[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 20 (Monday, February 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S686-S694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Russia

  Finally, Madam President, I ask my Republican colleagues to put 
country over party when it comes to Russia. This administration has 
shown a disquieting reluctance to criticize Russia when it flouts 
international norms and laws. The administration seems hesitant to 
enforce new sanctions and has even hinted at relaxing existing 
sanctions at what has always been our most formidable enemy along with 
ISIS: Russia and Putin.
  Unbelievably, just yesterday the President insinuated that the 
Russian and American Governments were somehow morally equivalent. When 
asked about Putin's authoritarian regime, President Trump responded: 
``There are a lot of killers. You think our country is so innocent?'' 
Can you imagine if a Democrat had said that? Every one of these seats 
would be filled with people decrying that kind of moral equivalence.
  Russia, a dictatorship where Putin kills his enemies, imprisons the 
press, and causes trouble anywhere he can in the world is morally 
equivalent to this great land? Come on. Where are you? You know if the 
Democrats had said that you would be howling at the moon, and 
rightfully so. But here, I don't hear much.
  Vladimir Putin has little or no respect for the diversity of his 
people, for freedom of religion and expression, for a free press, for 
free and fair elections in Russia--and America, it seems--and he has 
demonstrated on more than one occasion that he will go to any length to 
silence political dissidents, including murdering them. I would ask 
President Trump: Does that sound like America? Maybe in President 
Trump's mind it does, but it sure doesn't to most of America--just 
about every American. It is not the America that this body represents.
  As I said, my Republican colleagues ought to be aghast. I don't think 
anyone from the other side would associate himself or herself with 
those comments. I am encouraged that the Republican leader and other 
Senate Republicans have criticized the President for those dangerous 
remarks, but what worries me most is the policy. Russia is a persistent 
and strategic threat to this Nation. Will this administration cozy up 
to Putin and his oligarchs and relax sanctions? Will they look the

[[Page S687]]

other way when Russia supports separatists in Ukraine, commits human 
rights violations alongside Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime? 
Putin is the kind of person who, if you give him an inch, he takes 10 
miles. We all have come across people like that.
  President Trump's rhetoric is ceding more of the battlespace to our 
enemies each day. So what we must do in this body is ensure that 
current sanctions stay in place and are robustly enforced. We also need 
to increase sanctions on Russia for its interference with our election. 
We ask our colleagues to step up to the plate, do what they know is 
right, and join us in making sure that the President cannot 
unilaterally reduce sanctions and that we strengthen sanctions for what 
he has tried to do in our election. The stakes are too high to let 
loyalty to this President--any President--stop this body from doing the 
right thing for the American people.
  On the Cabinet and particularly Mrs. DeVos, on the Executive order, 
the lack of respect for an independent judiciary, and on Russia, I ask 
my Republican colleagues once again to consider principle over party 
and their duty to country before deference to the President.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, over the last few weeks, people across 
the country have continued to make their voices heard in opposition to 
the nomination of Betsy DeVos--moms and dads, grandmothers and 
grandfathers, students young and old, and cities, towns, urban, 
suburban, and rural communities. People are standing up and they will 
not be silenced. Thousands upon thousands have joined protests in their 
communities. Hundreds of thousands have emailed or called their 
Senators, jamming our phone lines, swamping the voicemail system, and 
shattering records. Millions have engaged on social media, sharing 
information with their friends, signing petitions, and pressuring their 
elected officials.
  It has made a difference. Every single Democrat will be standing with 
their constituents and opposing Betsy DeVos. Just last week, two 
Republicans announced their opposition as well. I can tell you I know 
for a fact there are other Republicans who are feeling the heat and 
could come around.
  This nomination is dead even right now, on the razor's edge. Fifty 
Senators, Democrats and Republicans will vote to reject Betsy DeVos. We 
need just one more Republican to join us, to stand on the side of 
students, parents, and public education in America and say no to Betsy 
DeVos.
  I come to the floor to kick off the final day of debate on this 
nomination. On Friday, I spoke at length, making my case for why the 
Senate should oppose Betsy DeVos. Democrats will hold the floor for the 
next 24 hours, until the final vote, to do everything we can to 
persuade just one more Republican to join us.
  I strongly encourage people across the country to join us. Double 
down on your advocacy, keep making your voices heard for these last 24 
hours.
  Over the past 3 weeks, I have heard a number of Republicans wonder 
why Democrats and so many parents and teachers across the country were 
so focused on this nomination in this moment. President Trump has done 
so much in these first few weeks, and so many of his people he has 
nominated to run critical agencies have not been people I can support, 
but what is it about Betsy DeVos that has inspired so much grassroots 
energy and opposition across this country?
  I think I understand. It is very clear to me. For the vast majority 
of people across the country, public education isn't just another 
issue, it is different. For those of us who owe everything we have to 
the strong public education we received, for those who saw our children 
and grandchildren move through our public schools, for those of us who 
walked into a public classroom ourselves to teach or have friends or 
family who have dedicated their lives to teaching, for those of us who 
see the role strong public schools play in our communities, especially 
our rural communities, often offering an educational and a community 
resource where it simply wouldn't otherwise be offered, we believe that 
a commitment to strong public schools is part of America's core, the 
idea that every student in every community should have the 
opportunities that strong public schools offer. This is a notion that 
is embedded in our values. It is who we are. It is in our blood.
  For those people across the country who feel that way, who believe 
those things, the nomination of Betsy DeVos truly hits close to home. 
It was a slap in the face because she doesn't approach this the way 
most of us do. She doesn't cherish public education. She doesn't value 
it. She is someone who has dedicated her career and her inherited 
fortune to privatizing public schools, to tearing down public 
education, to defunding it in order to push more taxpayer dollars into 
private schools and for-profit charters. She has called public 
education ``a dead end.'' Where she sits from a distance, she has 
called it ``an embarrassment.'' She has disparaged those who work in 
our public schools, saying our best and our brightest ``steer clear.'' 
She has said education is ``an industry.''
  An industry? Well, for someone such as she, a billionaire, rightwing 
activist who spent her career and inherited fortune buying and selling 
companies, she just doesn't understand an ``industry'' that isn't 
focused on profits and that doesn't exist in the free market. When 
people across the country hear someone such as Betsy DeVos say these 
things about public education, when they hear a rightwing conservative 
billionaire more focused on her antigovernment ideology than helping 
our students, when they see that someone who spent her career trying to 
destroy public schools has been nominated to lead the Federal Agency 
dedicated to public education, they start to pay some attention.
  In a Senate hearing, when they see that person so clearly lack any of 
the issues, when they see her unable to explain basic concepts in 
education policy, unwilling to make basic commitments to not 
privatizing or defunding our public schools, confused about the need 
for Federal protections for students with disabilities and so committed 
to a rightwing agenda that she pointed to the need for guns in our 
schools to protect against ``potential grizzly bears'' in response to a 
question from a Senator representing the Newtown families, people 
across the country pay even more attention, and they start to make 
their voices heard.
  I am not surprised that opposition to Betsy DeVos has caught fire 
across the country. I am not surprised people are talking about it to 
their friends, writing letters to the Senators, and showing up to 
protest when they have never done anything like that before because 
this is about their kids, their schools, and their communities. It is 
about the core idea that we are a nation that invests in strong public 
education and one that strives to guarantee the promise and opportunity 
it affords to every student in our country--not that public education 
is perfect, of course not. We have a lot of work to do, but that work 
should be directed toward strengthening public schools, not tearing 
them down. Public education is something that should be valued as an 
important piece of the fabric of this Nation and the expansion of our 
middle class, not scorned and ridiculed by billionaires who never had 
any use for it themselves.
  Friday I spent a lot of time on the floor laying out my case in 
detail opposing Betsy DeVos. I talked about the open questions that are 
remaining regarding her tangled finances and potential conflicts of 
interest. I ran through the strong concerns with her record, her lack 
of experience, and her lack of clear understanding of basic education 
issues. I discussed my strong belief that her vision for education in 
America is deeply at odds with where parents, students, and families 
across our country want to go. I went through the process of how 
Republicans jammed this nominee through our committee, cutting corners 
and doing everything possible to protect her from scrutiny. I will not 
go through all of that again now, but I do want to make one more point, 
one I hope will be compelling to my Republican friends who are still 
resisting pressure from their constituents and sticking with Betsy 
DeVos; that is, no matter what you think about Betsy DeVos's policy 
ideas, no matter what you think of her qualifications to run this 
agency, no matter

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what you think about her personal understanding of the issues or her 
financial entanglements, one thing is very clear; if she is confirmed, 
she would enter this job as the most controversial and embattled 
Secretary in the history of this Department. She would start this job 
with no credibility inside the agency she is supposed to lead, with no 
influence in Congress, as the punch line in late-night comedy shows, 
and without the confidence of the American people.
  A vote for Betsy DeVos is a vote for a Secretary of Education who is 
likely to succeed only in further dividing us on education issues and 
who may try to take steps to try to implement her anti-student agenda 
but would do so with people across the country. So many of us in the 
Senate are on guard and ready to fight back.
  I urge my Republican friends--and we just need one more--let's cut 
this off right now. Let's ask President Trump to send us someone who is 
qualified, who understands the issues, and who truly cares about public 
education. Together, let's stand with our constituents and say no to 
Betsy DeVos.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I wish to start by thanking Senator 
Murray and the Members of the HELP Committee for the work they have 
done to cast light on the record and the lack of record of Mrs. Betsy 
DeVos, President Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Education.
  As the Senator from Washington has told us, the more the American 
people learn about the record of Betsy DeVos, the more concerned they 
become. The American people are making their voices heard in every 
Senate office. The switchboard has been essentially shut down, and I 
can tell you that I have received over 14,000 calls from Maryland on 
this nominee alone.
  People are calling because the more they look at the record, the more 
they realize this nominee's lack of commitment to the essential mission 
of the Department of Education. That mission is to provide every child 
in America with access to a quality public education. This concern 
about the nominee is shared across political parties.
  As Senator Susan Collins of Maine said on this floor, Mrs. DeVos's 
concentration on vouchers ``raises the question about whether she fully 
appreciates that the Secretary Of Education's primary focus must be on 
helping States and communities, parents, teachers, school board 
members, and administrators strengthen our public schools.''
  Regardless of ZIP Code, our mission must be to provide every child 
with access to a high-quality neighborhood public school. It is 
absolutely true that in too many places around in country we are 
failing to meet the goal, but the response to a troubled school should 
not be to walk away from it in favor of sketchy voucher schemes. 
Instead we must work together to provide the necessary resources and 
interventions to help those schools and those students achieve success. 
Over the last 2 years, I have spent a lot of time traveling over the 
great State of Maryland. I visited schools, talked to college students, 
and heard from parents. No matter where I went, in every part of our 
State, everybody wanted the same thing: a good school, affordable 
college, either community college or 4-year colleges, and a fair shot 
at reaching their dreams.
  The U.S. Department of Education is supposed to help them get that 
opportunity. Let me take a moment to talk about what the Department of 
Education means to some neighborhoods in my State of Maryland. Not long 
ago, I visited a pair of community schools in Baltimore City, the 
Historic Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Elementary School in Upton/Druid 
Heights in West Baltimore and the Benjamin Franklin High School in 
Brooklyn, South Baltimore. Upton/Druid Heights is a historic African-
American community in Baltimore. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood 
Marshall, jazz great Cab Calloway, and civil rights pioneer Lillie Mae 
Carroll Jackson all walked its streets, but today it is a community in 
distress. Most of its children live in poverty; 95 percent of the 
students at Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Elementary are on free or reduced 
lunch. Despite its challenges, it has a strong faith-based institution 
and community groups. Mrs. DeVos's approach to schools such as Samuel 
Coleridge-Taylor has been to give up on them, to abandon them, and to 
divert resources to voucher programs.
  Fortunately, the Department of Education did not abandon this 
school. In 2012, it designated Upton/Druid Heights as a Promise 
Neighborhood. The Department provided resources to support 
comprehensive services for families. These include B'more for Healthy 
Babies, which has dramatically reduced infant mortality rates in the 
city; Parent University, to help educate parents of young children; and 
financial literacy and education, to help with filling out income tax 
forms and to help families manage their budgets.

  In 2012, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor became a community school. It has a 
community school coordinator, a position that can be filled using funds 
under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which 
provides financial assistance to schools with high numbers of children 
from low-income families. The community school coordinator works with 
parents, students, educators, and community residents to learn the 
needs of the neighborhood and form partnerships to meet them. The 
University of Maryland School of Social Work, which is located just 
down the road, joined them to provide trauma training so that teachers 
could recognize and respond to trauma among the children and go on home 
visits to work with families. They received a grant to build a first-
ever playground on campus--something that most schools take for 
granted. Local churches provided safe spaces for kids. The Weinberg 
Foundation donated a beautiful library. There is a jobs center, where 
parents can look for employment, and a food bank, to send kids home 
with something to eat over the weekend. The school was transformed into 
a place where kids want to be, receiving the mayor's award for the 
greatest drop in students at risk for chronic absenteeism. It has been 
a success story.
  In a little different part of town, Ben Franklin High School exists, 
and it is isolated geographically in the Brooklyn neighborhood. It is 
on a peninsula at the southern part of the city. Brooklyn is a historic 
waterfront neighborhood with strong ties to manufacturing. The Brooklyn 
community built ships for the United States in World War II. Many 
families in Brooklyn have been there for generations. As manufacturing 
left and Bethlehem Steel closed--Bethlehem Steel provided about 12,000 
good-paying manufacturing jobs--times got tougher for those working 
families.
  In the year 2011, Benjamin Franklin was one of the bottom 5 percent 
of schools in the State of Maryland--again, one of those schools that 
this nominee would have walked away from in favor of vouchers. Again, 
the good news is the Department of Education did not walk away. It 
provided extra funding to help turn things around. Using the community 
schools model, they assessed and responded to the needs of the 
students.
  Interns from the University of Maryland School of Social Work 
provided mental health services. The United Way offers a workforce 
development program and an onsite early childhood development center 
that helps teen parents graduate, knowing their children have quality 
care. A family stability program helps families avoid homelessness. CSX 
is working with the school to build a football field.
  Students worked together with their neighbors to take ownership of 
their communities and protest the placement of an incinerator near 
them. Some figured that this low-income neighborhood was a good target 
to put an incinerator, but the community fought back and won. They have 
put thousands of hours into community service, including the Chesapeake 
Bay cleanup. The school's office of student service learning helps 
connect students to internships and job-training programs.
  In Brooklyn, the crime rate and the teen pregnancy rates have 
dropped, and attendance at Ben Franklin is up. When I asked the 
students what they liked about the school, they said: ``We feel like 
someone cares now,'' and ``everyone is positive.''
  At both of these schools, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ben Franklin, 
the

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principals told me that the community schools model allowed them to 
form partnerships to meet the needs of their students' lives so that 
they could focus on delivering a high-quality education. Because the 
students' needs are being met more comprehensively, the students can 
focus on learning, and because we have a team outside of the teachers 
who are helping provide some services to these kids, the teachers can 
focus on teaching.
  It is important for us to understand that every child who walks 
through the doors of a school has a unique family circumstance and 
their own individual needs.
  The community school approach emphasizes the fact that no school is 
an island onto itself. Every school is part of a neighborhood, and we 
need to understand the special circumstances of the children and 
families in those neighborhoods. It is not just for urban schools like 
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ben Franklin. Community schools have shown 
success in rural areas of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Montana, and 
all across the country.
  This idea that every child should receive a good public education is 
as old as our Republic itself. Our Nation's Founders knew the 
contribution of education to the success of our democracy. They knew 
that an educated population would be a strong safeguard against 
tyranny. In a letter in 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

       I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is 
     that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No 
     other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of 
     freedom and happiness.

  As early as 1779, Jefferson was putting forward legislation to create 
a public school system that would give children a fair start. Jefferson 
later wrote to John Adams:

       It was a bill for the more general diffusion of learning. 
     This proposed to divide every county into wards of five or 
     six miles square, like your townships; to establish in each 
     ward a free school for reading, writing and common 
     arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best 
     subjects from these schools, who might receive, at the public 
     expense, a higher degree of public education at a district 
school.

  He went on to say:

       Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every 
     condition of life, and completely prepared by education for 
     defeating the competition and birth for public trusts.

  Though America did not start the public education system at that 
moment in time, those ideas and that philosophy of education as the 
great equalizer and tool to develop the talents of Americans, 
regardless of the circumstances of their birth, were the foundation of 
the public school system that we have today.
  President Trump gave remarkably little attention to education during 
his campaign. He pretty much ignored the public school education system 
in favor of his $20 billion voucher scheme that would drain huge 
amounts of resources from neighborhood schools like the two in 
Baltimore that I just discussed. With the President offering only vague 
promises and pricey schemes, it is even more important that we have an 
Education Secretary with a steady hand and a deep understanding of the 
critical mission of the Department. It is clear that Mrs. Betsy DeVos 
is not the right person for the job.
  Mrs. DeVos advocates a concept of industrialized, privatized, and 
for-profit schools. This thinking is too small and too cramped for our 
kids. Our goal should not be vouchers for children to try to shop for a 
school with no accountability for quality. Our goal should be a 
neighborhood school for every child that meets their needs.
  We cannot abandon the families who cannot afford to make up the 
difference between the value of the voucher and the tuition at the 
private school. What do we say to them? We cannot abandon the students 
who cannot get accepted into private schools because many of these 
private schools say yes to some and no to others. What do we say to 
those who have the doors closed on them? We cannot abandon the schools 
that a voucher program would drain the resources from, and $20 billion 
is a huge amount of the resources that we currently provide for schools 
like the two I mentioned in Baltimore City and schools in neighborhoods 
throughout the country. So instead of a risky voucher program, we need 
to make our schools better by giving them the flexibility to meet 
student needs and the support to make sure that our children are all 
ready to learn.
  In her hearing and in the responses to the questions for the record, 
Mrs. DeVos displayed an astonishing ignorance about the agency that she 
intends to run and, indeed, about the role of public schools in our 
country. All of us who have been part of this debate know that one of 
the most fundamental discussions in K-12 policy has been over 
accountability and how best to measure student knowledge and school 
performance. There has been an intense discussion over whether to 
measure school and student performance by student proficiency or by 
student improvement and student growth. Mrs. DeVos seemed totally 
confused about this discussion that is going to the heart of many of 
the debates here in Congress.
  Perhaps we should not be so surprised that she has such little 
understanding of the public education system, as she has spent much of 
her career attempting to dismantle it in favor of private, charter, and 
for-profit schools. She has been referred to as the ``four-star general 
of the voucher movement.'' She has forcefully worked to expand 
vouchers, including spending millions on a failed ballot initiative to 
bring vouchers to the State of Michigan. When that didn't work, she 
created the Great Lakes Education Project to fund nonprofits and donate 
to State legislators who would advance vouchers and charters. With 
respect to the millions of dollars she and her family have spent trying 
to influence lawmakers, she stated: ``We expect a return on our 
investment.''
  She received a return in Michigan, where she played a role in a 1993 
law that created incentives for charters to come to Michigan. The for-
profit industry, in particular, responded, and they operate nearly 80 
percent of the charters in the State of Michigan. In 2011, she pushed 
successfully for a law that allowed even low-performing charters to 
expand and repealed the requirement that the State publish annual 
reports on charter performance. I think we all believe that 
transparency is important, and it is shocking that there would be an 
effort to put the facts under the rug. After years of criticism, modest 
accountability measures were introduced in 2015, although Mrs. DeVos 
opposed and successfully stripped a provision from the bill that would 
have established a commission to explore ways to improve Detroit public 
schools.
  Seventy percent of Detroit charter schools ranked in the bottom 
quarter of Michigan schools. The nonprofit Education Trust calls their 
poor performance a ``civil rights issue.'' In a report just last June, 
the New York Times called the situation in Detroit ``a public education 
fiasco that is perhaps unparalleled in the United States.'' It would be 
a big mistake to impose that fiasco on the rest of the country.
  Mrs. DeVos has also advocated for online charter schools, and she was 
formerly an investor in the largest for-profit online school operator, 
K-12, Inc. In her response to questions about this model, she cited 
questionable statistics for the accomplishments of several virtual 
academies. Those statistics were disproved in an article in Education 
Week which compared them to the publicly reported figures used for 
State accountability.
  For example, Ms. DeVos wrote that Utah Virtual Academy has a 92-
percent graduation rate. In fact, the most recently publicly reported 
figure is 42 percent. The last thing we need is a Secretary of 
Education coming up with alternative facts.
  While I believe that nonprofit public charter schools are important 
incubators for innovation, they have to play by the same rules as the 
rest of our schools. But Mrs. DeVos has rejected that equal playing 
field.
  In an exchange with Senator Kaine from Virginia where he repeatedly 
asked her whether or not the charter schools would have the same 
standards applied to them as public schools that received Federal 
funding, she refused to agree.
  It is pretty extraordinary when we have a nominee saying that she 
supports a taxpayer-funded blank check for some schools. Our Secretary 
of Education must be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars and 
ensure that funds

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are delivering quality and results for students.
  Another area where Mrs. DeVos raises serious concerns is that of 
enforcement of equal rights, especially the rights of children with 
disabilities. All of us know the Department of Education has the very 
important job of enforcing civil rights laws and making sure we have 
equal access to education throughout the Nation. Congress prohibited 
discrimination in education on the basis of race, color, and national 
origin in title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title IX of the 
Education Amendments of 1972 prohibited sex discrimination. Section 504 
of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis 
of disability.
  But all of us know that as late of the mid-1970s, public schools 
still accommodated only one of five children with disabilities, and 
many States had laws that explicitly excluded children with certain 
disabilities. When Congress addressed this with the passage of the IDEA 
legislation, it was a big breakthrough for our country and for our 
children. The IDEA was very straightforward and very simple: Every 
child deserves a ``free appropriate public education'' in the ``least 
restrictive environment.'' The law requires schools to design an 
``individualized education program'' for each child with a disability.
  IDEA has been a lifesaver for children with disabilities and their 
families. It has empowered them to get the quality education they could 
not earlier receive, and the law gives them tools with which they can 
fight to ensure that schools address their needs. This is why it was so 
alarming at the hearing to hear Mrs. DeVos say that the application of 
IDEA and the rights behind IDEA really was a State function--the same 
States that historically discriminated against these very children. 
That is not what the IDEA legislation is all about. It is a national 
standard to make sure we do not have discrimination based on 
disability. Yet, Mrs. DeVos in exchange concluded with: ``I think 
that's an issue that's best left to the States.''
  So whether it is her position with respect to vouchers and poaching 
resources that otherwise would go to improve our public schools or lack 
of support for the very idea behind IDEA, we have a nominee who the 
overwhelming majority of the American people recognize is the wrong 
choice to be the custodian of the Department that is responsible at the 
Federal level for providing support and educational opportunities to 
our children.
  In closing, with respect to the issue of guns in schools--and Senator 
Murray, the ranking member, has addressed this as well--it was pretty 
shocking to hear Mrs. DeVos trivialize the issue of gun violence in 
schools when she was asked about this by the Senator from Connecticut, 
Mr. Murphy, quipping that guns might be necessary to kill grizzly 
bears. We have had lots of debates in this Chamber, and obviously there 
are strong feelings. But I think we would all agree that the safety of 
our kids and our schools is not something that should be trivialized.
  In conclusion, let us heed the words of the editorial board of the 
Detroit Free Press. They have witnessed firsthand the experiments that 
Mrs. DeVos has made about education and have written in an editorial: 
``Make no mistake: A vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of 
Education is a vote to end public education in this country as we know 
it.''
  In a speech in 2015, Betsy DeVos said bluntly: ``Government really 
sucks.'' I suggest that she should not be leading the agency entrusted 
at the Federal level with the education of our children, which, as our 
Founder said, is really the root of equal opportunity and the 
opportunity for every child to achieve their dreams.
  I join with the distinguished Senator from Washington State in urging 
my colleagues to vote no on Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. We 
can do better. We can do a lot better for our kids.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, constituents from every State who care 
about our public schools and our students in public schools have broken 
records calling us, their Senators, in opposition to Betsy DeVos as 
Education Secretary.
  In the past few weeks, I have heard from thousands of Hawaii 
residents concerned about voting for an Education Secretary who clearly 
does not believe in our Nation's public schools. I wish to share two of 
their messages today.
  One constituent wrote to me:

       Dear Senator Hirono,
       As a proud Hawaii educator for 30 plus years, I'm deeply 
     troubled by the possible appointment of Betsy DeVos to the 
     position of US Secretary of Education.
       Although I would personally never consider applying for a 
     job I am not qualified to serve in, it's baffling to me that 
     our new Commander in Chief thinks someone who has NO 
     experience as a teacher or administrator could be remotely 
     prepared to lead our nation in this role.
       I don't have to explain to you what a selfless calling 
     being a teacher is, nor do I believe our Hawaii delegation 
     takes educating Hawaii's keiki lightly, so I implore you to 
     work with other leaders in DC to make sure we have a suitable 
     nominee for this essential position.
       Mahalo,
       Sandy from Honolulu

  Sandy and teachers like her devote more time and effort than is 
mandated to ensure that our public school students have a solid 
foundation in education and for life. Teaching is a calling, and I have 
met with many teachers who are totally committed to doing the very best 
they can for their students, and they want nothing less from the next 
Secretary of Education. They deserve a better qualified, better 
experienced, better prepared, and more committed Secretary of Education 
than Betsy DeVos.
  Next, I wish to share a message from Lorelei, a middle school 
principal on Oahu. Her letter begins:

       Dear Senator Hirono,
       As a strong supporter of public education, I ask that you 
     oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the 
     U.S. Department of Education.
       Educators and students deserve a secretary who can commit 
     to supporting every student in all public schools, and a 
     leader that will work tirelessly to promote a public 
     education system that provides each child with the optimum 
     conditions for teaching and learning.
       Betsy DeVos' past work in education and her performance at 
     the recent confirmation hearing demonstrated neither a depth 
     of experience nor knowledge base in education policy and on 
     critical issues facing the community.

  She ends her letter by saying:

       As a principal, I have spoken with teachers, parents, 
     students, and community members across the political spectrum 
     and there is widespread agreement that Betsy DeVos is not the 
     right person for the job.

  As Lorelei said, it shouldn't be asking too much to have an Education 
Secretary who will stand up for public schools and the millions of our 
children who attend our public schools. That person is certainly not 
Betsy DeVos.
  In his opening remarks at Betsy DeVos's confirmation hearing, the 
chairman of the HELP Committee said that Mrs. DeVos was in the 
``mainstream'' for supporting vouchers to send students to private 
schools, instead of investing in our public schools. This is not 
mainstream thinking. Being told otherwise is again dealing in 
``alternative facts.''
  The chairman went on to repeat a so-called argument that Betsy DeVos 
and other school choice advocates make--that vouchers are simply Pell 
grants for primary and secondary education. Now, this is a real head 
scratcher, and I say: What? Here we go again down the rabbit hole, 
where up is down and down is up.
  Pell grants and vouchers are fundamentally different. Pell grants 
help offset the ever-rising cost of a voluntary college education. All 
colleges charge students tuition, and Pell grants provide opportunity 
to low-income students to be able to go to college.
  In contrast, every American child has a right to a free primary and 
secondary public education. Vouchers actually take resources away from 
public schools and make it that much harder to provide a good education 
for all of our students.
  Vouchers take money away from public schools; Pell grants don't. When 
a student uses a Pell grant at a private college or university, it has 
no impact on the funding a State college or university receives. But 
when a student uses a voucher to attend a private school, it takes away 
money from local public schools. How is taking money away from local 
public schools mainstream thinking? The Secretary of

[[Page S691]]

Education should be focused on improving our public schools, not taking 
money away from them.
  Furthermore, saying that Pell grants are similar to vouchers reveals 
a fundamental lack of understanding of the Pell grant program. Among 
her many duties as Secretary, Betsy DeVos would be in charge of 
managing $30 billion per year of Pell grants, which help more than 8 
million students afford a college education in this country.
  During the 2014-2015 school year, more than 21,000 students in Hawaii 
were able to finance their college education with nearly $81 million in 
Pell grants. Last Congress, I led legislation to protect and strengthen 
the Pell grant program. But under Republican majorities, Pell grants 
are under the constant threat of irresponsible cuts and dismantlement, 
even though college today is more expensive than ever.
  Can we really trust Betsy DeVos to fight to protect Pell grants? 
Somebody who equates Pell grants with vouchers is not someone who 
understands her responsibilities under the Pell Grant Program. So can 
we really trust Betsy DeVos to support the Pell Grant Program? I don't 
think so.
  I have spoken out against Betsy DeVos's nomination a number of times, 
but some questions need repeating. What are we telling our students if 
we have an Education Secretary who is not committed to improving the 
public education system so that our students can succeed in school and 
in life? Nine out of every 10 students in the United States attend 
public school. What are we saying to them? Is it the best we can do to 
give them an Education Secretary who does not believe in the public 
schools they attend? Who doesn't believe that their education is worth 
fighting for?
  If this is the message you want to send to our students and their 
families, then vote for Betsy DeVos. On behalf of the nearly 200,000 
public school students in Hawaii and their teachers and other educators 
in Hawaii, my answer is a strong, strong no.
  I urge my colleagues to question Betsy DeVos's commitment to our 
public schools and to the millions of students who go to public schools 
and vote against her nomination.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kennedy). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak this afternoon about the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education. I know we will 
have had some time later today and even tonight, but I wanted to review 
some of the concerns I have about her nomination in the allotted time 
that I will have--I guess about 15 minutes.
  The first concern I have is a broad concern that I think is shared by 
a number of Senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee. The ranking member, Senator Murray, is here with us on the 
floor, and I am grateful for her leadership on this nomination debate, 
as well as many other issues.
  I guess the broad concern I have is Betsy DeVos's commitment to 
public education. I come from a State where we have had a tradition of 
public education since about the 1830s. I am fairly certain--I will 
stand corrected--but Pennsylvania might have been the first State to 
have public education as far back as the 1830s. It is part of the 
bedrock of the foundation of our State.
  Still, today, 92 percent of Pennsylvania students attend a 
traditional public school. We have charter schools. We have roughly 175 
or so, but all of those charter schools in Pennsylvania have to be, by 
statute, public nonprofit entities. Public charter schools are what we 
have in Pennsylvania. We don't have for-profit private sector charter 
schools. It is not allowed by law.
  There are some limited circumstances when one entity could affiliate 
with a for-profit entity, but we have nothing like what Mrs. DeVos has 
supported in Michigan and across the country. For a Senator from 
Pennsylvania to be questioning a nominee for Secretary of Education 
about for-profit charter schools is unusual because we don't have that 
entity in Pennsylvania.
  My concern is substantial--and I will develop this later--about her 
commitment to public education. In fact, in my meeting with Mrs. DeVos, 
because of my concerns, I said something very simple, but I said it for 
a reason, to remind her about her obligation if she were to be 
confirmed. I said: You will not be the Secretary of private education; 
you are going to be the Secretary of Education, and for most of the 
country, that means traditional public schools, and I hope you 
understand that.
  That is a broad concern that I have, and I will talk more about it. 
My line of questioning the day of our hearing--I should say the evening 
of our hearing--focused on campus sexual assault; and that, of course, 
is an area of urgent concern for a lot of people here, a lot of members 
of the United States. It is also of greater concern now because of her 
nomination. What do I mean by that?
  Let me walk through how I got to my questions with her. We know the 
Department of Justice tells us that college women are twice as likely 
to be sexually assaulted than robbed in the time they are in college. 
This is a number that comes from the Centers for Disease Control. We 
also know that one in five college students experience attempted or 
completed sexual assault while they are in college.
  This is a direct threat to young women all across the country, and I 
think we have only begun as a country--as a nation, I should say--to 
begin to take steps to combat sexual assault, to insist that colleges 
and universities do more to insist that everyone in the education 
field, every person on a college campus assumes some level of 
responsibility.
  One of the reasons we can start down that path and begin to be 
certain that we are at least beginning to wrestle with this problem and 
give young women on our campuses more protection is because of recent 
legislation. We are not done. We have a lot more to do, but I will 
highlight one bill that I led the fight on--the Campus Sexual Violence 
Elimination Act, known as Campus SaVE. That became law in 2013, when we 
were reauthorizing--a fancy Washington word for doing it again or 
improving the law--the Violence Against Women Act. I was glad we were 
able to take a substantial step to tackle this horrific problem of 
sexual assault on campus.
  That legislation was followed by regulations. If I could summarize 
them, that law and the regulations that followed made sure that 
colleges and universities have clear guidelines, that victims know what 
their rights are, that victims know where to turn in the event of an 
assault, that we do a lot more on prevention, that bystanders can no 
longer be inactive, that they have to be trained and prepared to help, 
and that the entire college campus is focused on preventing sexual 
assault and then making sure, in the aftermath of an assault, it is 
dealt with appropriately.
  This legislation has helped campus communities respond to not only 
sexual assault but domestic assault, dating violence, as well as 
stalking. It does give students and employees the opportunity to do 
more than has been done on college campuses.
  When I was questioning Mrs. DeVos, I asked her if she would commit to 
upholding title IX, the nondiscrimination statute that includes 
important protections against sexual assault. I asked her very 
specifically about the Department of Education's Office for Civil 
Rights, which had issued guidance in 2011 that advises institutions of 
higher education to use the so-called preponderance of the evidence 
standard for campus conduct proceedings. Some may be familiar with that 
standard. It is a standard that we have used in our jurisprudence for 
civil cases across the country. You don't have to prove, nor should a 
victim of sexual assault on campus have to prove by the higher 
standard; say clear and convincing is a higher standard or beyond a 
reasonable doubt is a criminal standard. What the Department of 
Education said to the university campuses across the country is, the 
standard you should use is preponderance of the evidence. They based 
that determination after consulting with experts and advocates

[[Page S692]]

across the country. That is the state of law currently, the guidance 
from the Department of Education about that evidentiary standard, my 
legislation Campus SaVE, and that is where we are now.

  I simply asked Mrs. DeVos whether or not she would commit to 
enforcing current law and abiding by the 2011 Department of Education 
guidance. Her response was that it would be premature--I am using her 
word ``premature''--to make that kind of commitment. I was stunned by 
that answer. Why would it be premature to say you are going to enforce 
current law? Why would it be premature to say that you can't make a 
commitment to insisting upon an evidentiary standard that is in place 
right now? That made no sense to me, and I don't think it made any 
sense to people across the country who have been working on this 
problem and trying to get the attention of the Senate and the House and 
any administration for years, if not for decades.
  We finally arrived at a place where we are at long last dealing with 
sexual assault in a very aggressive and appropriate and fair manner. 
Now we have a nominee who says she is not sure whether she can commit 
to that. That gave me great pause and is one of the reasons I don't 
support her nomination. I have several reasons. I know I am running low 
on time, but I will wrap up this portion in a moment.
  Another area of concern is the answers to questions she gave with 
regard to specific questions about students with disabilities. This was 
a set of questions asked by a number of Senators, but I will try to 
summarize it this way. She seemed to have a lack of knowledge, an 
apparent and I think obvious lack of knowledge, about basic Federal 
law, a law that was passed decades ago, the Individuals with 
Disabilities Education Act. She didn't seem to know that was a Federal 
statute. She seemed to assert that somehow States could decide whether 
to enforce the policy that undergirded that Federal law. That, of 
course, is not the case. It is Federal law, and we have to make sure 
individuals--in this case, students with disabilities--get the rights 
they are accorded by virtue of that law. Her lack of knowledge in this 
area was of concern, but maybe even greater concern was a lack of--or 
seeming lack of, in my judgment--determination to once again enforce 
this law, to make sure that on her watch the law that would protect 
students with disabilities would be enforced to the full extent of the 
law and nothing less. She didn't seem to be willing to commit to that 
or didn't seem to have the kind of commitment I would expect from a 
Secretary of Education.
  What we would all expect, Democrats and Republicans, I would hope, is 
a Secretary of Education who is a champion for public schools, is a 
champion for those children in public schools, will fight battles and 
urge States to make the investments in public education, would urge the 
Congress to make investments in public education, in early learning, 
and all of the concerns we have about lack of funding in public 
education.
  I would hope both parties would want a Secretary of Education who is 
a champion for students with disabilities, who would be a champion for 
those who are victims of sexual assault on our college campuses. 
Unfortunately, because of a series of questions posed both at the 
hearing and in written questions that were submitted for the record--to 
which Mrs. DeVos gave written answers--I see that basic commitment 
lacking. For that and many reasons which we will develop a little later 
tonight, I will be voting no on her confirmation vote.
  I appreciate this opportunity to share some of my thoughts and hope 
to be back later this evening.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. My mom was a 
public schoolteacher, and she taught second grade until she was 70 
years old. She loved teaching. Her favorite unit was actually the 
Monarch Butterfly Unit, where she would dress up as the monarch 
butterfly, and she would teach the kids about metamorphosis. The 
costume she wore, she would also wear to the supermarket afterward. She 
was dressed as this big monarch butterfly, with little antennae on her 
head and a sign that said: ``To Mexico or bust'' because that is where 
the monarch would fly on its way from Canada through Minnesota and 
down. It was the night before my mom's funeral at the visitation where 
I met a family who came up to me, and the mom was sobbing. I didn't 
know what was going on. I had never met them. They had their older son 
with them who had pretty severe disabilities. She said: You know, your 
mom had my kid here in school when he was in second grade. Now he was 
grown up. She said: He always loved that Monarch Butterfly Unit. After 
he graduated, your mom would continue to go to the grocery store, and 
that was why she would go to the store every year. He had gotten a job 
bagging groceries. She would stand in the line in her monarch butterfly 
outfit for years and give him a big hug when she got to the end of the 
line. That was my mom. She loved her kids and she was a devoted 
teacher.
  I went to public school through elementary to high school. My 
daughter went to public school. I learned that basic right we have in 
this country; that every child should have the right to an education. 
That led me to the conclusion--after reviewing the record of the 
hearing and talking to my colleagues on the committee--that this 
nominee and I do not share the same value when it comes to that public 
education. I note that two of my Republican colleagues, Senators 
Collins and Murkowski, have come to the same conclusion. One of the 
most troubling examples of Mrs. DeVos's views came when she was 
questioned by two of my colleagues. I note Senator Murray is here. We 
thank her for her leadership on the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee. Two of my colleagues, Senators Maggie Hassan and 
Tim Kaine, asked the nominee about whether schools should meet the 
standards outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 
or, as it is known, IDEA. Mrs. DeVos said she would leave the decision 
of whether to offer equal educational opportunities to the States. This 
is simply unacceptable. It is not the kind of leadership we need. This 
is not why we have IDEA. I think most education professionals and 
people who are experts in this area would know that is not the answer.
  I occupy the Senate seat that was once held by Minnesota's own Hubert 
Humphrey. He was someone who was never at a loss for words. He 
delivered a speech to the Minnesota AFL-CIO 40 years ago. One line of 
that speech is just as appropriate and meaningful today as it was back 
then. He said:

       The moral test of government is how that government treats 
     those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who 
     are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are 
     in the shadows of life, the needy, the sick and the disabled.

  I submit that Mrs. DeVos's opposition toward providing equal 
education opportunities to students with disabilities does not meet 
that moral test. Her views are at odds with decades of bipartisan 
support for IDEA.
  In 1975, when Congress passed the original version of IDEA, half of 
all children with disabilities were not receiving appropriate 
educational services, and 1 million children with disabilities were 
excluded entirely from the public school system. In an impassioned 
floor speech, then-Senator and later Vice President Walter Mondale of 
Minnesota talked about the need for IDEA. Before the 1975 law, disabled 
children were placed in segregated schools and classes with little 
emphasis on an education, training, or development. Many parents also 
gave up on the poor services offered by the public schools. As a 
result, disabled students remained at home. To tackle this problem, 
Republicans and Democrats came together to pass legislation ensuring 
that students with disabilities would have equal access to public 
education, just like all other kids. The law guaranteed and continues 
to guarantee today--the Federal law--that students

[[Page S693]]

with disabilities get a free and appropriate public education. It is 
not a State-by-State requirement. It is a Federal requirement.
  In 1975, both Minnesota Senators played a significant leadership role 
in enacting this groundbreaking civil rights legislation. Senator 
Humphrey called IDEA one of the most significant pieces of legislation 
and a major commitment in this Nation's commitment to its children. 
Then-Senator Mondale argued that this landmark legislation holds a 
promise of new opportunity for 7 million children in this country. When 
Congress first enacted this law in 1975, this was not a partisan issue. 
The law passed both Houses with overwhelming majorities. The Senate 
voted in favor of the landmark legislation by a margin of 87 to 7; the 
House, by a vote of 404 to 7. Bipartisan support for IDEA grew stronger 
over time.
  In 1991, President George H.W. Bush signed into law a bill that 
reauthorized the Disabilities Act. That bill was introduced by former 
Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and former Minnesota Republican Senator 
Dave Durenberger. The reauthorization was so uncontroversial that it 
passed by a voice vote in both the House and the Senate. Members from 
both parties supported IDEA when it was reauthorized again in 2003. 
Every single member of the Minnesota delegation, all 10--Democrats and 
Republicans alike--supported IDEA's reauthorization that year. For four 
decades, IDEA has garnered support from both sides of the aisle because 
we all understand the need to support the most vulnerable among us.
  Every Member of Congress knows a family member or a person who has 
been affected by disability. For a lot of lawmakers, this is personal. 
When my daughter was born, she couldn't swallow for nearly 2 years. She 
had a feeding tube, and the doctors didn't know what was wrong with 
her. It ended up being a temporary problem and not a permanent 
disability, but those 2 years I still look back at as a gift. They were 
a gift that brought our family closer together, but they were a gift 
because they made me understand what parents of kids with disabilities 
face every single day. This wasn't just a temporary thing for the 
parents I met. This was something they face every single day.
  Since the passage of IDEA, our Nation has moved to fulfill the 
promise of providing a high-quality education to kids with 
disabilities. Today, more than 4.7 million children with disabilities 
rely on IDEA to protect their access to high-quality education. Over 
the last 40 years, the Democratic and Republican Members who have come 
before me have all fought to preserve those critical rights and 
opportunities.
  These are American values. But they are especially near and dear to 
our State, where we have this long and proud tradition of working to 
ensure that people with disabilities have access to the same basic 
resources and opportunities as everyone else. This is not just the 
original work by Senators Humphrey and Mondale, carried on, of course, 
by Senator Durenberger and others, but it happened in our State as 
well.
  To cite a few examples, it was the Minnesota Ramp Project that 
introduced a new American model for building statewide standardized 
wheelchair ramps. Minnesota was the State that sent Paul Wellstone to 
the Senate, where he fought long and hard for mental health parity. My 
State is also home to some of the most innovative centers for the 
disabled in the country, including PACER, the Courage Center, and ARC.
  When it comes to educating children with disabilities, Minnesota has 
also been one of the Nation's leaders. In 1957, our State became one of 
the first States in the Nation to pass a law requiring that special 
education services be provided to children and youth with disabilities. 
In our State, from birth to adulthood, kids with disabilities have 
access to the quality of life they deserve.
  Through IDEA, our State is able to receive Federal funding for early 
intervention services that help diagnose disabilities or developmental 
delays among infants and toddlers. Minnesota also provides each child 
with a disability and their family a personalized K-12 education plan 
and the support needed to transition from high school to postsecondary 
education.
  These civil rights protections and funding under IDEA have also been 
an area of bipartisan cooperation among members of the Minnesota 
delegation. We would like to see even more funding. We don't see us 
move backwards. At least one Minnesota Republican has cosponsored every 
version of IDEA and its reauthorization over the last 40 years. We have 
never had a Secretary of Education who has put these commonsense 
bipartisan benefits at risk.
  Today, over 124,000 Minnesota children rely on the protections in 
IDEA. I have heard from families in my State, and so many of them tell 
me how that Federal law has made a real difference in their lives. A 
mom from Watertown, MN, told me all about her son who was born with 
Down syndrome. She is so thankful for the Federal law because this 
protection ensures that he can have everyday experiences like other 
kids.
  It allows her son to be fully integrated with the rest of the 
students in his high school. As a result, he has developed many 
friendships and a strong social network. When she asks her son whether 
he likes school, he always says a resounding ``yes.''
  A mother of two autistic kids who are deafblind, reached out to me 
from Farmington, MN. She tells me that she depends on IDEA because the 
law gives her an opportunity to participate in designing individualized 
education programs for her children. These programs allow her to tailor 
the best possible educational plans.
  A woman from Lakeville, MN, told me that when her son was born with 
intellectual and developmental disabilities in the late 1980s, and she 
was so worried about what his future would look like. But because of 
IDEA, he received specialized services at school while still being 
included in activities with the rest of his peers. Today, she tells me 
that he is a successful young adult who happily lives, learns, and 
works in his community.
  During my time in the Senate, I have worked to share those Minnesota 
values that you hear resonating in those letters across the country. 
That is why I helped lead the push in Congress to successfully pass 
bipartisan legislation with Senators Burr and Casey called the 
Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, or ABLE Act, a law that will 
help people with disabilities and their families better plan for their 
futures. It is a law that President Obama signed.
  We have made progress in removing barriers and empowering people with 
disabilities. Of course, we know that the ABLE Act alone is not enough. 
We still need to ensure that the Federal Government lives up to its 
promise to support education for those with disabilities by enforcing 
and protecting the IDEA and fully funding special education. Providing 
equal educational opportunities for children with disabilities is an 
issue that cuts across partisan lines.
  It is an issue of decency and an issue of dignity, and I believe it 
is an issue that we must all stand behind as Americans. I cannot 
support a nominee that would jeopardize the education of millions of 
disabled children across our country or someone that is not fully 
informed at her own hearing about such an important law. We have 
continuously maintained and strengthened educational laws for children 
with disabilities because every child deserves a chance to succeed.
  I think about my mom and all those years of teaching--teaching 30 
second graders at age 70. I think about that boy, who is now a man, who 
in the second grade had her as a teacher. He had severe disabilities, 
but she did everything to make his learning experience as good as all 
the other kids that were in that class.
  I think of how he loved that butterfly unit and felt the passion that 
my mom brought to teaching it. In her own free time, she would go visit 
him at his job at that checkout line in the grocery store in her 
butterfly outfit. That was integrating kids with disabilities into our 
school systems. That is what special teachers and special education 
experts who see all children as special are all about.
  Thank you. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing Mrs. DeVos's 
nomination.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished senior Senator 
from

[[Page S694]]

Minnesota for her comments. She speaks from experience and knowledge, 
as has the senior Senator from Washington State, on this issue.
  In my years here, I have seen thousands of confirmation votes, 
literally at all levels, up to and including Cabinet members and 
Supreme Court justices. I have voted for a large majority of a 
President's nominations--both Republican and Democratic Presidents. 
Some may not have been those I would have chosen, but I felt that, at 
least, the President should be given the prerogative, if the person is 
qualified.
  Now, ideology is one thing, and qualification is another. Out of 
those thousands of confirmation votes, I have a hard time remembering 
any that were like this one. This one had a whirlwind confirmation 
hearing and committee vote. It was almost as though they were afraid to 
have the nominee actually have to appear and answer questions. And now 
the Senate is going to vote on the nomination of Betsy DeVos to lead 
the Department of Education.
  I will be very blunt. On the very little time that she was allowed to 
be shown to the public, she showed--and I certainly believe this--that 
she does not have the qualifications to uphold the Department of 
Education's primary goal--that of ensuring that all students--all 
students, not just the wealthy, but all students--have access to a 
quality, public education that allows them to succeed.
  I am both a father and a grandfather, and I am proud of it. I watched 
my children go to school. And now I see my grandchildren going to 
school. I understand well the impact of education on our children. When 
students have access to strong public education from the very 
beginning, they are more apt to succeed in the long run.
  Our Nation's public schools--as is the case in my home State of 
Vermont--hold the promise of student success through strong State 
accountability measures and legal protections regardless of one's race, 
income, or learning ability. They offer nutritious meals for 
underserved students, many of whom receive their only meals of the day 
at school. Any teacher will tell you that if you have a hungry child, 
you have a child who cannot learn. If a child is fed, you have a child 
who can learn.
  Public education means strong teachers and school leaders, technology 
in the classroom, an assessment to test not just how well a student can 
memorize material for an exam on a particular day of the year, but how 
much they have grown over the course of many months.
  Many of the schools have counselors and nurses. They operate under a 
modern infrastructure to support those with disabilities and children 
in foster care. But public education also means that both the States 
and the Federal Government are held accountable for everyone having 
access to the same excellent resources.
  In fact, just over 1 year ago, this body agreed to these protections. 
We passed the Every Student Succeeds Act here in the Senate by a vote 
of 85 to 12--an amazing, overwhelming, bipartisan vote. It was the firm 
agreement among the majority of the Senate--Republicans and Democrats 
alike--that all students deserve access to critical public school 
resources in order to succeed. We made a promise that we would do 
better by our students; that public schools would be the premier 
standard for outstanding education for all.
  Unfortunately, the nominee before us--in the very little time that 
she was allowed to testify and be questioned in the confirmation 
hearing--showed that she does not share these same goals. Instead, she 
has referred to public schools as a ``dead end.''
  Well, if you are a billionaire, you have a choice to go wherever you 
want to school. Maybe these people in a public school are not good 
enough for you? Well, then, go buy a school if you want. Most people 
don't have that option. Most people are hard working. My wife and I 
were when our kids were in school. Our children are today.
  What does Betsy DeVos advocate for? She advocates for the 
privatization of education. She has funneled millions of dollars into 
organizations and initiatives to promote private school vouchers and 
school choice.
  These efforts have diverted public funds toward private schools, 
schools that are not held to any antidiscrimination or accountability 
standards. These schools can discriminate all they want.
  At her confirmation hearing--in the very little time that she did 
speak--she did not understand the Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act. This is a landmark law. It is a Federal law that public 
schools in all 50 States must follow.
  Lastly, Mrs. DeVos and her family have contributed to anti-LGBT 
causes and anti-women's health efforts, which are in direct conflict to 
the one who is supposed to lead the Department of Education. How can a 
nominee disagree with the mission of the Department of Education and be 
fit to oversee that agency and promote the civil rights of schools and 
college campuses?
  She also appears to oppose efforts to expand college access, in an 
era when college is so important. Again, in the little bit of time she 
was allowed to testify before the Senate HELP Committee in January, 
Mrs. DeVos, when asked, would not agree to work with States to offer 
free community college to eligible students, instead saying that 
``nothing in life is truly free.'' This is an easy thing to say if you 
are a billionaire.

  She also admitted to knowing little about the Pell Grant Program and 
Federal student loans, as neither she nor her children have ever had to 
use such resources. As most of us know our children will have to use 
them, this is simply out of touch with the real life expectations of 
millions of students and families who rely on these funds to make 
college attainable.
  It is what I hear from hard-working families in Vermont. Parents tell 
me that their child is going to be the first one in their family to go 
to college, and the only reason they can do it is because they can get 
Pell grants or Federal student loans. Mrs. Devos's answer is: What are 
those?
  College tuition rates have climbed more than 300 percent in the last 
decade. It is unacceptable to deny students Federal financial 
resources. To say, well, if you are rich, you can have them, but 
otherwise, tough.
  As it is, students are increasingly saddled by insurmountable student 
loan debt. Many forgo starting a family, or buying a house or a car. 
Many of these students have also fallen prey to for-profit 
institutions, many of which continue to offer the false promise of 
gainful employment upon graduation. In reality, many of these 
institutions offer nontransferable credits or unaccredited degrees, and 
are increasingly shuttering their doors, leaving students with 
egregious debt and nowhere to turn to finish their degrees.
  The Department of Education has an extremely important role to ensure 
that all students--of every race, income level, or whether that student 
has disabilities or not--have access to the critical tools provided by 
public schools and by student financial aid programs.
  Thousands--thousands--of Vermont-
ers have called or written to me worried that Mrs. DeVos does not agree 
with these principles. When I say thousands, to put that in context, we 
are the second smallest State in the Union. Thousands have contacted 
me. I share these concerns of my fellow Vermonters.
  They know my children went to public school. They want to be able to 
send their children to public school too. They want the best education.
  I am telling these Vermonters I will not support this confirmation. 
It is dangerous and shortsighted to confirm someone who has so much to 
learn about our Nation's public schools and the challenges they face.
  Universal free public schools were a revolutionary American 
invention. It has helped make America the great Nation it is today. So 
in the United States, we should strengthen public schools, not snub 
them.
  Mrs. DeVos is the wrong choice for our children but also for our 
Nation's future. Our public schools need strong leadership, not someone 
who has made it her life's work to undermine their success. So I oppose 
this nomination. I hope my fellow Senators will too.