Betsy DeVos School vouchers
What are the school vouchers?
What are the school vouchers?
DeVos is known as a "a fierce proponent of school vouchers" that would allow students to attend private schools with public funding. According to The New York Times, it "is hard to find anyone more passionate about the idea of steering public dollars away from traditional public schools than Betsy DeVos". DeVos served as chairwoman of the board of Alliance for School Choice. Until November 2016, she headed the All Children Matter PAC which she and her husband founded in 2003 to promote school vouchers, tax credits to businesses that give private school scholarships, and candidates who support these causes. Over the years, DeVos and her husband have provided millions in funding for the organization. In 2008, All Children Matter was fined $5.2 million in Ohio for illegally laundering money into political campaign funds. DeVos was not named in the case. The fine remained unpaid as of 2017, prompting calls by Democratic Party lawmakers for DeVos to settle the debt. Her other activities on behalf of public-school reform have included membership on the boards of directors of the Advocates for School Choice, the American Education Reform Council, and the Education Freedom Fund. She has chaired the boards of Choices for Children, and Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP). DeVos was chair of the American Federation for Children (AFC). Affiliated with the Alliance for School Choice, the AFC describes itself as "a leading national advocacy organization promoting school choice, with a specific focus on advocating for school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs". During the 1990s, she served on the boards of Children First America and the American Education Reform Council, which sought to expand school choice through vouchers and tax credits. She and her husband worked for the successful passage of Michigan's first charter-school bill in 1993, and for the unsuccessful effort in 2000 to amend Michigan's constitution to allow tax-credit scholarships or vouchers. In response to that defeat, DeVos started a PAC, the Great Lakes Education Project, which championed charter schools. DeVos's husband and John Walton then founded All Children Matter, a political organization, which she chaired. CANNOTANSWER
allow students to attend private schools with public funding.
Elisabeth Dee DeVos ( ;  Prince; born January 8, 1958) is an American politician, philanthropist, and former government official who served as the 11th United States secretary of education from 2017 to 2021. DeVos is known for her support for school choice, school voucher programs, and charter schools. She was Republican national committeewoman for Michigan from 1992 to 1997 and served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000, with reelection to the post in 2003. She has advocated for the Detroit charter school system and she is a former member of the board of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. She has served as chair of the board of the Alliance for School Choice and the Acton Institute and headed the All Children Matter PAC.

DeVos is married to former Amway CEO Dick DeVos. Her brother, Erik Prince, a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, is the founder of Blackwater USA. Their father is billionaire industrialist Edgar Prince, founder of the Prince Corporation. In 2016, the family was listed by Forbes as the 88th-richest in America, with an estimated net worth of $5.4 billion.

On November 23, 2016, then-President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate DeVos to serve as Secretary of Education in his administration. On January 31, following strong opposition to the nomination from Democrats, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions approved her nomination on a party-line vote, sending her nomination to the Senate floor. On February 7, 2017, she was confirmed by the Senate by a 51–50 margin, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie in favor of her nomination. This was the first time in U.S. history that a Cabinet nominee's confirmation was decided by the vice president's tiebreaking vote.

On January 7, 2021, DeVos tendered her resignation as education secretary as a result of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, saying to President Trump in her resignation letter, "There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation." Her resignation took effect on January 8, 2021, twelve days before her term would have ended.

Early life 
DeVos was born Elisabeth Prince on January 8, 1958. She grew up in Holland, Michigan, the eldest of four children born to Elsa (Zwiep) Prince (later, Broekhuizen) and Edgar Prince, a billionaire industrialist. Edgar was the founder of Prince Corporation, an automobile parts supplier based in Holland, Michigan. She is of Dutch ancestry.

DeVos was educated at the Holland Christian High School, a private school located in her home town of Holland, Michigan. She graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business economics in 1979. During college, DeVos was involved with campus politics, volunteered for Gerald Ford's presidential campaign, and attended the 1976 Republican National Convention to participate in a program for young Republicans.

DeVos grew up as a member of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. She has been a member and elder of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids. Former Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, with whom DeVos served on a committee, said she is influenced by Dutch neo-Calvinist theologian Abraham Kuyper, a founding figure in Christian Democracy political ideology.

Political activity 

Since 1982, DeVos has participated in the Michigan Republican Party. She served as a local precinct delegate for the Michigan Republican Party, having been elected for 16 consecutive two-year terms since 1986. She was a Republican National Committeewoman for Michigan between 1992 and 1997, and served as chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000. In 2004, the Lansing State Journal described DeVos as "a political pit bull for most of [Gov. Jennifer] Granholm's 16 months in office," and said that if DeVos was not Granholm's "worst nightmare," she was "certainly her most persistent". Bill Ballenger, editor of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics and a former Republican state senator, called DeVos "a good behind-the-scenes organizer and a good fund raiser" as well as "a true believer in core Republican issues that leave nobody in doubt on where she stands". DeVos resigned the position in 2000. She said in 2000, "It is clear I have never been a rubber stamp ... I have been a fighter for the grassroots, and following is admittedly not my strong suit." In 2003, DeVos ran again for party chairman and was elected to the post without opposition.

Political fundraising

DeVos personally raised more than $150,000 for the 2004 Bush re-election campaign, and hosted a Republican fundraiser at her home in October 2008 that was headlined by President George W. Bush. During the Bush Administration she spent two years as the finance chairperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and worked closely with the Administration on "various projects". The DeVos family has been active in Republican politics for decades, particularly as donors to candidates and the party, giving more than $17 million to political candidates and committees since 1989.

In a 1997 op-ed for Roll Call, DeVos wrote that she expects results from her political contributions. "My family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party. I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence," she wrote. "Now I simply concede the point. They are right." She also stated in the op-ed, "We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues … We expect a return on our investment; we expect a good and honest government. Furthermore, we expect the Republican Party to use the money to promote these policies and, yes, to win elections."

2016 U.S. presidential election 
During the Republican Party presidential primaries for the 2016 election, DeVos initially donated to Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina before eventually supporting Marco Rubio. In March 2016, DeVos described Donald Trump as an "interloper" and said that he "does not represent the Republican Party".

Business career 
DeVos is chairwoman of the Windquest Group, a privately held operating group that invests in technology, manufacturing, and clean energy. DeVos and her husband founded it in 1989. With a commitment of $100 million, Betsy DeVos's family was one of the largest investors—and losers—in blood-testing company Theranos.

DeVos and her husband were producers for a Broadway run of the stage play Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson, in 2012, based on the life of the famous evangelist and featuring a book and lyrics written by Kathie Lee Gifford. The show ran for three weeks, closing in December 2012 after receiving negative reviews.

Neurocore
Betsy and her husband Dick are chief investors in and board members of Neurocore, a group of brain performance centers offering biofeedback therapy for disorders such as depression, attention deficit disorder, autism, and anxiety. The therapy consists of showing movies to patients and interrupting them when they become distracted, in an effort to retrain their brains. According to The New York Times, a review of Neurocore's claims and interviews with medical experts suggest that the company's conclusions are unproven and its methods questionable. Democratic senators raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest and questioned whether she and her family members would "benefit financially from actions" she could take as the U.S. Secretary of Education. DeVos announced that she would step down from the company's board but would retain her investment in the company, valued at $5 million to $25 million. In November 2019, Truth In Advertising filed complaints against Neurocore with the Food and Drug Administration for unapproved medical devices and the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive marketing.

U.S. Secretary of Education

Nomination 
On November 23, 2016, Trump's transition team announced DeVos as the nominee to be the next secretary of education. Upon her nomination, DeVos said "I am honored to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again. The status quo in ed is not acceptable." DeVos's nomination was generally criticized by teachers unions and praised by supporters of school choice.

Detroit Free Press editor Stephen Henderson expressed concerns over DeVos's nomination, writing that "DeVos isn't an educator, or an education leader". Rebecca Mead of The New Yorker questioned the efficacy of Michigan's charter school system, which DeVos has supported. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called DeVos "the most ideological, anti-public education nominee" since the position became a cabinet position. The Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Michigan Democratic Party opposed DeVos's nomination.

Former presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney respectively called DeVos an "outstanding pick" and a "smart choice". Republican senator Ben Sasse said DeVos "has made a career out of standing up to powerful and connected special interests on behalf of poor kids who are too often forgotten by Washington". In an opinion editorial, the Chicago Tribune wrote that "DeVos has helped lead the national battle to expand education opportunities for children".

Confirmation hearing

The confirmation hearing for DeVos was initially scheduled for January 10, 2017, but was delayed for one week after the Office of Government Ethics requested more time to review her financial disclosures. On January 17, 2017, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held the hearing, which lasted three-and-one-half hours and "quickly became a heated and partisan debate". Democratic senators directed several questions toward her regarding her wealth, including questions about her family's political donations to the Republican Party and whether or not she had personal experience with financial aid or student loans. Several media outlets reported that DeVos appeared to have plagiarized quotes from an Obama administration official in written answers submitted to the Senate committee. DeVos drew widespread media attention during the confirmation hearings for suggesting that guns might have a place in some schools due to a threat from grizzly bears. DeVos's comment was later lampooned by television personalities Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and James Corden.

Prior to DeVos's confirmation, numerous U.S. senators from both parties reported tens of thousands of their constituents having contacted their offices in opposition to the confirmation of DeVos. More than 300 state lawmakers from across the U.S., overwhelmingly Democrats, voiced their opposition to DeVos's appointment in a letter to the U.S. Senate sent the day before a scheduled vote on her nomination. DeVos's nomination was supported by 18 Republican governors, including John Kasich and Rick Snyder, along with the nine Republican members of Congress from Michigan.

Debate and final vote 

On January 31, DeVos's nomination was approved by the committee on a 12–11 party-line vote and was due to be voted on by the Senate. Later on February 1, 2017, two Republican U.S. senators, Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, came out against the confirmation (despite supporting DeVos in committee when both of them voted to move her nomination to the floor), bringing the predicted confirmation vote on DeVos to 50–50 if all Democrats and independents voted as expected, meaning Vice President Mike Pence would have to break the tie. During an unusually early 6:30 a.m. vote on February 3, 2017, cloture was invoked on DeVos's nomination in the Senate, requiring a final vote on the confirmation to happen after 30 hours of debate.

Ahead of the scheduled final vote at noon on February 7, 2017, the Democrats in the Senate continuously spoke on the floor against the confirmation of DeVos the entire night before leading up to the vote, in protest of their strong disapproval of the nominee. As expected, there was a 50–50 tie on the final vote, with all Democrats and independents, along with two Republicans (Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski), voting in opposition to DeVos, while the other fifty Republican senators voted in support of the confirmation, including Senator Jeff Sessions, who himself had been nominated by the Trump administration for the post of United States attorney general. Republicans scheduled Sessions's confirmation vote after DeVos's so that he would be able to cast his vote in support of DeVos. Had his confirmation vote been earlier than hers, he would have been forced to resign from the Senate, therefore losing a vital vote for the Republicans on the confirmation.
Since there was a tie, Vice President Mike Pence had to step in to decide the vote as the president of the Senate. He cast his tie-breaking vote in favor of DeVos to officially confirm her as education secretary. This was the first tie decided by a vice president on any vote in the Senate since the George W. Bush administration.

Staffing 
DeVos said that on the basis of her first few days in the job, she had concerns that some Education Department employees were sympathetic to the Obama administration. "I . . . would not be surprised if there are also those that would try to subvert the mission of this organization and this department," she stated. Asked what she could do about that, she said, "Whatever can be done will be done, and it will be done swiftly and surely."

In April 2017, DeVos praised the president's nomination of Carlos G. Muñiz as the department's general counsel.

In April 2017, DeVos named Candice Jackson Deputy Assistant Secretary in the department's Office for Civil Rights, where she will be acting assistant secretary while that higher, Senate-confirmed appointment is vacant. DeVos named Jason Botel Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education. Botel, a registered Democrat who supported President Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement, founded the KIPP Ujima Village Academy in Baltimore, after working for Teach For America.

In mid-May 2018, The New York Times reported that under DeVos, the size of the team investigating abuses and fraud by for-profit colleges was reduced from about twelve members under the Obama administration to three, with their task also being scaled back to "processing student loan forgiveness applications and looking at smaller compliance cases". DeVos also appointed Julian Schmoke as the team's new supervisor; Schmoke was a former dean of DeVry Education Group, which was one of the institutions the team had been investigating. The investigation into DeVry was not the only one stopped, others include those of Bridgepoint Education and Career Education Corporation. The Education Department has hired more ex-employees and people affiliated with those institutions, such as Robert S. Eitel, senior counselor to DeVos, Diane Auer Jones, an advisor to the department, and Carlos G. Muñiz, the Department's general counsel.

In October 2018, it was announced that DeVos's chief of staff, Josh Venable, would be replaced by Nate Bailey, who at that time was DeVos's chief of communications. Two years later, Venable joined an anti-Trump group, the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR), which is led by former White House officials.

Policy actions

School choice and private schools 
In February 2017, DeVos released a statement calling historically black colleges "real pioneers when it comes to school choice", causing controversy as some pointed out the schools originated after segregation laws prevented African-Americans from attending others. DeVos later acknowledged racism as an important factor in the history of historically black colleges.

On March 24, 2017, during a visit to the Osceola County campus of Valencia College, DeVos said she was considering the extension of federal financial aid for students that were year-round and interested in placing more focus on community colleges.

DeVos delivered her first extended policy address on March 29, 2017, at the Brookings Institution which included the topic of school choice which has been her main advocacy issue for more than 30 years. She stated an interest in implementing choice policies directed toward children as individuals and criticizing the Obama administration's additional funding of $7 billion for the U.S.'s worst-performing schools as "throwing money at the problem" in an attempt to find a solution. On May 22, 2017, DeVos announced the Trump administration was offering "the most ambitious expansion" of school choice within American history. DeVos cited Indiana (which has the U.S.'s largest school voucher program) as a potential model for a nationwide policy, but did not give specific proposals.

In a May 2017 House of Representatives committee hearing, Rep. Katherine Clark, said an Indiana private school which takes publicly funded vouchers maintains it is entitled to deny admission to LGBTQ students or those coming from families with "homosexual or bisexual activity." Clark asked if she would inform Indiana that it could not discriminate in that way if it accepted federal funding, and asked her how she would respond in the event a voucher school rejected black students but a state "said it was okay." DeVos answered: "Well again, the Office of Civil Rights and our Title IX protections are broadly applicable across the board, but when it comes to parents making choices on behalf of their students..." Clark stopped her saying, "This isn't about parents making choices, this is about the use of federal dollars. Is there any situation? Would you say to Indiana, that school cannot discriminate against LGBT students if you want to receive federal dollars? Or would you say the state has the flexibility?" DeVos responded: "I believe states should continue to have flexibility in putting together programs ..." 

CBS reporter Lesley Stahl questioned DeVos, in a March 2018 60 Minutes interview, about the documented failure of the DeVos programs to demonstrate a positive result, in Michigan, her home state: "Your argument that if you take funds away that the schools will get better is not working in Michigan ... where you had a huge impact and influence over the direction of the school system." Stahl added, "The public schools here are doing worse than they did." DeVos was unable to provide any actual examples of improvement, but stated there were "pockets" where schools had done better than public schools.

On June 6, 2017, DeVos said states' rights would determine private schools being allocated funds by the federal government during an appearance before members of a House appropriations committee.

Student loans 
On April 11, 2017, DeVos undid several Obama administration policy memos issued by John King Jr. and Ted Mitchell which were designed to protect student loan borrowers.

On July 6, 2017, Democratic attorneys-general in 18 states and Washington, D.C., led by Massachusetts attorney-general Maura Healey, filed a federal lawsuit against DeVos for suspending the implementation of rules that were meant to protect students attending for-profit colleges. The rules, developed during the Obama administration, were meant to take effect on July 1, 2017.

On September 12, 2018, DeVos lost the lawsuit brought by 19 states and the District of Columbia, which accused the Department of Education of improperly delaying implementation of regulations protecting student loan borrowers from predatory practices.

Coronavirus pandemic 
During the coronavirus pandemic, DeVos directed millions of dollars of coronavirus relief funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act intended for public schools and colleges, to private and religious schools.

DeVos pushed for schools to re-open while coronavirus cases were still surging in large parts of the country. She said that the Trump administration was considering pulling funding from public schools unless they provided full-time in person learning during the pandemic. On July 12, 2020, she said "there’s nothing in the data that suggests that kids being in school is in any way dangerous to them", an assertion that public health experts disputed. She also refused to say whether schools should follow guidelines laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on reopening schools.

Other 
On June 2, 2017, DeVos announced her support of President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement the prior day.

On July 13, 2017, Candice Jackson, who is a sexual assault survivor, organized a meeting with DeVos, college sexual assault victims, accused assailants, and higher education officials, and said she would look at policies on sexual assault accusations on campuses from the Obama administration to see if accused students were treated within their rights. Asked by CBS 60 Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl about her repeal of Obama administration guidelines for colleges dealing with reports of sexual assaults, she said her concern was for men falsely accused of such assaults. "Survivors, victims of a lack of due process, and campus administrators have all told me that the current approach does a disservice to everyone involved," said DeVos. However, some survivors of sexual assault and harassment and organizations which advocate on their behalf oppose the changes and say they would make schools more dangerous.

In October 2017, DeVos revoked 72 guidance documents of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services which outlined the rights of disabled students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

In a January 2018 speech, Devos said that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) found that "60 percent of its teachers reported having moderate to no influence over the content and skills taught in their own classrooms." In response, AFT noted that in the same survey of around 5,000 educators, 86% felt that Devos had disrespected them.

In March 2018, DeVos announced a School Safety Commission, to provide meaningful and actionable recommendations. Members were four Cabinet members, including herself. The organization held a meeting on March 28 and a gathering of school shooting survivors and families on April 17.

In late May 2018, Devos said that she believed it was "a school decision" on whether to report a student's family to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if the student or their family are undocumented immigrants. However, under Plyler v. Doe, the American Supreme Court ruled under the American constitution, schools are obligated to provide schooling irrespective of immigration status. The American Civil Liberties Union has said that because of this, it would be unconstitutional for schools to report students or their families to ICE.

In 2019, DeVos unsuccessfully attempted to cut federal funding for the Special Olympics from her department's budget, which she had also attempted to cut in her previous two annual budgets.

Protests and security 
DeVos has been a controversial figure throughout her tenure. In her first official appearance as Secretary on February 10, 2017, dozens of protesters showed up to prevent her appearance. The protesters physically blocked her from entering through the back entrance of Jefferson Academy, a D.C. public middle school in Southwest, Washington, D.C. DeVos was eventually able to enter the school through a side entrance.

Subsequent to the incident, the U.S. Marshals Service, rather than Education Department employees, began providing security for her. Education Department officials declined requests for information about the deployment of marshals or the current tasks of the Secretary's displaced security team normally assigned to her. Many of those security personnel are former Secret Service agents who have worked at the department for many years. Regarding the withdrawal of the department's team, former Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, "That's a waste of taxpayer money."

During her first visit to a public university on April 6, 2017, DeVos was confronted by around 30 protestors. She was touring an area designed to resemble a hospital ward at Florida International University. The following day, the U.S. Marshals Service said after a threat evaluation was conducted in February that DeVos would be given additional security, projecting a cost of $7.8 million between February and September 2017.

On May 10, 2017, DeVos gave a commencement speech at Bethune–Cookman University, a historically black college, and during her speech a majority of the students booed DeVos, with about half of them standing up and turning their backs to her. She also received an honorary doctorate from the university.

Legal issues 
According to DeVos's 2018 financial disclosure form certified by the Office of Government Ethics on December 3, 2018, she had not divested from twenty-four assets required under her signed ethics agreement nearly 22 months after being confirmed in February 2017.

In May 2019, the Education Department inspector general released a report concluding that DeVos had used personal email accounts to conduct government business and that she did not properly preserve these emails.

In September 2020, it was reported that the Office of the Special Counsel had investigated DeVos over potential violations of the Hatch Act after she appeared on Fox News during the 2020 election campaign, where she attacked Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden. After her television appearance, the Department of Education promoted her Fox News interview.

Resignation 
On January 7, 2021, DeVos resigned from her position as Secretary of Education after the January 6 U.S. Capitol riots. She said in her letter to President Trump that the riots had overshadowed the accomplishments of his administration. She was the second cabinet member to resign following the insurrection, the first being Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao.

Philanthropy and activism

The Prince Foundation 
DeVos was listed for many years on IRS form Form 990s as the foundation's vice president (hitherto called the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation). However, she testified under oath in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, in response to Senator Maggie Hassan's questions, that she had nothing to do with the contributions made by her mother's foundation to conservative advocacy groups including Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.

Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation 
The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation was launched in 1989. The foundation's giving, according to its website, is motivated by faith, and "is centered in cultivating leadership, accelerating transformation and leveraging support in five areas", namely education, community, arts, justice, and leadership. In 2015, the DeVos Foundation made $11.6 million in charitable contributions, bringing the couple's lifetime charitable giving to $139 million. Forbes ranked the DeVos family No. 24 on its 2015 list of America's top givers.

The DeVos Foundation has donated to hospitals, health research, arts organizations, Christian schools, evangelical missions, and conservative, free-market think tanks. Of the $100 million the foundation donated between 1999 until 2014, half of it went to Christian organizations. Organizations funded by the foundation include: Michigan's Foundation for Traditional Values; Center for Individual Rights; Acton Institute; Institute for Justice; Center for Individual Rights; Michigan's Pregnancy Resource Center; Right to Life Michigan Educational Fund; and Baptists for Life.

With respect to educational-focused donations, the foundation from 1999 to 2014 supported private Christian schools (at least $8.6 million), charter schools ($5.2 million), and public schools ($59,750). Specific donations included $2.39 million to the Grand Rapids Christian High School Association, $652,000 to the Ada Christian School, and $458,000 to Holland Christian Schools.

In 2016, the Foundation reported $14.3 million in donations to over 100 organizations including the X Prize Foundation, Mars Hill Bible Church, American Enterprise Institute.

When DeVos was appointed US Education Secretary, it was revealed that she was an elder at Mars Hill Bible Church. During her tenure, she reportedly donated $431,000 to the church between 2002 and 2004 and $453,349 to Flannel, producer of the NOOMA video series.

Acton Institute and All Children Matter 
DeVos has served as chairperson, board member, and treasurer of the Acton Institute and headed the All Children Matter PAC.

Arts

Kennedy Center 
DeVos was appointed by President George W. Bush to the board of directors of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2004, and served until 2010. While she was on the board, she and her husband funded a center to teach arts managers and boards of directors how to fundraise and manage their cultural institutions. The couple donated $22.5 million in 2010 to continue the endeavor, which was given in the name of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management.

After the announcement of the DeVoses' gift to the Kennedy Center, DeVos explained that she had been persuaded by Kennedy Center official Michael Kaiser's observation that millions of dollars are invested "in the arts, and training artists", but not in "training the leaders who hire the artists and run the organizations". The DeVoses' gift was intended to remedy this oversight. "We want to help develop human capital and leverage that capital to the greatest extent possible", she said, describing Kaiser's "practice and approach" as "practical, realistic and creative". The DeVoses' gift, part of which would be spent on arts groups in Michigan that had been hit hard by the recession, was the largest private donation in the Kennedy Center's history.

ArtPrize 
In 2009, Betsy DeVos's son Rick DeVos founded ArtPrize, an international art competition held in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  approximately 16 percent of ArtPrize's $3.5 million annual budget was provided by various foundations run by the DeVos family, with the rest provided by other foundations and local and national businesses.

Education activism 
The DeVoses provide an annual scholarship to students at Northwood University. DeVos is a former member of the board of the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd), an education think tank founded by Jeb Bush, the chairman since 2015 of which has been former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and which has received donations from Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Eli Broad.

Christian motivation 
DeVos in 2001 listed education activism and reform efforts as a means to "advance God's Kingdom". In an interview that year, she also said that "changing the way we approach ... the system of education in the country ... really may have greater Kingdom gain in the long run".

School choice 
DeVos believes education in the United States should encourage the proliferation of charter schools and open up private schools to more students via financial assistance programs, often called vouchers. She has stated that education is "a closed system, a closed industry, a closed market. It's a monopoly, a dead end." DeVos believes that opening up the education market will offer parents increased choice, a view that critics call a drive to privatize the American public education system.

School vouchers 

DeVos is known as "a fierce proponent of school vouchers" that would allow students to attend private schools with public funding. According to The New York Times, it "is hard to find anyone more passionate about the idea of steering public dollars away from traditional public schools than Betsy DeVos".

DeVos served as chairwoman of the board of Alliance for School Choice. Until November 2016, she headed the All Children Matter PAC which she and her husband founded in 2003 to promote school vouchers, tax credits to businesses that give private school scholarships, and candidates who support these causes. DeVos and her husband gave millions of dollars to the organization. In 2008, All Children Matter was fined $5.2 million in Ohio for illegally laundering money into political campaign funds. DeVos was not named in the case. The fine remained unpaid , prompting calls by Democratic Party lawmakers for DeVos to settle the debt.

Her other activities on behalf of public-school reform have included membership on the boards of directors of the Advocates for School Choice, the American Education Reform Council, and the Education Freedom Fund. She has chaired the boards of Choices for Children, and Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP).

DeVos was chair of the American Federation for Children (AFC). Affiliated with the Alliance for School Choice, the AFC describes itself as "a leading national advocacy organization promoting school choice, with a specific focus on advocating for school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs".

During the 1990s, she served on the boards of Children First America and the American Education Reform Council, which sought to expand school choice through vouchers and tax credits. She and her husband worked for the successful passage of Michigan's first charter-school bill in 1993, and for the unsuccessful effort in 2000 to amend Michigan's constitution to allow tax-credit scholarships or vouchers. In response to that defeat, DeVos started a PAC, the Great Lakes Education Project, which championed charter schools. DeVos's husband and John Walton then founded All Children Matter, a political organization, which she chaired.

Detroit charter school system 
DeVos has been an advocate for the Detroit charter school system. Douglas N. Harris, professor of economics at Tulane University, wrote in a 2016 The New York Times op-ed that DeVos was partly responsible for "what even charter advocates acknowledge is the biggest school reform disaster in the country". In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Detroit had the lowest reading and mathematics scores "by far" over any city participating in the evaluation. According to Harris, she designed a system with no oversight in which schools that do poorly can continue to enroll students.

Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review argued that Harris overstates the failure of charter schools in Detroit. According to Ponnuru, the study referenced by Harris, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, did "not sound nearly as helpful to Harris's case as he suggests". Ponnuru pointed out that the study says "some 47 percent of charter schools in Detroit significantly outperform[ed] traditional public schools in reading and 49 percent of charters significantly outperforming traditionals on math. Only one percent of charters were significantly outperformed by traditional public schools in reading and only 7 percent on math." Also defending DeVos's record in Michigan, Jay P. Greene, professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas, argued that Harris's The New York Times article misled readers on the evidence and "falsely claimed that Detroit has failed to close failing charter schools", noting that Detroit has closed more charters than Louisiana, a state Harris cites as a model for charter school legislation.

In a written response to a question about charter school performance posed during DeVos's confirmation hearing by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), asking "why do you think their performance is so poor?", DeVos defended the charter school system using graduation rates that were significantly higher than those used for state and federal accountability purposes. DeVos provided examples of several charter schools that she said had 4-year graduation exceeding 90%. These examples were contested by Columbia University professor Aaron Pallas and Education Week reporter Ben Herold on the basis that the actual graduation rates were roughly only half as large as DeVos had stated.

Cultural depictions
In February 2017, artist Glenn McCoy created a political cartoon called Trying to Trash Betsy DeVos, based on Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With. In the same month, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon parodied the Education Department's typos on Twitter, featuring Jo Firestone as DeVos.

DeVos has been played by Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live multiple times, including satirizing DeVos's 60 Minutes interview in March 2018. That same month, Randy Rainbow created a satirical "interview" with DeVos based on the 60 Minutes interview, with Out stating, "It goes about as well as you'd expect it to."

DeVos was depicted by drag queen Scarlet Envy on the March 21, 2019 episode of RuPaul's Drag Race season 11 titled "Trump: The Rusical." Scarlet Envy depicted DeVos as "silly" and "martini-swilling."

Personal life 

The DeVos family is one of Michigan's wealthiest. Betsy DeVos's husband, Richard Marvin "Dick" DeVos Jr., is a multi-billionaire heir to the Amway fortune who ran Amway's parent company, Alticor, from 1993 to 2002. Dick DeVos is a major donor to conservative political campaigns and social causes, and was the 2006 Republican nominee for Governor of Michigan. Dick's father, Richard Marvin DeVos Sr., co-founded Amway and was the owner of the Orlando Magic NBA basketball team. Richard DeVos was listed by Forbes in 2016 as having a net worth of $5.1 billion, making him America's 88th wealthiest individual.

Rick and Betsy DeVos married in 1979, and have four grown children: Rick, Elissa, Andrea, and Ryan. Rick works for the Windquest Group as a consultant on urban development, and is the founder of Grand Rapids' ArtPrize festival.

Betsy DeVos's brother, Erik Prince, a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, is the founder of Blackwater USA, a private military services contractor.

In August 2018, a vandal untied DeVos's $40 million yacht that had been moored at a marina on Lake Erie, causing it to sustain $10,000 in damages. The  vessel is one of ten yachts owned by her family, which has a net worth of $5.3 billion. The craft is registered in the Cayman Islands, so is not subject to state property tax.

See also 
 List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries

References

Further reading

External links 

 Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
 
 

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A school voucher, also called an education voucher in a voucher system, is a certificate of government funding for students at schools chosen by themselves or their parents. Funding is usually for a particular year, term, or semester. In some countries, states, or local jurisdictions, the voucher can be used to cover or reimburse home schooling expenses. In some countries, vouchers only exist for tuition at private schools.

A 2017 review of the economics literature on school vouchers concluded that "the evidence to date is not sufficient to warrant recommending that vouchers be adopted on a widespread basis; however, multiple positive findings support continued exploration".  A 2006 survey of members of the American Economic Association found that over two-thirds of economists support giving parents educational vouchers that can be used at both government-operated and private schools, and that support is greater if the vouchers are to be used by parents with low incomes or children in poorly performing schools.

History
When France lost the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) many blamed the loss on its inferior military education system. Following this defeat, the French Assembly proposed a religious voucher that they hoped would improve schools by allowing students to seek out the best. This proposal never moved forward due to the reluctance of the French to subsidize religious education. Despite its failure, this proposal closely resembles voucher systems proposed and used today in many countries.

The oldest extant school voucher programs in the United States are the Town Tuitioning programs in Vermont and Maine, beginning in 1869 and 1873 respectively. Because some towns in these states operate neither local high schools nor elementary schools, students in these towns "are eligible for a voucher to attend [either] public schools in other towns or non-religious private schools. In these cases, the 'sending' towns pay tuition directly to the 'receiving' schools".

A system of educational vouchers was introduced in the Netherlands in 1917. Today, more than 70% of pupils attend privately run but publicly funded schools, mostly split along denominational lines.

Milton Friedman argued for the modern concept of vouchers in the 1950s, stating that competition would improve schools, cost less and yield superior educational outcomes.  Friedman's reasoning in favor of vouchers gained additional attention in 1980 with the broadcast of his ten part television series Free to Choose and the publication of its companion book of the same name (co-written with his wife Rose Friedman, who was also an economist). Episode 6 of the series and chapter 6 of the book were both entitled "What's Wrong with Our Schools", and asserted that permitting parents and students to use vouchers to choose their schools would expand freedom of choice and produce more well-educated students.

In some Southern states during the 1960s, school vouchers were used as a way to perpetuate segregation. In a few instances, public schools were closed outright and vouchers were issued to parents. The vouchers, known as tuition grants, in many cases, were only good at new, private, segregated schools, known as segregation academies.

Today, all modern voucher programs prohibit racial discrimination.

Definitions
There are important distinctions between different kinds of schools:
 Public schools are funded by taxes (except in the United Kingdom, where the term 'public school' refers to older private schools, and the equivalent term for tax-funded schools is 'state school') 
 Private schools are funded privately, such as by tuition or donations.
 School vouchers are subsidies given directly to parents for tuition at any school
 Charter schools are funded publicly
 Open enrollment is the process of allowing parents to choose which public school their child attends instead of being assigned one (provided the school has not reached its maximum capacity number for students). This is sometimes confused with vouchers as a promotion for school choice.
 Education tax credit, tuition tax credit, or tax-credit scholarship: There are two types of education tax credits: personal use, and donation.  Personal use tax credits are tax credits given to individual taxpayers for education expenditures made on behalf of their own children.  Donation tax credits are tax credits given to individual taxpayers or businesses who donate to non-profit organizations that give out private school scholarships.
 Education savings accounts (ESAs) allow parents to withdraw their children from public district or charter schools and receive a deposit of public funds into government-authorized savings accounts with restricted, but multiple, uses. Those funds, often distributed to families via debit card, can cover private school tuition and fees, online learning programs, private tutoring, community college costs, higher education expenses and other approved customized learning services and materials.

Economics

Background
Education as a tool for human capital accumulation is often crucial to the development and progression of societies and thus governments have large incentives to continually intervene and improve public education.  Additionally, education is often the tool with which societies instill a common set of values that underlie the basic norms of the society. Furthermore, there are positive externalities to society from education. These positive externalities can be in the form of reduced crime, more informed citizens and economic development, known as the neighborhood effect.

In terms of economic theory, families face a bundle of consumption choices that determine how much they will spend on education and private consumption. Any number of consumption bundles are available as long as they fit within the  budget constraint. Meaning that any bundle of consumption of education and private consumption must not exceed budgetary constraints. Indifference curves represent the preferences of one good over another. The indifference curve determines how much education an individual will want to consume versus how much private consumption an individual will want to consume.

Government intervention in education typically takes two forms. The first approach can be broad, such as instituting charter schools, magnet schools, or for-profit schools and increasing competition. The second approach can be individually focused such as providing subsidies or loans for individuals to attend college or school vouchers for K-12.

Vouchers are typically instituted for two broad economic reasons.  The first reason is consumer choice. A family can choose to where their child goes to school and pick the school that is closest to their preference of education provider.

The second reason why vouchers are proposed is to increase market competition amongst schools. Similar to the free market theorem, vouchers are intended to make schools more competitive while lowering costs for schools and increasing the educational quality for consumers, the families.

In many instances where school voucher programs have been instituted, there have been mixed results, with some programs showing increased benefits of school vouchers and some instances showing detrimental effects.

Effects

Positive effects

In the United States, vouchers are usually funded with state dollars, and in other countries, through a variety of government funding vehicles. Schools in the United States retain their federal and local funding regardless of enrollment- only state funding is dependent on enrollment size. Part of improving student performance involves improving teacher and school performance. In theory, more school vouchers would prompt the formation of more private schools which will give parents more choice in school. This increased competition would make both the private and public schools, who are both competing for the voucher funds, maintain a high-quality of teaching as well as keeping costs low. 
Indeed, there is evidence that school vouchers result in cost savings for school systems. A fiscal analysis of Indiana's school voucher system showed annual savings, per student, for the state government.

Proponents of voucher schools argue that there is evidence of multiple benefits for students and families because of school vouchers. There is evidence to show that the use of school vouchers results in increased test scores and higher high school graduation rates for students. A case study in the country of Colombia showed that the presence of voucher programs resulted in an increase of 10 percentage points in a child's likelihood of finishing the 8th grade and showed a 0.2 standard deviations increase in achievement on standardized tests. Furthermore, evidence shows that African Americans experience increased college enrollment rates under voucher programs. These gains for African American students are not present for other racial and ethnic groups.

Research has also shown spatial benefits of voucher system. Public schools, which are near private schools that accept vouchers, often have better test scores than other public schools not near voucher ready private schools. Additional research by Caroline Hoxby shows that when voucher systems are available, both the public and private schools in that school system have increased test scores and graduation rates.

Negative effects

While there are some studies that show the positive effects of voucher programs, there is also research that shows the ineffectiveness of school vouchers. There have been some recent case studies showing that in voucher system school districts, students attending the public school, as opposed to the private school with a voucher, tend to outperform their private school peers.

Besides general lack of results, critics of school vouchers argue that vouchers will lead to segregation. Empirical studies show that there is some evidence that school vouchers can lead to racial or income segregation. However research on this topic is inconclusive, as there is also valid research that shows under certain circumstances, income and racial segregation can be reduced indirectly by increasing school choice.

Additionally, since school vouchers are funded by the government, the implementation could cause the funds for public schools to be reduced. Private-school vouchers affect government budgets through two channels: additional direct voucher expenditures, and public-school cost savings from lower enrollments. Voucher programs would be paid for by the government's education budget, which would be subtracted from the public school's budget. This might affect the public-school system by giving them less to spend and use for their student's education.

A 2018 study by Abdulkadiroğlu et al. found that disadvantaged students who won a lottery (the Louisiana Scholarship Program) to get vouchers to attend private schools had worse education outcomes than disadvantaged students who did not win vouchers: "LSP participation lowers math scores by 0.4 standard deviations and also reduces achievement in reading, science, and social studies. These effects may be due in part to selection of low-quality private schools into the program".

Implementations

Colombia
The PACES voucher program was established by the Colombian government in late 1991. It aimed to assist low-income households by distributing school vouchers to students living in neighborhoods situated in the two lowest socioeconomic strata. Between 1991 and 1997, the PACES program awarded 125,000 vouchers to lower-income secondary school students. Those vouchers were worth about US$190 in 1998, and data shows that matriculation fees and other monthly expenses incurred by voucher students attending private schools averaged about US$340 in 1998, so a majority of voucher recipients supplemented the voucher with personal funds.

The students selected to be in the program were selected by lottery. The vouchers were able to be renewed annually, conditional on students achieving satisfactory academic success as indicated by scheduled grade promotion. The program also included incentives to study harder as well as widening schooling options. Empirical evidence showed that the program had some success. Joshua Angrist shows that after three years into the program, lottery winners were 15 percentage points more likely to attend private school and complete 0.1 more years of schooling, and were about 10 percentage points more likely to have finished the 8th grade. The study also reported that there were larger voucher effects for boys than for girls, especially in mathematics performance. It is important to note that the program did not have a significant impact on dropout rates. Angrist reports that lottery winners scored 0.2 standard deviations higher on standardized tests. The voucher program also reported some social effects. Lottery winners worked less on average than non-lottery winners. Angrist reports that this was correlated with a decreased likelihood to marry or cohabit as teenagers.

Chile
In 1981, Chile implemented a universal school voucher system for both elementary and secondary school students. As a result, over 1,000 private schools entered the market, and private enrollment increased by 20–40% by 1998, surpassing 50% in some urban areas. From 1981 to 1988, the private school enrollment rate in urban areas grew 11% more than the private school enrollment rate in rural areas. This change coincided with the transfer of public school administration from the central government to local municipalities. The financial value of a voucher did not depend on the income of the family receiving it, and the program allowed private voucher schools to be selective, while public schools had to accept and enroll every interested student. At the turn of the 21st century, student achievement in Chile was low compared to students in other nations based on international test-scores. This disparity led to the Chilean government enacting substantial educational reforms in 2008, including major changes in the school voucher system.

The Chilean government passed the Preferential School Subsidy Law (SEP) in January 2008. This piece of legislation made the educational voucher system much more like the regulated compensatory model championed by Christopher Jencks. Under SEP, the voucher system was altered to take family incomes into account. The vouchers provided to "priority students" – those whose family income was in the lower than 40% of Chileans – were worth 50% more than those given to the families with higher income. Schools with larger numbers of priority students were eligible to receive per-student bonuses, the size of which was tied to the percentage of priority students in the student body. When SEP was started, it covered preschool to fourth grade, and an additional school-year of coverage was added each subsequent year. Almost every public school chose to participate in SEP in 2008, as well as almost two-thirds of private subsidized elementary schools.

There were three important requirements attached to the program. The first requirement stipulated that participating schools could not charge fees to priority students, although private schools in the voucher system could do so for non-priority students. The second requirement ensured that schools could not select students based on their academic ability, not expel them on academic grounds. The third requirement postulated that schools had to self-enroll themselves in an accountability system that ensured that schools were responsible for the utilization of financial resources and student test scores.

Europe
In most European countries, education for all primary and secondary schools is fully subsidized. In some countries (e.g. Belgium or France), parents are free to choose which school their child attends.

France

Parents can choose either a private school or a public school .  Most private schools are under contract to the French government in which case the French government pays teachers' salaries and they are considered state employees.  Other costs at private schools are paid through fees which are usually low.  Schools under contract follow the French national curriculum.  Some private schools are not under contract giving them more freedom to teach different curricula although the state still monitors educational standards.  Teachers' salaries at private schools not 'under contract' are paid through fees which are therefore much higher than those under contract.  About 20% of French school children attend private schools.  Home schooling is permitted in France.

Ireland

Most schools in the Republic of Ireland are state-aided Catholic parish schools, established under diocesan patronage but with capital costs, teachers' salaries and a fee per head paid to the school. These are given to the school regardless of whether or not it requires its students to pay fees. (Although fee-paying schools are in the minority, there has been much criticism over the state aid they receive. Opponents claim that the aid gives them an unfair advantage.)

There is a recent trend towards multi-denominational schools established by parents, and organised as limited companies without share capital. Parents and students are free to choose their own schools. If a school fails to attract students, it immediately loses its fees and eventually loses its teaching posts, and teachers are moved to other schools that are attracting students. The system is perceived to have achieved very successful outcomes for most Irish children.

The 1995–97 "Rainbow Coalition" government, containing ministers from parties of the centre right and the left, introduced free third-level education to primary degree level. Critics charge that this has not increased the number of students from economically deprived backgrounds attending university. However, studies have shown that the removal of tuition fees at third level has increased the numbers of students overall and of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Since the economic crisis of 2008 there has been extensive debate regarding the possible reintroduction of third-level fees.

Sweden

In Sweden, a system of school vouchers (called skolpeng) was introduced in 1992 at primary and secondary school level, enabling free choice among publicly run schools and privately run friskolor ("free schools"). The voucher is paid with public funds from the local municipality (kommun) directly to a school based solely on its number of students. Both public schools and free schools are funded the same way. Free schools can be run by not-for-profit groups as well as by for-profit companies, but may not charge top-up fees or select students other than on a first-come, first-served basis. Over 10% of Swedish pupils were enrolled in free schools in 2008 and the number is growing fast, leading the country to be viewed as a pioneer of the model.

Per Unckel, governor of Stockholm and former Minister of Education, has promoted the system, saying "Education is so important that you can't just leave it to one producer, because we know from monopoly systems that they do not fulfill all wishes." The Swedish system has been recommended to Barack Obama by some commentators, including the Pacific Research Institute, which has released a documentary called Not As Good As You Think: Myth of the Middle Class Schools, a movie depicting positive benefits for middle class schools resulting from Sweden's voucher programs.

A 2004 study concluded that school results in public schools improved due to the increased competition. However, Per Thulberg, director general of the Swedish National Agency for Education, has said that the system "has not led to better results" and in the 2000s Sweden's ranking in the PISA league tables worsened.  Though Rachel Wolf, director of the New Schools Network, has suggested that Sweden's education standards had slipped for reasons other than as a result of free schools.

A 2015 study was able to show that "an increase in the share of independent school students improves average short‐ and long‐run outcomes, explained primarily by external effects (e.g. school competition)".

Hong Kong
A voucher system for children three to six years-old who attend a non-profit kindergarten was implemented in Hong Kong in 2007. Each child will get HK$13,000 per year. The $13,000 subsidy will be separated into two parts. $10,000 is used to subsidize the school fee and the remaining $3,000 is used for kindergarten teachers to pursue further education and obtain a certificate in Education. Also, there are some restrictions on the voucher system. Parents can only choose non-profit schools with a yearly fee less than $24,000. The government hoped that all kindergarten teachers can obtain an Education certificate by the year 2011–12, at which point the subsidies are to be adjusted to $16,000 for each student, all of which will go toward the school fee.

Milton Friedman criticised the system, saying "I do not believe that CE Mr. Tsang's proposal is properly structured." He said that the whole point of a voucher system is to provide a competitive market place so should not be limited to non-profit kindergartens. 

After protests by parents with children enrolled in for profit kindergartens, the program was extended to children in for- profit kindergartens, but only for children enrolled in or before September 2007. The government will also provide up to HK$30,000 subsidy to for profit kindergartens wanting to convert to non profit.

Pakistan

In Pakistani Punjab, the Education Voucher Scheme (EVS) was introduced by Dr. Allah Bakhsh Malik Managing Director and Chief Executive of Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), especially in urban slums and poorest of the poor in 2005. The initial study was sponsored by Open Society Institute New York USA. Professor Henry M. Levin extended Pro-Bono services for children of poor families from Punjab. To ensure educational justice and integration, the government must ensure that the poorest families have equal access to quality education. The voucher scheme was designed by the Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Open Society Institute. It aims to promote freedom of choice, efficiency, equity, and social cohesion.

A pilot project was started in 2006 in the urban slums of Sukhnehar, Lahore, where a survey showed that all households lived below the poverty line. Through the EVS, the foundation would deliver education vouchers to every household with children 5–16 years of age. The vouchers would be redeemable against tuition payments at participating private schools. In the pilot stage, 1,053 households were given an opportunity to send their children to a private school of their choice. The EVS makes its partner schools accountable to the parents rather than to the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education. In the FAS program, every school principal has the choice to admit a student or not. However, in the EVS, a partner school cannot refuse a student if the student has a voucher and the family has chosen that school. The partner schools are also accountable to the PEF: they are subject to periodic reviews of their student learning outcomes, additional private investments, and improvements in working conditions of the teachers. The EVS provides an incentive to parents to send their children to school, and so it has become a source of competition among private schools seeking to join the program.

When it comes to the selection of schools, the following criteria are applied across the board: (i) The fee paid by the PEF to EVS partner schools is PKR 550 to per child per month. Schools charging higher fees can also apply to the program, but they will not be paid more than PKR 1200, and they will not be entitled to charge the difference to students' families. (ii) Total school enrollment should be at least 50 children.  (iii) The school should have an adequate infrastructure and a good learning environment. (iv) EVS partner schools should be located within a half-kilometer radius of the residences of voucher holders. However, if the parents prefer a particular school farther away, the PEF will not object, provided that the school fulfills the EVS selection criteria. (v) The PEF advertises to stimulate the interest of potential partner schools. It then gives students at short-listed schools preliminary tests in selected subjects, and conducts physical inspections of these schools. PEF offices display a list of all the EVS partner schools so that parents may consult it and choose a school for their children.

By now more than 500,000 students are benefiting from EVS and the program is being scaled up by financing from Government of Punjab.

School voucher public policy in the United States

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pushed for vouchers, as did the George W. Bush administration in the initial education-reform proposals leading up to the No Child Left Behind Act. As of December 2016, 14 states had traditional school voucher programs. These states consist of: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., also had operating school voucher programs as of December 2016.  When including scholarship tax credits and education savings accounts – two alternatives to vouchers – there are 27 states plus the District of Columbia with private school choice programs. Most of these programs were offered to students in low-income families, low performing schools, or students with disabilities. By 2014, the number participating in either vouchers or tax-credit scholarships increased to 250,000, a 30% increase from 2010, but still a small fraction compared to the 55 million in traditional schools.

In 1990, the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's public schools were the first to offer vouchers and has nearly 15,000 students using vouchers as of 2011. The program, entitled the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, originally funded school vouchers for nonreligious, private institutions. It was, however, eventually expanded to include private, religious institutions after it saw success with nonreligious, private institutions. The 2006/07 school year marked the first time in Milwaukee that more than $100 million was paid in vouchers. Twenty-six percent of Milwaukee students will receive public funding to attend schools outside the traditional Milwaukee Public School system. In fact, if the voucher program alone were considered a school district, it would mark the sixth-largest district in Wisconsin.  St. Anthony Catholic School, located on Milwaukee's south side, boasts 966 voucher students, meaning that it very likely receives more public money for general school support of a parochial elementary or high school than any before it in American history. A 2013 study of Milwaukee's program posited that the use of vouchers increased the probability that a student would graduate from high school, go to college, and stay in college. A 2015 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that participation in Louisiana's voucher program "substantially reduces academic achievement" although that the result may be reflective of the poor quality of private schools in the program.

Recent analysis of the competitive effects of school vouchers in Florida suggests that more competition improves performance in the regular public schools.

The largest school voucher program in the United States is Indiana's Indiana Choice Scholarships program.

Proponents
Proponents of school voucher and education tax credit systems argue that those systems promote free market competition among both private and public schools by allowing parents and students to choose the school where to use the vouchers. This choice available to parents forces schools to perpetually improve in order to maintain enrollment. Thus, proponents argue that a voucher system increases school performance and accountability because it provides consumer sovereignty – allowing individuals to choose what product to buy, as opposed to a bureaucracy.

This argument is supported by studies such as "When Schools Compete: The Effects of Vouchers on Florida Public School Achievement" (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, 2003), which concluded that public schools located near private schools that were eligible to accept voucher students made significantly more improvements than did similar schools not located near eligible private schools. Stanford's Caroline Hoxby, who has researched the systemic effects of school choice, determined that areas with greater residential school choice have consistently higher test scores at a lower per-pupil cost than areas with very few school districts. Hoxby studied the effects of vouchers in Milwaukee and of charter schools in Arizona and Michigan on nearby public schools. Public schools forced to compete made greater test-score gains than schools not faced with such competition, and that the so-called effect of cream skimming did not exist in any of the voucher districts examined. Hoxby's research has found that both private and public schools improved through the use of vouchers.

Similarly, it is argued that such competition has helped in higher education, with publicly funded universities directly competing with private universities for tuition money provided by the Government, such as the GI Bill and the Pell Grant in the United States. The Foundation for Educational Choice alleges that a school voucher plan "embodies exactly the same principle as the GI bills that provide for educational benefits to military veterans. The veteran gets a voucher good only for educational expense and he is completely free to choose the school at which he uses it, provided that it satisfies certain standards". The Pell Grant, a need-based aid, like the Voucher, can only be used for authorized school expenses at qualified schools, and, like the Pell, the money follows the student, for use against those authorized expenses (not all expenses are covered).

Proponents are encouraged by private school sector growth, as they believe that private schools are typically more efficient at achieving results at a much lower per-pupil cost than public schools. A CATO Institute study of public and private school per pupil spending in Phoenix, Los Angeles, D.C., Chicago, New York City, and Houston found that public schools spend 93% more than estimated median private schools.

Proponents claim that institutions often are forced to operate more efficiently when they are made to compete and that any resulting job losses in the public sector would be offset by the increased demand for jobs in the private sector.

Friedrich von Hayek on the privatizing of education:

Other notable supporters include New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, former Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford, billionaire and American philanthropist John T. Walton, Former Mayor of Baltimore Kurt L. Schmoke,  Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and John McCain. A random survey of 210 Ph.D. holding members of the American Economic Association, found that over two-thirds of economists support giving parents educational vouchers that can be used at government-operated or privately operated schools, and that support is greater if the vouchers are to be used by parents with low-incomes or parents with children in poorly performing schools.

Another prominent proponent of the voucher system was Apple co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, who said:

As a practical matter, proponents note, most U.S. programs only offer poor families the same choice more affluent families already have, by providing them with the means to leave a failing school and attend one where the child can get an education. Because public schools are funded on a per-pupil basis, the money simply follows the child, but the cost to taxpayers is less because the voucher generally is less than the actual cost.

In addition, they say, the comparisons of public and private schools on average are meaningless. Vouchers usually are utilized by children in failing schools, so they can hardly be worse off even if the parents fail to choose a better school. Also, focusing on the effect on the public school suggests that is more important than the education of children.

Some proponents of school vouchers, including the Sutherland Institute and many supporters of the Utah voucher effort, see it as a remedy for the negative cultural impact caused by under-performing public schools, which falls disproportionately on demographic minorities. During the run-up to the November referendum election, Sutherland issued a controversial publication: Voucher, Vows, & Vexations. Sutherland called the publication an important review of the history of education in Utah, while critics just called it revisionist history.  Sutherland then released a companion article in a law journal as part of an academic conference about school choice.

EdChoice, founded by Milton and Rose Friedman in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes universal school vouchers and other forms of school choice. In defense of vouchers, it cites empirical research showing that students who were randomly assigned to receive vouchers had higher academic outcomes than students who applied for vouchers but lost a random lottery and did not receive them; and that vouchers improve academic outcomes at public schools, reduce racial segregation, deliver better services to special education students, and do not drain money from public schools.

EdChoice also argues that education funding should belong to children, not a specific school type or building. Their purpose for the argument is to try to argue that people should prioritize a student's education and their opportunity over making a specific type of school better. They also emphasize that if a family chooses a public school, the funds also go to that school. This would mean that it would also benefit those who value the public education system.

Opponents
The main critique of school vouchers and education tax credits is that they put public education in competition with private education, threatening to reduce and reallocate public school funding to private schools. Opponents question the belief that private schools are more efficient.

Public school teachers and teacher unions have also fought against school vouchers. In the United States, public school teacher unions, most notably the National Education Association (the largest labor union in the USA), argue that school vouchers erode educational standards and reduce funding, and that giving money to parents who choose to send their child to a religious or other school is unconstitutional. The latter issue was struck down by the Supreme Court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, which upheld Ohio's voucher plan in a 5–4 ruling. In contrast, the use of public school funding for vouchers to private schools was disallowed by the Louisiana Supreme Court in 2013. The Louisiana Supreme Court did not declare vouchers unconstitutional, just the use of money earmarked for public schools via the Louisiana Constitution for funding Louisiana's voucher program.  The National Education Association also points out that access to vouchers is just like "a chance in a lottery" where parents had to be lucky in order to get a space in this program. Since almost all students and their families would like to choose the best schools, those schools, as a result, quickly reach its maximum capacity number for students that state law permits. Those who did not get vouchers then have to compete again to look for some other less preferred and competitive schools or give up searching and go back to their assigned local schools. Jonathan Kozol, a prominent public school reform thinker and former public school teacher called vouchers the "single worst, most dangerous idea to have entered education discourse in my adult life".

The National Education Association additionally argues that more money should go towards public education to help the schools struggling and improve the schools overall, instead of reducing the public school's fund to go towards school vouchers. Their argument claims that increasing that amount of money that goes towards public education would also increase the amount of resources put into public schools, therefore, improving the education. This argument made towards school vouchers reflect the way the organization values public education. For example, in an interview in May 2017 regarding Donald Trump's 2018 Budget Proposal, the organization's president, Lily Eskelsen García, claimed:

"We should invest in what makes schools great, the things that build curiosity and instill a love of learning. That is what every student deserves and what every parent wants for his or her child. It should not depend on how much their parents make, what language they speak at home, and certainly, not what neighborhood they live in." – National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García.

Furthermore, there are multiple studies that support the arguments made by opponents of school vouchers. One of these studies, conducted by the Tulane University's Education Research Alliance, consists of observing the relationship between voucher programs and student's test scores. They found that students in the Louisiana voucher program initially had lower test scores, but after three years, their scores matched those of students who stayed in public schools from standardized test scores spanning from 2012 to 2015.

People who can benefit from vouchers may not know it. In April 2012, a bill passed in Louisiana that made vouchers available to low-income families whose children attended poorly ranked schools. A student whose household income was low (up to about $44,000 for a family of three) and who attended a school ranked "C", "D", or "F" could apply for vouchers to attend another.  Of the estimated 380,000 eligible students during the school year when the bill was passed (2012/13), only 5,000 students knew about and applied for the vouchers, and accepted them.

In 2006, the United States Department of Education released a report concluding that average test scores for reading and mathematics, when adjusted for student and school characteristics, tend to be very similar among public schools and private schools.  Private schools performed significantly better than public schools only if results were not adjusted for factors such as race, gender, and free or reduced price lunch program eligibility. Other research questions assumptions that large improvements would result from a more comprehensive voucher system.

Given the limited budget for schools, it is claimed that a voucher system would weaken public schools while not providing enough money for people to attend private schools. 76% of the money given in Arizona's voucher program went to children already in private schools.

Some sources claim that public schools' higher per-pupil spending is due to having a higher proportion of students with behavioral, physical and emotional problems, since in the United States, public schools must by law accept any student regardless of race, gender, religion, disability, educational aptitude, and so forth, while private schools are not so bound.  They argue that some, if not all, of the cost difference between public and private schools comes from "cream skimming", whereby the private schools select only those students who belong to a preferred group – whether economic, religious, educational aptitude level, or ethnicity – rather than from differences in administration.  The result, it has been argued, is that a voucher system has led or would lead students who do not belong to the private schools' preferred groupings to become concentrated at public schools. However, of the ten state-run voucher programs in the United States at the beginning of 2011, four targeted low-income students, two targeted students in failing schools, and six targeted students with special needs. (Louisiana ran a single program targeting all three groups.)

It is also argued that voucher programs are often implemented without the necessary safeguards that prevent institutions from discriminating against marginalized communities. In the United States, as of 2016, there are currently no state laws that require voucher programs to not discriminate against marginalized communities. Further, while some voucher programs may explicitly be aimed at marginalized communities, this is not necessarily always the case. A common argument for school vouchers is that it allows for marginalized communities of color to be uplifted from poverty. Historically, however, data suggests that voucher programs have been used to further segregate Americans. Further, some data has shown that the effects of voucher programs such as the New York City School Choice Scholarship Program, are marginal when it comes to increasing student achievement.

Another argument against a school voucher system is its lack of accountability to taxpayers. In many states, members of a community's board of education are elected by voters. Similarly, a school budget faces a referendum. Meetings of the Board of Education must be announced in advance, and members of the public are permitted to voice their concerns directly to board members. By contrast, although vouchers may be used in private and religious schools, taxpayers cannot vote on budget issues, elect members of the board or even attend board meetings. Even voucher proponents acknowledge that decreased transparency and accountability for public funds are problematic features of the voucher system, and some have suggested a 'sliding scale' approach wherein oversight and accountability increase in proportion to the number of taxpayer dollars (in the form of vouchers) received by the private school.

Kevin Welner points out that vouchers funded through a convoluted tax credit system – a policy he calls "neovouchers" – present additional accountability concerns. With neovoucher systems, a taxpayer owing money to the state instead donates that money to a private, nonprofit organization. That organization then bundles donations and gives them to parents as vouchers to be used for private school tuition. The state then steps in and forgives (through a tax credit) some or all of the taxes that the donor has given to the organization. While conventional tax credit systems are structured to treat all private school participants equally, neovoucher systems effectively delegate to individual private taxpayers (those owing money to the state) the power to decide which private schools will benefit.

An example of lack of accountability is the voucher situation in Louisiana. In 2012,  Louisiana State Superintendent of Education John White selected private schools to receive vouchers, then tried to fabricate criteria (including site visits) after schools had already received approval letters. One school of note, New Living Word in Ruston, Louisiana, did not have sufficient facilities for the over-300 students White and the state board of education had approved. Following a voucher audit in 2013, New Living Word had overcharged the state $395,000. White referred to the incident as a "lone substantive issue". However, most voucher schools did not undergo a complete audit for not having a separate checking account for state voucher money.

According to Susanne Wiborg, an expert on comparative education, Sweden's voucher system introduced in 1992 has "augmented social and ethnic segregation, particularly in relation to schools in deprived areas".

Tax-credit scholarships which are in most part disbursed to current private school students or to families which made substantial donations to the scholarship fund, rather than to low-income students attempting to escape from failing schools, amount to nothing more than a mechanism to use public funds in the form of foregone taxes to support private, often religiously based, private schools.

Legal challenges
The school voucher question in the United States has also received a considerable amount of judicial review in the early 2000s.

A program launched in the city of Cleveland in 1995 and authorized by the state of Ohio was challenged in court on the grounds that it violated both the federal constitutional principle of separation of church and state and the guarantee of religious liberty in the Ohio Constitution. These claims were rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court, but the federal claims were upheld by the local federal district court and by the Sixth Circuit appeals court. The fact that nearly all of the families using vouchers attended Catholic schools in the Cleveland area was cited in the decisions.

This was later reversed during 2002 in a landmark case before the US Supreme Court, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, in which the divided court, in a 5–4 decision, ruled the Ohio school voucher plan constitutional and removed any constitutional barriers to similar voucher plans in the future, with conservative justices Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas in the majority.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the majority, stated that "The incidental advancement of a religious mission, or the perceived endorsement of a religious message, is reasonably attributable to the individual aid recipients not the government, whose role ends with the disbursement of benefits." The Supreme Court ruled that the Ohio program did not violate the Establishment Clause, because it passed a five-part test developed by the Court in this case, titled the Private Choice Test.

Dissenting opinions included Justice Stevens's, who wrote "...the voluntary character of the private choice to prefer a parochial education over an education in the public school system seems to me quite irrelevant to the question whether the government's choice to pay for religious indoctrination is constitutionally permissible" and Justice Souter's, whose opinion questioned how the Court could keep Everson v. Board of Education on as precedent and decide this case in the way they did, feeling it was contradictory. He also found that religious instruction and secular education could not be separated and this itself violated the Establishment Clause.

In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court struck down legislation known as the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which would have implemented a system of school vouchers in Florida. The court ruled that the OSP violated article IX, section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution: "Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools." This decision was criticized by Clark Neily, Institute for Justice senior attorney and  legal counsel to Pensacola families using Florida Opportunity Scholarships, as, "educational policymaking".

Political support
Political support for school vouchers in the United States is mixed. On the left/right spectrum, conservatives are more likely to support vouchers. Some state legislatures have enacted voucher laws.  In New Mexico, then-Republican Gary Johnson made school voucher provision the major issue of his second term as governor.  As of 2006, the federal government operates the largest voucher program, for evacuees from the region affected by Hurricane Katrina.  The Federal government provided a voucher program for 7,500 residents of Washington, D.C. – the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.  until in early March 2009 congressional Democrats were moving to close down the program  and remove children from their voucher-funded school places at the end of the 2009/10 school year under the $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 which, as of March 7 had passed the House and was pending in the Senate. The Obama administration stated that it preferred to allow children already enrolled in the program to finish their schooling while closing the program to new entrants.  However, its preference on this matter does not appear to be strong enough to prevent the President from signing the Bill.

Whether or not the public generally supports vouchers is debatable. Majorities seem to favor improving existing schools over providing vouchers, yet as many as 40% of those surveyed admit that they do not know enough to form an opinion or do not understand the system of school vouchers.

In November 2000, a voucher system proposed by Tim Draper was placed on the California ballot as Proposition 38. It was unusual among school voucher proposals in that it required neither accreditation on the part of schools accepting vouchers, nor proof of need on the part of families applying for them; neither did it have any requirement that schools accept vouchers as payment-in-full, nor any other provision to guarantee a reduction in the real cost of private school tuition. The measure was defeated by a final percentage tally of 70.6 to 29.4.

A statewide universal school voucher system providing a maximum tuition subsidy of $3,000 was passed in Utah in 2007, but 62% of voters repealed it in a statewide referendum before it took effect. On April 27, 2011 Indiana passed a statewide voucher program, the largest in the U.S. It offers up to $4,500 to students with household incomes under $41,000, and lesser benefits to households with higher incomes. The vouchers can be used to fund a variety of education options outside the public school system. In March 2013, the Indiana Supreme Court found that the program does not violate the state constitution.

Trump's 2018 Budget 
President Donald Trump proposed a 2018 budget that includes $250 million for voucher initiatives, which are state-funded programs that pay for students to go to private school. This 2018 budget served the purpose of "Expanding school choice, ensuring more children have an equal opportunity to receive a great education, maintaining strong support for the Nation's most vulnerable students, simplifying funding for post secondary education, continuing to build evidence around educational innovation, and eliminating or reducing Department programs consistent with the limited Federal role in education." The Budget reduces more than 30 programs that duplicate other programs, which are ineffective; or are more appropriately supported with State, local, or private funds. Another $1 billion is set aside for encouraging schools to adopt school choice-friendly policies.

Betsy DeVos, Trump's education secretary, is also an advocate for voucher programs, and has argued that they would lead to better educational outcomes for students. Both Trump and DeVos want to propose cutting the Education Department's budget by about $3.6 billion and spend more than $1 billion on private school vouchers and other school choice plans.

DeVos makes a statement regarding the purpose and importance of the budget. DeVos claims:

This budget makes an historic investment in America's students. President Trump is committed to ensuring the Department focuses on returning decision-making power back to the States, where it belongs, and on giving parents more control over their child's education. By refocusing the Department's funding priorities on supporting students, we can usher in a new era of creativity and ingenuity and lay a new foundation for American greatness. – Betsy DeVos, U.S. Secretary of Education

Teaching creationism instead of evolution
Some private religious schools in voucher programs teach creationism instead of the theory of evolution, including religious schools that teach religious theology side by side with or in place of science.  Over 300 schools in the U.S. have been documented as teaching creation and receive taxpayer money. Contrary to popular belief , a strict definition of state-funded religious education was narrowly deemed constitutional in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002). However, currently 35 states have passed various Blaine Amendments restricting or prohibiting public funding of religious education.

See also 

 Scholarship
 Student debt
 Student loan

References

Further reading
 Dennis Epple, Richard E. Romano, and Miguel Urquiola. "School Vouchers: A Survey of the Economics". Journal of Economic Literature. Jun 2017, Vol. 55, No. 2: Pages 441-492
 Carl, Jim. Freedom of Choice: Vouchers in American Education. (Westport: Praeger, 2011), 264 pp.
 
 
 
  - Hosted by the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC)

Alternative education
Education issues
Education economics
Fiscal policy Kevin G. Welner (born December 26, 1963) is professor of education at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, where he chairs the Educational Foundations Policy and Practice program area. He co-founded and is Director of the National Education Policy Center. He has authored or edited 11 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters concerning education policy and law.

Education and Career
Welner received a B.A. from University of California-Santa Barbara, a J.D. at UCLA School of Law, and a Ph.D. from UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. During his early career he received a National Academy of Education/Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

Welner joined the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education in 1999 as an Assistant Professor. He became a Professor in 2009. where he serves as a professor of educational foundation policy and practice.

In 2014, Welner co-founded the Schools of Opportunity awards project, which seeks to "highlight public high schools that actively seek to close opportunity gaps."

Recognition (awards/honors)

In 2012, Welner was inducted as an American Educational Research Association Fellow. Welner is notable for making technical research documents that are accessible to the general public, and for participating in public academic debates on education reform issues such as standardized testing and school choice. Other awards and recognitions include:

 Outstanding Public Communication of Education Research Award, American Educational Research Association, 2017
 Early Career Award, American Educational Research Association, 2006
 Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award, American Educational Research Association, 2005
 Spencer Fellows, conferred by National Academy of Education, 2000

Views and Research
Welner has studied the public right to education, tracking, school vouchers, school choice, educational equity, and the use of research.

Vouchers and School Choice 
In 2005, Welner conducted research on school vouchers as a resident of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. That research was later published as a major work on school vouchers, NeoVouchers: The Emergence of Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling. The book provided an early explanation of the legal and policy issues surrounding a then-new type of private school vouchers. These neo-vouchers were created by giving large tax credits for donations to organizations that then packaged those donations as vouchers to fund tuition. Welner's work on school choice is employed and reviewed in several publications.

Bibliography

References

External links 
 
 
 

Living people
Education policy
People from Boulder, Colorado
University of Colorado faculty
1963 births