Intellectual feast, every saturday American History tv documents americas story and on sunday book tv brings you the latest nonfiction books and authors funding for cspan2 comes from these Television Companies and more including comcast. You think this is just a community center, its way more than that. Comcast is partned with a thousand Community Centers to create wifi to enableistings so students with lowincome families can get what the need to be ready for anything. Comcast about with these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. Betsy is such a joy to be with you cgratulations on the book, hostages no more, the fight for education, freedom and the future of the american child. Lets start with the title of the book, how did you come up with the name hostages no more . First grade to be with you as well thanks for doing this in the title is a provocative one and its meant to be hostages no more is a direct reference to a quote made by horace mann commonly considered the father of our Education System about 175 years ago he said the educators are entitled to look upon parents as having given hostages to our cause and i think the last two years have really given families across the country a frontat row seat into how many ways their children really have been held hostage to assist too many of them is simply not working. This is a book about what we do to fix American Education and thats the reason for the title and the subtitle about education freedom which im sure were going to talk about. Absolutely were definitely going to talk about it, before that you talk about i your childhood in michigan tell us about growing up in holland about your family. Were you inspired by a mentor or teachers that got you on your lifestream . Sure i was born and raised in holland michigan both of my parents are children of immigrant families from thero netherlands and started out virtually with nothing my parents mortgaged everything when i was just a young child for my dad to start a business he was an engineer and he had a better way of doing things so they mortgagedry everything and raise some money from family and friends and started a business when i was eight or seven years old. I remember helping my dad paint the first building and then working throughout the years, the factory line one of the products that he developed and created was the lighted sun visor for cars and i was involved as a middle school or on the first production line packing, inspecting and shipping those sun visors and later working the third shift in the factory. It was a great experience they were very hardworking and very entrepreneurial and always gave my siblings and me the messages that we could do andnt we can be anything that we wanted to become and they really provided amazing role models for me as did a number of teachers i had growing up. My mom first of all was the teacher of first a grade teacher and that i recall my second grade teacher mrs. Wolcott who regularly held up my cursive penmanship papers because i am a lefthanded individual and it was tough for me to learn cursive but she always encouraged me i remember thatls about her and i also remember my High School Government teacher mr. Paul open who helped instill in me a love for politics and policy and really american government. In the book you mentioned that your dad passed away suddenly in the business was sold until the story your mom decided to make sure all the employees are taking care of, i thought that was uniquely american exceptional kind of act. Its worth knowing. My mom and dad really were examples, my mom is still living she is just about 90 and both of them were really committed to giving back and they instilled in all of my siblings and me a love for philanthropy of giving and they gave it many different ways but what you referenced after the sale of the company my mom took a significant portion of the proceeds and had it given out to all of the employees of the company in the form of an unexpected and unanticipated bonus. Its really been interesting to see the results of all of the opportunities, many of the individuals who were in the leadership positions there, they actually went out and started businesses of their own in west michigan and its really been texciting to see how some of te proceeds that they received in the form of bonuses have really seeded additional opportunities. Thats fantastic. You dedicate the book to your husband who is a phenomenall gu, can you dig a little deeper and give us a rundown on the rest of your family and grandchildren at least to my particular life is the most important part of family these days. Exactly we have four children all grown in with families of their own we have ten grandchildren and three stepgrandchildren. Life is very full the newest one are two months and six months. Its a blessing to have the voices of youth and theer energy of youth around very regularly and looking forward to see all of them this weekend. Fantastic. You and i share a common passion for education reform, education Freedom School choice, Parental Choice we had to shared passion for 30 years what drove you to make this life calling as an adult youre one of the leaders in the country and you stuck with us through thick and thin over many years. It really originated when her oldest son rick who is now 40 was starting kindergarten and dick and i knew we were going to be able to have our children go to school wherever we thought was best for them so i really researched around the area to find the best setting for him and in the process of doing that i discovered this amazing little Christian School in the heart of grand rapids really serving the Community Around it. I began to get involved there as a volunteer and the more i volunteered the more i realize for every child and family that was represented at the school there were probably ten or 20 others in the community that wouldve loved to have the opportunity for the kids but couldnt because they cannot afford the tuition. The families and the school cannot afford the tuition and the school hasas to regularly still raise 90 of the operating funds outside of those who attend the school from benefactors in thend community. The more i got involved thehe me i realized the way we find or provide for education in michigan at the time was not fair it wasas not right that i n make those decisions and choices to have my child in a faithbased school but those in the community if they couldnt get into that little Potter School didnt have the option. I began working in a 501 c 3 nonprofit type effort to make changes in your recall early on as well we thought through emotional arguments, stories of peoples whose lives were impacted or logical arguments, legal arguments we could make the case and compel policy change but it became clear very quickly that the policies were very often controlled by politics so that led me into more efforts around the political piece of it that i then started working nationwide in targeted states that we really try to make the policy and help the policy changes come about through getting involved in the politics. Thats reallypo an important point that your motivation was driven by your family and the lack and the moral implications of some children being able to have parents and could choose a school and others not. Your civic and political involvement into this policy advocacy, tell us a little bit about that. I dont know people dont know how active you have been historicallyu in both the policy realm as well as the political round you talk about in your book. Some people would think my very first into anything regarding education was when i went to washington to be secretary but actually started as i said is started 35 years ago when rick was going to enter kindergarten and and i established we tried to change michigans constitution for kids and Family School districts to access t other choices that was not successful in 2000 we may have been a little premature the energy of those who supported it was very distinct and i said wea cant let this energy go away we have to help artist it and do something good with it and help make some changes that we need in a cap on the number of Charter Schools that you could have establishing michigan that could get the legislation passed a few years earlier and when that was quickly met there was political will to change that capita time. We started focusing on legislatures who either were supportive of or not supportive of lifting the cap and began efpolitical efforts to ensure enough legislature to office that would support expanding the opportunities for Charter Schools. That was a first effort of bringing the political piece into the policy piece and because of the success that we had we then moved on and the Time Starting on National Boards but we do not have the political piece in the effort. We move toward that and organizations have started doing a political advocacy work, we had a lot more success in helping families have the power for the right fit for your kids education. A lot of people that are watching our conversation here probably say good ideas, policy that makes sense in which you had it firsthand over many years similar to my experiences in the politicizing unionize your democracies. The people that want to make sure that the child has to be engaged vaguely and politically. Absolutely. Particular more important today as more families had a front row seat through their childrens education in the last couple of years and a whole host of reasons many of them are very disappointed with what theyve experienced and rightfully so. You see parents at School Board Meetings asking questions and we see School Board Membership changing as a result and i would expand that request to get involved to making sure youre paying attention to who youre voting for for state legislatures and members of congress, these are individuals that will ultimatelyim decide policy, we need to be supporting those individuals who are going to support thatem themselves. Lets talk about your nomination for the education and the confirmation process. Is a friend watching near the area code 202 but down here in miami it was painful to watch it. I know youre tough, was hard to watch to be honest with you, can you share some experiences during that time were there any Lessons Learned. Obviously went into the whole process not knowing exactly what to expect because i had never studied the process before, never anticipating the opportunity to serve on a roll like that. I didnt really have anything to compare it to but upon reflection and living to theou whole experience i think in hindsight i would have been a lot more assertive about during the time which i was waiting for the confirmation hearing, i have very little support in pushing back against the vitriol. I had a lot of great folks around me that were trying to help me in many the really didnt know or understand the department of education or what i might anticipate in terms of subject areas to address in the process. In hindsight i have a lot of great ideas on how to do differently but i did my best getting through and thankfully we had Vice President pens who can cap that tiebreaking vote. With a historic moment i dont think there has not been another cabinet member having to be concerned by a tiebreaking vote of the Vice President prior to the. There havent been many cabinett secretaries that were not treated as well you a lot of grace. Irin the first day you show up o work it was azing its been an amazing story, please share tha, with us. I think were referring to the second day when i went to visit a school in washington, d. C. We can talk about that to im talking about the department of education has three buildings. You shook hands with every e person in the building for. I shook hands with everyone that is there, to be fair these are verys large buildings there is a pretty hefty number that werent. And to introduce myself. A brief remark for the whole group, that was great it was fun i did wear heels and the particular space and it was not a good idea. The second day on the job you go to the school is out right. Second day on the job i went to a middle school in the district and we were very intent on not making a big deal and we did not inform anyone of the visit i just wanted to go quietly and meet the students and the teachers and some of the parents and unfortunate someone on the long end the school and release the fact that i was going to be there more broadly and there were many protesters, lots of media in the encounter was very unpleasant but i was literally barred from entering the school and i was pushed on the stairs physically confronted so we had to leave the school i had to leave the security person from the department of education, by the way and i said i dont think we should go back and i said we have to go back so we can find a way. It was a great visit. The result of that would be to be confronted and barred from doing my job two days later on a friday and on monday when i returned to work i was now protecting by a 24 7 u. S. Marshall detail. They had done a threat assessment and found any viable and alarming threats against me so as regrettable as it was im very thankful that i had the protection of the wonderful men and women we could go see places and do things that i needed to do as secretary. These are examples of the really ugly political culture and we now have her people you may have a disagreement withne e enemy and theres very little effort to try to understand because why would you want to understand the enemy it is personal and its ugly and is increasingly violated is so sad to watch. Another part of Washington Life is the nature of the bureaucracy and you told two stories in the book that i thought were great examples. This institutionalized entrenchment that exists much more than local and State Government and all think has the same degree of craziness about protecting people that arent serving they are there to make a paycheck and not necessarily do their jobs. One story was a story that we talked about the books in the basement of the orange closet they wanted to donate in the other story if you could share with us will the receptionist not worked, told the y receptionist thats leaving in the department of education apparently, he gives you a sense of how frustrating it mustve been someone coming with a passion and desire to empower parents that is confronted not by a hypo politicized environment but also theau spear chriss yes the s book story is a vey frustrating one. We learned early on that there were literally thousands of books being stored in a store room of the basement of the Main Building of Thee Department so e sat about to try to get them out of the storeroom so we can bring them to school when i was visiting and anybody else on the team that was visiting schools. We found out there was only one key to that school room and there was only one individual who had controley of the key and he only within the building very occasionally. We had to figure out when he was going to be there. We got that figured out and when he went to open the door he said but you cant take these books out yourself hugh have to get someone from the union staff to come in with them for you. Im knocking about you to take the books out today. That was a whole another process of coordinating with the key in the union staff that also had their you on unique schedule to go unlock and unload books out of that particular storeroom. Just an example of inefficiency, bureaucratic processes that make no sense at all. Before i tell the receptionist ray, there is one other one to me its appalling that we can and do allow this to happen. Im sure itsti not unique to Te Department of education. There was one individual that i became aware of whose job required her to be on the computer allda day long and it s discovered that she had notr logged onto the computer for over two years. Yet it was impossible to fire that person so again, another example. The receptionist story inside the end of the building where my office in several 20 some people that worked on the end of the building and it was a reception area that two individuals sat at to receive people coming in to meet with anybody on that end of the building and again, very early on one morning my deputy chief of staff went to ask these individuals a question and neither of themas were there. She was very puzzled by that rightfully so and learned that both of the individuals it was their day to telework. Their job was to receive people so we were all very puzzled as to how and why they did telework in a position like that so we quickly righted that situation with individuals who were actually going to be there. But again another example of all oft the impediments and also the bureaucracy that we had to everything we did, everything we do needs to follow the law but it devolves as much power away from washington as is possible and thats different than our republican friends a little to understand. I understand the propensity to when you are in a place where you haveve a majority or are abe to influence policy and want to influence the direction you want to take it but my contention. So today evolve as much power to the states to give them as much latitude as was allowable by law it started with the implementationhi of the jeffersn succeeds act which of course had been there were all kinds of regulations ready to go. Congress quickly pulled those back to look at estate plans and then turn them around back to the states as quickly as possible as long as they are following the requirements of the law. But like i said, there were a lot of our republican colleagues like to see their own special provisions entered in or applied. In the last 20 years of the pandemic you were secretary and the pandemic hits. There was very Little Information to start. Tell me what your role was. I know you created a Commission Task force. Kind of go through that process of what washington was like dealing with these and if you could explain to me what estates you think have done better than others and why. What we knew initially as we had taken steps to pause the payments on Student Loans which we did immediately and then make ourselvesle available to state leaderss knowing that this was unique to each state. It should have happened for most kids if not all and so we tried and did everything we could to support states making that decision and call and when the initial covid relief package was passed we got that money back to the states available within shorter than the required time period by congress which was no small feat, and so every state and district had the opportunity to access funds for whatever they needed to make their schools safe and healthy. But it was amazing to me how many did not go about the goal of getting kids back in class in person and as that wound down the for the summer and there were so many states in areas with no plan for getting kids back into the classroom, it was very concerning. So to urge and encourage them to do just that and pledged our support in many ways to ensure they had the resources they needed but it was a very frustrating time so many kids out of the classroom for months longer than they ever should have been and today we dont even begin to know the scale of impact that has fallen on millions of kids across the country. The publicro Health Impact i thk kids got sicker at home. Hopefully we learn fromas that lesson that apart from the obvious need to have kids in that moms and dads can work there was no Health Impact for those that stayed open for a longer period of time. Many parents saw their schools opening right back up and so again i think this has really opened a lot more to the lack of control and influence they have. You bring up an interesting point. If theres been coming from that is sort of innovation that propels us forward. Tell us about some of those innovations that took place across all racial boundaries, black, hispanic, white families all in doubledigit increases andna private schools didnt sea decline even though parents pocketbooks were stretched intod Charter Schools were up. A few families got together and hired a teacher whose district was handling the situation soou they had a teachr for a handful of ten or 12 kids. Seeing those kind of solutions and many families that are working very well the policy to support that is around the Education Savings Accounts which would allow families the greatest flexibility to address the need of their children based on what theyve discovered has worked for them and those kind of innovations need to continue to have room to grow and to be established if they are successful for some families thewill certainly be successfulr others and i think its a great opportunity for teachers as well. They were frustrated with how the system navigated and handled those and so i think for teachers to have the same sort of freedom and innovative opportunities themselves is a real opportunity and a Silver Lining as well. Thinking about the explosion of that. Call them what you want its what amounts to essentially a handful of people getting together saying we are going to Learn Together multilevel learning and the sort of one room schoolhouse model. We have so many tools and resources in terms of curriculum and ways to receive and move through curriculum. Many mastery programs that are suited for kids who dont want to sit and be measured by how much time they sit in their seats and how they progress the concepts. The pandoras box has been open and of the policy has to support families finding those Solutions Working for the children. They saw the lack of response to the needs and some districts got frustrated and from this its been a spark to have significant parent engagement note which iss the way education freedom will move forward. Exactly. I thinkk parents have been awakened to the needs to be involved in their kids education in a way that many of them hadnt realized before. And in doing soea they also realized they have an Important Role a to play and importantly they can figure this out. They do have the abilities to help make sure their kids are in a place in a way that is engaging them and a place where they are learning. We briefly mentioned the learningav losses. I havent seen any studies, researchbased kind of data that was suggested but anecdotally, it appears to me the losses were devastating particularly the kids that were struggling prior to the pandemic. Is there data now that is being collected to verify what i think is likely to be a serious challenge and what are the recommendations that you believe need to be made for the policymakers in schools across the country that they do t to dl with the huge gap that probably is still there. Theyg estimated depending on how long a child was out of the classroom and this was going to be a longitudinal issue. There were two to four weeks initially that went immediately back to school and had determined no learning loss so its going to be concerning for students in the u. S. That were out for a year or more in some cases the families were able to find other options through some of these other Creative Solutions the plane to begin with policies that support education freedom are we going to see the opportunity for many of these to catch up and then surpass where they were before because going back to and doing the same thing is not going to bring about better results. You mentioned in the book education freedom, Parental Choice in the pandemic and i agree the state policy drives this. Give us a little rundown on the space that youre most excited about in terms of transforming the system where parents are giving the power and get the information to makeir choices bt for their kids. On creating options and opportunities inie education freedom thankfully the success with state legislators continued to build on the significant steps you took now more than 20 years ago to provide these opportunities. Andor i think we are continuingo push forward on that. I think florida is the first state to offer universal freedom. Time will tell and im also worried about what the governor and the legislators and arizona have continued to push on. Weve seen this issue in form the primary races in states where there havent been programs and where there is been legislation introduced in the past there hasnt been broad enough support. But this issue is at the top of the list for many states and importantly so. Both of us are kind of veterans in this fight. Some started later but many are expanding Charter Schools, looking at aggressively pursuing options and states that never would haveve considered are starting to do it. Parents are the ones that made that happen. You trust parents over the bureaucracy and i wish more parents did. In the middle of the Education Savings Account established after the governor vetoed the legislation we had a citizen led petition back to the state legislature and if they successfully pass it again it will be law without the itsignature and this will provie opportunities for ten tens of thousands of kids in michigan. It has more of a safer a financial reason which is the student loan program. It was granting immunity if you will for thousands and t thousas of followers. Its now grown to over 1. 7 trillion. From 2010 supposedly for obamacare which it did not do was the start of the runaway class and tuition increases on the institution and more students taking out the degrees. It has no merit. Three out of four americans havent taken out or attended Higher Educationat and so the notion that we would ask two out of three of them and of those whos made that decision is simpy unfair and unattainable. Second what about d the students that have paid down their student loan or whose families saved for their Higher Education or for the veteran who earned their Higher Education from the g. I. Bill nothing about this is right or fair and even if you did way they want and forgive a bunch of student debt, it doesnt changege anything so thy need to go back to the drawing board and i would argue wind down the federal loan program and allow it to go back to the private sector and as it washa before and in the process of doing that, expect some institutions to show how theirhe value matters to the students they are supposed to be serving. Better outcomes, low cost, states like tennessee are providing incentives for kids in a meritbased basis to earn credits in a very lowcost way. The people that are doing the innovative work and allowing the federal s governments involvemt in the student loan programs to take away the incentives. To support a load of these innovations in meaningful ways that are not going to penalize the innovation and are not going to keep rewording that of those keep doing the same thing the same way and providing the results for students. A term i didnt know until about four or five years ago is an interesting topic for cancel culture, the liberalism of the institutions themselves. How do we deal with brokenness and make sure that our universities are places where theres an inquiry where your views are challenged and you learn . Arguably, much of this starts in the k12 years where students by and large are not learning to debate ideas and concepts. Its very malleable and then getting pushed by the leftleaning faculty on so many college campuses. The opportunity to speak about Different Things was being abridged and we made sure we would highlight those wherever we could this has to be something where collectively we say enough. Weve got to ensure far too many of them are not prepared and do the work of Higher Education. Education is for the philosophies and exchanging ideas and debating the merit of different issues. I think the trends have certainly the attention being paid to them because common sense people will start to push wback and say we are not goingo sign up for this and be part of this any longer. You are engaged in the role of philanthropists inun this case d a lot of these universities receive hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy donors. A lot for him this issue is important and are paying seattention are withdrawing ther support for these institutions that are not standing up and saying we support and protect the free and open exchange. I think we are going to see more pressure put on institutions if they do not readjust and take a different path. A four year degree isnt the only path for people to live purposeful lives and lift up. Talk to me about the Career Pathway movement, is there how do we accelerate the logical trend to deal with different paths for the great diversity of young people in the country . This is something that our administration put in effort on to provide new vehicles and support for the apprenticeship programs that have great promise for alternate Career Pathways and in partnership with private enterprise and others that would help provide more robust and innovative opportunities and the Biden Administration canceled the program almost immediately. That should be reinstated and expandedin upon. In concert with that, there needs toto be more research. Theres plenty of Research Done but there has to be more reports on the fouryear institutions that will presumably. Weve added information to College Scorecards that will help provide data for students to look at down to the field of study at the institutions to see what you will make and learn after you graduate from that particular program. Previously it was reported by institutions that mask very significantly the highest and lowest of the spectrum. You look at them and you look at the cost of what you are likely to learn and theres one, two, three, four and i i hope that wl help students become more concerned to take this area of study and look forward to earning another pathway. With a few minutes we havelk left i think it would be appropriate to talk about january 6th. Can you talk about your experiences on that day and Lessons Learned . Oi was in my office that morning and was urged to go to my home because there were rumors of unrest. The more i saw and thought about what the children were seeing and doing that today and how upset i became the president should have and could have done something to stop that from happening and when that didnt happen it really was a bridge too far for me and as you know i submitted a letter of resignation theti next day. I had come to washington to serve students and it was an honor to have that opportunity. I had been frustrated after the end that we had a window of time where we could have gotten the education freedom tax credit into the second relief bill and there was so much chaos and not focus within thee white house itself around what the possibilitiese were january 6th was a big deal. Across the country we reconnect with our heritage and we understand the history and institutions that have created the greatest country on the face of the earth. Thats one thing. Im very optimistic but i worry about the disunity that exists because we dont appreciate our common heritage. Dthats another very good argument for why we need to ensure that our students have an understanding of the founding of the country and documents. Tsy, thank you so much. This was a great book i enjoyed reading and i hope that people will pick it up andef read it. Before i let you go, can you tell me what book you are reading right now lacks. Im reading a book called under money. You served with distinction and honor and i admire you so much for all youve done. Thank you. Its great to talk with you and i look forward to seeing you again. In light of the upcoming election picture yourself as a newly elected member of congress. We ask this years competitors what is your top priority and why. Make a five to six minute video that shows the importance from opposing and supporting perspectives. Dont be afraid to take risks. Among the 100,000 in cash prizes is a thousand dollar grand prize. Videos must be submitted by january 20th, 2023. Visit our website at a student cam. Org for competition rules, resources or a stepbystep guide. Homework can be hard but squatting in a diner for internetwork is even