary school, but my point is that this is a different experience, and it's working for the kids who are having the opportunity to go there.

We need a whole lot more of those kinds of opportunities, and a whole lot more of that creativity because, again, all kids are different, and the world is different than it was in the 1850s.

We're not turning out kids that are going to do the same thing day after day after day on a manufacturing line.

We have a very different reality, and a very different field of opportunities for all kids.

- Thank you, next question.

- Good afternoon, Madam Secretary.

My name is Musa Hakim Jr. And I first just wanted to thank you for your work, and efforts both in the previous administration, and throughout your career as it pertains to education.

It's either directly, or indirectly helped me throughout my life, so I just wanted to thank you for that.

Are there creative and different efforts that you have noticed across the country?

And you also mentioned some of the work that you've done abroad regarding two particular issues, getting teachers back engaged, and excited about being back in the workforce in person within schools, as well as getting students back up education wise, as well as addressing the mental health issue that's come out throughout the pandemic that can be replicated or altered here, particularly in Cleveland/Northeast Ohio that can make us a strong player in the world of K through 12 education?

Thank you.

- Great questions and thank you so much for asking about teachers and opportunities for teachers.

First of all, I think that for many, many teachers the notion of education freedom would be liberating.

It would allow for great teachers to find exactly the right environment that they excel in themselves.

While I was secretary, I had a couple of different roundtables with teachers who had been teachers of the year in their state, or in their local district and who after doing their tour around the state for that year came back to their school with the hopes of being able to help perhaps, help mentor some younger teachers, or perhaps come back into a slightly different environment that was gonna give them some more latitude and freedom.

All of these teachers in these roundtables had quit teaching not long after they had been teachers of the year.

And I wanted to understand why, and almost to a person it was because they were essentially told to get back in their box, and to not do anything out of the ordinary, to be on page 32 of whatever book they were, you know, curricular book, and they became frustrated and they became disheartened.

And so teachers should be the most honored piece of the equation.

It's the most important part of a child's excellent learning experience and yet too often they're not.

And so I think, again, creating an environment of education freedom is freeing for teachers as well.

And I think back to the forest school that I mentioned, and the fact that several teachers for whom that environment, an outdoor all day environment is working, what a great thing for those kids.

What a great thing for those teachers.

Again, we are not even really thinking through what the possibilities are for teachers as well when we continue to think about the system that we've all known for all of our years, and existed well before it because it has been essentially the same approach, and there's just very little opportunity to get sort of outside of that.

- [Dan] Madam Secretary, the second part of his question had to do with what you've seen in other schools, and schools around the country around addressing the specific learning, and mental health challenges brought about by the COVID pandemic.

- Right, well, I think there are a lot of schools that are doing a good job of trying to catch kids up, but doing the same thing is not going to really work for most kids.

They've lost that time, so how are you going to make up the difference?

That is where the education savings account opportunity comes in, and we've seen a number of states that have adopted programs where the family can go and get tutoring services, or can use an additional stipend to go and get the support necessary for that particular child's needs.

That has to happen on a much larger scale.

And, again, that goes back around to freeing those resources to be controlled by the families rather than sent into the same system that's going to essentially do the same thing again, with the expectation of a different outcome, but states like Florida and Arizona have been, I think very aggressive about wanting to ensure that families have those resources to be able to decide how their child needs to be caught up, and how their child needs to experience this next several months if not year.

- [Dan] Thank you for the question.

- Good afternoon, Madam Secretary.

Andrew Randall.

I'm a trustee at Cuyahoga Community College.

We had the privilege of welcoming you to our campus, one of our campuses, I believe, in early 2019, or maybe in the middle part of 2019.

And we've enjoyed your interest in community college, and the importance that it plays not only in Cleveland, and Cuyahoga County, but across the United States as often the first entry point for students.

First to go to school, first to graduate, first to go onto a four-year school.

I don't know if your book has a chapter on, or comments on community college.

I'll buy it and I'll read it, but could you share with the audience your views about community college, things we need to be paying attention to as trustees, we should be lobbying with our legislative groups to continue the very important role community colleges play around the country even.

Thank you again for your visit.

- Thank you so much, Andrew.

I enjoyed my visit there, and I enjoyed my visit to many community colleges across the country.

Community colleges have an important role to play.

I think that the key for successful community colleges is really working very closely with the employers in the area to ensure that the programs that you are offering are relevant to the opportunities, and that there's a match and a cohesion there.

There have been places that have done it particularly well, and others that continue to sort of proceed down the same track they've been down for 50 years, and in those cases they're either struggling, or in many cases trying to become something that I would argue they shouldn't, like heading to be more like a four-year institution when instead there's these tremendous opportunities to work very closely with employers to create programs that are really going to provide students a meaningful opportunity for education, and work and preparation for the workforce.

- [Dan] Next question.

- Secretary DeVos, hi.

My name is Dan Peters from Cincinnati, which is a town located south of just for purpose of clarity.

Two things, one, thanks very much for your service, and for all that you've done, which leads me to my second question or comment is could you share with us your family's experience of having started up schools and your learnings from that?

- Well, thanks for that question, Dan.

I cannot take credit with starting up a school, but I can credit my husband with starting up a charter high school.

He did so about coming up on a dozen years ago.

It's the West Michigan Aviation Academy, and it's located at the airport in Grand Rapids because it is focused on aviation.

So he happens to be a pilot, and, yes, he flew me here today.

I said a dozen years ago, you should really combine two of your passions, flying or aviation and education, and provide a unique experience for high school students.

So that's exactly what the West Michigan Aviation Academy does.

It draws kids from about seven different counties around West Michigan.

They have 600 students, and every year the graduating class contains about a couple dozen seniors who have already earned their private pilot's license.

So it's a pretty cool place.

Again, a unique school that focuses on STEM learning primarily, but very solid academics, and draws students from literally all over West Michigan, and prepares them for a really important opportunity in the future.

It's a great model, not necessarily one that should be replicated identically, but it's an idea that has merit elsewhere, and I think can serve to be an inspiration for a lot of other special schools, and special learning experiences, again, that until we have more creativity, and more entrepreneurial thinking in K-12 education, we're not going to see the full menu of what we would be able to offer for kids.

- Betsy DeVos is the 11th Secretary of Education.

(audience applauding) Thank you, Madam Secretary, for joining us here today.

Our forum today is part of our ongoing work on education, which we present in partnership with Nordson Corporation Foundation, and it's also part of our ongoing commitment to bring non-fiction authors in conversation with our community.

Special thanks to two-time City Club speaker, and a great friend of the City Club, Dee Haslam.

Many thanks to you and your colleagues for helping to make today's forum happen.

We would also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by the Haslam Sports Group, West Ninth Communications, School Choice Ohio, Catholic Community Foundation, and the Northeastern Ohio Education Association, as well as the Pipeline Development Corporation.

Thank you all so much for being with us today.

We do have several forums coming up.

As you know there's always more forums coming up.

Check 'em out at cityclub.org.

That brings us to the end of our forum.

Members and friends of the City Club, thank you so much for being a part of this today.

Our forum is now adjourned.

(bell rings) (audience applauding) - Thank you.

- Thank you, Dan.

- For information on upcoming speakers, or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(bright music) - [Narrator] Production and distribution of City Club Forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC, and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.