Mr. REED: Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be the Secretary of Education. This is not a position I take lightly. I have never opposed the confirmation of a nominee for Secretary of Education. I also have never seen the intensity of opposition to a nominee for this position as we have witnessed with Mrs. DeVos. Thousands of Rhode Islanders—educators, parents, community leaders— have written or called to express their dismay that a person with Mrs. DeVos’s record and background would be chosen to lead the Department of Education. What I have seen and heard about Mrs. DeVos leads me to agree with my constituents—she is uniquely unsuited and unqualified for this critical position.

The U.S. Secretary of Education oversees the Federal Government’s role in ensuring educational equity in our public schools regardless of family income, race, ethnicity, language, or disability. Mrs. DeVos’s work has been in the opposite direction. She has dedicated her time, political capital, and personal fortune to creating private sector alternatives to public education. She has also fought to shield those alternatives from the same standards and accountability that apply to public schools. For example, she spent a reported $1.45 million to reward or punish Michigan legislators as part of her effort to kill an accountability plan that would have included charter schools. This hostility to public schools and affinity for using public dollars to fund private schools or for-profit education companies makes her, in my estimation, a poor choice to lead the U.S. Department of Education.

Mrs. DeVos’s crusade for vouchers raises another fundamental question about whether she respects the separation between church and state. This is a founding principle of our Nation. However, in the past, she has talked about her education reform efforts in religious terms as advancing God’s Kingdom and reversing what she feels is a trend of public schools displacing church in community life. In an administration that has signaled a willingness to discriminate based on religion, these views are cause for real concern and they have no place at the U.S. Department of Education. Mrs. DeVos’s crusade for school choice in Michigan has been a failure for students. Since 2000, student achievement in that State has fallen. In 2000, Michigan students scored above the national average on the National Assessment of Education Progress in fourth grade reading and math. By 2015, they were below average. As a single-issue educational reformer, Mrs. DeVos does not have the breadth of knowledge necessary to oversee our national education policy from preschool through adult education and postsecondary education. Her policy solution for education is choice. As they say, when all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail. This one-size-fits-all approach is a real danger given the diversity of our students, our institutions, our communities, and the different educational challenges across the lifespan of individual Americans. I know many parents and students and employers are worried about our schools. I share that worry, and we need to do more, but Mrs. DeVos’s plan to eliminate those neighborhood schools rather than do the hard work of repairing, renovating, and providing the supports that enable all schools to be ready to learn at school is cause for alarm. During her hearing, Mrs. DeVos displayed little understanding of the Federal student aid programs that provide approximately $150 billion in assistance to students struggling to pay for college. So not only does she have a single-minded focus on private charter elementary schools, she has very little grasp—from her hearing testimony—on the challenges for postsecondary education in the United States.

She also appeared confused about questions regarding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—the landmark law enacted in 1975, and updated many times since, that protects the rights of children with disabilities to a free and appropriate education. At first, she suggested that States should be allowed to decide whether or how to enforce the law, and that, in my view, is a disqualifying answer. This has been a Federal initiative that has proved successful. Indeed, many of us can recall when students with special needs were ignored—totally ignored—until the IDEA, and now they have been incorporated into our public school systems and into our educational system, which has benefited these students, their families, and our country. I also share my colleagues’ concerns about Mrs. DeVos’s finances and her ability to carry out her duties as Secretary free from conflict of interest. Her ethics disclosures show investments and relationships across a range of education interests from for-profit early childhood education companies to for-profit education management entities, advocacy organizations, education software, campus services, private student loans, and student loan debt collectors. She has not fully disclosed her assets to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and has declined to provide information on the holdings in two family trusts that she will retain if she is confirmed.

This lack of transparency raises real questions about whose interests will be served under her administration at the Department of Education. Education is really the launching pad for the American dream. It is the engine that drives this country forward. The Secretary of Education must be a champion for public education. As we have seen from the Office of Civil Rights data collection, we have significant gaps in opportunities and resources in schools across this country. Our Secretary of Education must be dedicated to helping States and school districts close those gaps. These children cannot afford to have resources drained from their public schools for vouchers that will do little to improve the quality of education in their communities. And as many of my colleagues in rural States have indicated, there is just, in many places geographically, the inability to substitute a public school with a vouchered charter or private school. If we break faith with these public schools, we will leave thousands of Americans, particularly in rural communities, without any real choice.

The Secretary of Education should be working toward helping our teachers, principals, school leaders, and parents ensure that we are reaching all students and helping them succeed. All students include students with disabilities and English language learners. All students, together, learning from one another and not in separate and, indeed, perhaps inherently unequal environments. Our goal should be equal opportunity. And if we pursue that goal, we will see the progress and success of America continue. We need a Secretary of Education who is prepared on day one to lead our Federal student aid system that includes a student loan portfolio of over $1 trillion with more than 40 million borrowers. This is another aspect of the responsibilities in postsecondary education that, in her testimony and in her presentation, Mrs. DeVos appeared to be ill-informed about.

Our Secretary of Education must be at the forefront of expanding college access, improving affordability, and ensuring that students’ educational and financial interests are protected. We need a Secretary of Education who is prepared to address the needs of adult learners, especially those who have been left behind in a changing economy. Mrs. DeVos has provided no insight as to how she will lead the Department of Education’s efforts to support adult learners. In fact, one of the realities of this economy is that learning today is lifelong, lifetime learning. We have left the period in which a high school diploma would be adequate for a person to get a good job, move up through the ranks in a company, retire comfortably, and provide for the next generation. Now, the intensity of education and the duration of education has to be for a lifetime. And, once again, that knowledge, that expertise, was not demonstrated in her testimony. Sadly, I do not believe that Mrs. DeVos is the Education Secretary that we need. She has dedicated her time and wealth to promoting alternatives to public education, which I believe is the bedrock of our democracy. I think one of the most significant reasons this country grew and expanded was that going back to our earliest days, we, more than any other Nation in the world, pioneered free public education, accessible to all, and that engine drove this country forward. To ignore that, to abandon public education, would be a tremendous setback to not only our economy but to the fabric of our society. Her focus on vouchers and for-profit education calls into question—very dramatically—her commitment to public schools. It does not seem to be her major priority, and I would argue that has to be a major priority of the Secretary of Education, along with the Federal role of ensuring that the rights of all students are protected, regardless of where they live. This can’t be a Department of Education that is focused on certain ZIP Codes and ignores other ZIP Codes.

Furthermore, nothing in her background and in her testimony before the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee inspires confidence that she has the experience or vision necessary to oversee public education policy, including higher education and adult education. For these reasons, I cannot support her nomination, and I would urge my colleagues to join me in voting no. As I indicated in my opening remarks, having served under both Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents, this is the first time I have ever felt that I could not support a nominee for the Department of Education. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.