For the past four years, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has implemented several policies to help students gain access to more schools and stay safe while learning. While she probably never expected to deal with both gun violence and a global pandemic affecting school policies, DeVos has remained dedicated to making students her top priority.
In her first, widely viewed interview, DeVos joined CBS’ Leslie Stahl on “60 Minutes” to discuss educational choice, education reform, standardized testing, and the success of her new policies. While she had only been in office for a year, she talked with Stahl at length about the funding for educational choice programs, stating that her critics didn’t understand and “that wasn’t how it worked.”
There are many theories about how school choice programs will work in the future for America’s students. For lower-income families, school choice is a benefit that allows their students to go to better schools even if they don’t have the tuition money to pay for private schools. Many scholarships, grants, and funds have been set up through donations and philanthropy to help these students attend their dream schools.
DeVos has donated $35 million to educational causes, as well as another $139 million through the DeVos Family Foundation. Her work has expanded since becoming the 11th U.S. Education Secretary, and she now has donors like Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Walton, and Bill Gates who support her causes.
School choice programs aren’t the same in every state. For example, Florida has the best educational choice system as it’s the only state with a tuition-based scholarship program. Low-income families can apply for this benefit when students are accepted into private schools and charter schools.
However, there is another side to school choice for high school students who want to study particular subjects, skills, and college-level courses. Magnet programs are available in some states with participating high schools. Basically, students zoned for one school may apply to a magnet program base don medical sciences or business law. Once accepted, the student can attend the magnet school instead of their zoned school.
These programs have not only brought many students out of poverty, but they’re able to study courses in all kinds of subjects not previously available at their school. Magnet programs do receive more funding to support these students.
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