[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1773-1788]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The legislative clerk read the nomination of Elisabeth Prince DeVos, 
of Michigan, to be Secretary of Education.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, with this vote, the Senate will move 
early next week to confirm the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be the U.S. 
Education Secretary. In my judgment, she will be an excellent and 
important Education Secretary for this country.
  The No. 1 job of the U.S. Education Secretary is to help create an 
environment in which our 100,000 public schools succeed, because that 
is where 9 out of 10 of our children go.
  When I was Education Secretary for President George H.W. Bush in the 
early 1990s, I had the privilege of working with a man named David 
Kerns, who had been the chief executive officer of the Xerox 
Corporation. He came in as the Deputy Education Secretary at a time 
when he was not only one of the country's leading businessmen, but he 
was also the leading businessman who tried to help change public 
education. David Kern's belief was that it was very difficult to help 
children by changing public education if you try to do it from within. 
As all of us do, he respected the teachers, the parents, and the 
students who work within the public education system, but over the last 
30 years, as this country has worked to try to improve our public 
schools, much of that energy has come from outside the public school 
establishment. Among those were the Governors of the country.
  In the mid-1980s, all of the Governors met together--in 1985 and 
1986--on one subject for a whole year. The purpose was, how can we help 
improve our public schools? I was chairman of the National Governors 
Association that year, Bill Clinton was the vice chairman, and we did 
that in a bipartisan way. We did that from outside the schools. Since 
that time, many Governors and many business leaders have worked hard in 
support of our public schools, trying to help them have even better 
opportunities for our children. Among those has been Betsy DeVos. The 
Governors I spoke of are Governors who are familiar names in this 
country. I think of Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. John Engler of Michigan, Gov. 
Mitt Romney, and the work they did in their respective States to make 
their public schools better and to create other opportunities for 
children. All of the three Governors I mentioned--Bush, Romney, and 
Engler--support Betsy DeVos.
  As chairman of the Senate's Education Committee, there are 22 
Governors who have written letters to me supporting Betsy DeVos. They 
see her as someone from outside the system of public education who, as 
they worked for 30 years, can help change and improve it.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record following my remarks the names of the 22 Governors who support 
her. They come from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, 
Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, 
North Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, 
Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
  The Governors of all those States support Betsy DeVos. Four of the 
last Education Secretaries support Betsy DeVos. Bill Bennett, Rod 
Paige, Margaret Spellings, and I support her. Joe Lieberman, who served 
in this body and worked on the DC voucher program for many years, 
endorsed her. She has strong support from the Governors who for 30 
years have been working hard to successfully improve our public 
schools.
  Some have said: Well, she has spent her time working on giving 
children choices of schools other than public schools.
  She has done that, and it has always puzzled me as to why anybody 
would criticize that. The idea that a low-income child should have the 
same opportunity or more of the same opportunities as a wealthy family 
has would seem to me to be a very all-American idea. Not only does it 
seem to be, it is an idea that underlies the most successful piece of 
social policy our country has ever enacted, arguably--the GI bill for 
veterans in 1944. Think about that. The veterans came home from World 
War II. We gave them a scholarship. It followed them to the college of 
their choice. Ms. DeVos has argued for the same thing for children. Why 
is an idea that has helped to create the greatest generation and the 
greatest colleges of the world so dangerous for schools?
  I would argue that she has been among the forefront of the leaders--
like the Governors--for the most successful reform of the last 30 years 
to change and improve public education, and that would be the public 
charter schools. Those began with 12 schools in Minnesota created by 
the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in the early 1900s. Since then, 
charter schools have been supported by every President--President 
Obama, President Clinton, Presidents Bush. President Obama's most 
recent Education Secretary was a founder of charter schools. Four 
times, this Congress, by big bipartisan majorities, has supported 
charter schools. The last six U.S. Education Secretaries have supported 
charter schools. Charter schools have grown from 12 Democratic-Farmer-
Labor schools to 6,800 today, and 2.7 million children attend them. 
Teachers have more freedom and parents have more choices. They are 
public schools, and Betsy DeVos was in the forefront of helping to 
create that opportunity for public education.
  Finally, she believes what 85 of us voted for in the law that 
President Obama called a ``Christmas miracle'' in December of 2015, and 
that is to reverse the trend from a national school board and restore 
control of our children and our schools to those closest to the 
children. There will be no mandates for

[[Page 1774]]

common core, no mandates for teacher evaluation, no mandates for 
vouchers, and no mandates for anything else from a U.S. Department of 
Education headed by Betsy DeVos. We will be swapping a national school 
board for what she believes in, which is a local school board, which is 
what 85 of us voted for.
  I am pleased to support her.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record following my remarks an article published by Max Eden on January 
29, 2017, which shows Detroit charter schools--by three major studies--
are better and children perform better than the traditional schools of 
Detroit.
  I look forward to casting my vote for Betsy DeVos for U.S. Education 
Secretary early next week.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                   Highlights Among DeVos supporters

       22 State Governors, including:
       Gov. Robert Bentley, Alabama; Doug Ducey, Arizona; Gov. Asa 
     Hutchinson, Arkansas; Gov. Rick Scott, Florida; Gov. Bruce 
     Rauner, Illinois; Gov. Eric Holcomb, Indiana; Gov. Sam 
     Brownback, Kansas; Gov. Matthew Bevin, Kentucky; Gov. Paul 
     LePage, Maine; Gov. Rick Snyder, Michigan; Gov. Phil Bryant, 
     Mississippi.
       Gov. Eric Greitens, Missouri; Gov. Doug Burgum, North 
     Dakota; Gov. Pete Ricketts, Nebraska; Gov. Brian Sandoval, 
     Nevada; Gov. Chris Christie, New Jersey; Gov. Susana 
     Martinez, New Mexico; Gov. John Kasich, Ohio; Gov. Mary 
     Fallin, Oklahoma; Gov. Bill Haslam, Tennessee; Gov. Greg 
     Abbott, Texas; Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin.
       Former Governors:
       Jeb Bush; Mitt Romney; John Engler.
       Four Former Education Secretaries:
       William Bennett; Rod Paige; Margaret Spellings; Lamar 
     Alexander.
       Former Senators:
       Joe Lieberman; Bill Frist.
       Democrats including:
       Eva Moskowitz, founder and CEO of Success; Academy Charter 
     Schools; Anthony Williams, former Mayor of Washington, D.C.
                                  ____


Eden: When the New York Times's Reporting on DeVos and Detroit Charters 
                     Looks Like `Alternative Facts'

                             (By Max Eden)

       The campaign against Education Secretary--designate Betsy 
     DeVos has been both predictable and extraordinary. It's no 
     surprise that the education establishment was perturbed by 
     the selection of a school choice advocate, and opposition 
     from interest groups is to be expected.
       But in an era when the president of the United States has 
     declared a ``running war'' on the media, accusing reporters 
     of distorting facts to attack him, the work of one education 
     journalist unfortunately lends some credence to that 
     argument.
       Some critical coverage has been responsible and fair, but 
     DeVos was sadly not ``spinning'' when she told the Senate 
     that there's been a lot of ``false news'' about her record. 
     The New York Times has been most conspicuous in this regard. 
     The editorial angle of its national education correspondent 
     Kate Zernike was clear from her first piece on the nominee, 
     ``Betsy DeVos, Trump's Education Pick, Has Steered Money From 
     Public Schools.''
       Liberal bias at the Times is less than a non-story; if 
     anything, I'd argue a partisan press is healthy in a 
     pluralistic democracy. But when America's ``paper of record'' 
     makes verifiably false claims, they must be checked and 
     corrected. Here are two significant ones.
       In a front-page June article titled ``A Sea of Charter 
     Schools in Detroit Leaves Students Adrift,'' the Times 
     education correspondent asserts that ``half the charters 
     perform only as well, or worse than, Detroit's traditional 
     public schools.''
       That claim was echoed by a Times editorial and would be 
     big, if true. DeVos was nominated based on her school choice 
     advocacy. If that work helped foster charter schools that are 
     worse than the worst-in-the-nation Detroit Public Schools, 
     that would be profoundly troubling. But if Detroit's charters 
     are better (even if not as much better as we'd desire), then 
     it's a different story entirely.
       Fortunately, they are better.
       There are three key studies that compare Detroit's charter 
     and district schools: one from Stanford University, one from 
     the center-right Mackinac Center and one from Excellent 
     Schools Detroit (ESD), a local education nonprofit. As Jason 
     Bedrick, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for 
     Educational Freedom, and I demonstrated in Education Next, 
     all three show that charters significantly outperform 
     district schools. Perplexed at how the Times reached the 
     opposite conclusion, I reached out to Zernike.
       Some critics assumed that Zernike was twisting data from 
     the Stanford study, the presumptive source of district-to-
     charter comparisons. But Zernike informed me that she chose 
     to use the ESD study after contacting the Stanford study's 
     author and determining that the data was too outdated for her 
     purposes.
       I asked why she chose the ESD data over the Mackinac 
     Center's. Mackinac grades schools using a complex regression 
     taking into account students' socioeconomic background. ESD 
     grades on a combination of raw test scores, test-score growth 
     and a school climate survey, but it doesn't consider 
     socioeconomic status.
       She explained that Mackinac is ``a partisan group that is 
     pro-school choice and anti-DPS. ESD, despite how GLEP [the 
     DeVos-backed Great Lakes Education Project] will characterize 
     it, supported charters and traditional public schools, and 
     the measures seemed broader.''
       When I told her that sounded more like political than 
     methodological reasoning, she countered, ``It's not politics, 
     it's methodology. I think graduation rate was the only thing 
     Mackinac used to compare,'' and added that she thinks the ESD 
     data ``do break down for demographics.'' Wrong and wrong.
       Now, it's possible that she didn't simply default to the 
     politically congenial option without further scrutiny. 
     Perhaps she just failed to properly recall the details 
     several months later. Whatever the case, the ESD data also 
     show charters outperforming district schools.
       So, how did the Times national education correspondent 
     reach the opposite conclusion?
       Now, bear with me, here because it's complicated and it 
     makes no sense.
       First she separated out K-8 district schools and high 
     schools, calculating their respective average scores, 
     weighted by student enrollment. She included high-performing 
     selective-admissions district schools and excluded low-
     performing Detroit public schools that have been taken over 
     by the state. (Neither decision is justifiable in a 
     traditional-to-charter comparison.)
       Then she saw that for both K-8 district schools and high 
     schools, the (inflated) weighted average score was higher 
     than the median charter school score, and concluded that 
     ``half the charters perform only as well, or worse than, 
     Detroit's traditional public schools.''
       On the high school side, the unweighted average score of 
     .33 is significantly lower than the weighted average of .41. 
     It's worth noting that the .41 is above the charter median 
     score and the .33 is below it. So going by the weighted 
     average was the only way to arrive at that result for high 
     schools.
       On the K-8 side, the weighted and unweighted averages are 
     essentially equal. That average is indeed slightly higher 
     than the median charter score, but it's much higher than the 
     district's median score. So on K-8 schools, by her same 
     faulty logic, it would also be accurate to say that ``two 
     thirds of the public schools perform only as well, or worse 
     than, Detroit's traditional public schools.''
       If that sounds silly, it's because comparing an average to 
     a median is statistical nonsense. The ``apples to oranges'' 
     metaphor is apt but insufficient here. Essentially, Zernike 
     took a basket of apples, pulled out the rotten ones, kept the 
     genetically modified ones, made statistically weighted 
     applesauce, and plopped that applesauce in the middle of a 
     row of organic oranges. Then she drew a false conclusion 
     that's become central to the case against Betsy DeVos's 
     nomination for secretary of education.
       Personally, I doubt the mathematical mistakes were 
     conscious or intentional. But what really matters is that the 
     ESD, Mackinac and Stanford studies all show Detroit charters 
     significantly outperforming traditional public schools.
       The second claim also involves the Times's editorial 
     against DeVos, in this case lamenting that she funded charter 
     advocacy efforts, ``winning legislative changes that have 
     ``reduced oversight and accountability.'' The editorial 
     linked to a December article by Zernike covering a 
     legislative debate on Detroit charter regulation wherein 
     ``Ms. DeVos pushed back on any regulation as too much 
     regulation.''
       Whatever the rhetorical merit of that editorial claim, it 
     is flat false. In a Detroit News op-ed, to which the article 
     later links, DeVos called for two additional regulations: A-F 
     school accountability grades and default closure for failing 
     schools, both charter and district. She certainly pushed back 
     on some regulations as too much. But the bill that passed 
     included the additional accountability regulations for which 
     she advocated. In fact, the final legislation boosted 
     Michigan's accountability score on the National Alliance of 
     Charter School Authorizers index.
       Given the fact that the main subject of her article was a 
     net increase in charter accountability, Zernike admits on 
     Twitter that she's ``not sure what the ed board meant by 
     that,'' but notes that ``MI legislation in 2011 (not June 
     bill) did weaken oversight.'' Zernike's December article 
     refers to the 2011 legislation in one passing sentence. Her 
     June article noted that ``the law repealed a longstanding 
     requirement that the State Department of Education issue 
     yearly reports monitoring charter school performance.'' While 
     true, that provision didn't merit mention among the 12 key 
     changes in the official legislative summary (five of which 
     increased charter regulation).

[[Page 1775]]

       It's possible that the Times's editorial was referring to 
     that repealed reporting requirement from 2011 when it claimed 
     that DeVos backed ``legislative changes that have reduced 
     oversight and accountability.'' But that seems unlikely, 
     given that the editorial linked to Zernike's December article 
     on the 2016 legislative debate and that piece doesn't even 
     mention the 2011 provision. It seems more likely that the 
     editors honestly confused an increase in accountability that 
     was smaller than some stakeholders wanted with an actual, 
     absolute reduction. And given the reporting they relied on, 
     it would be hard to blame them.
       Education blogger Alexander Russo has skillfully outlined 
     the ``problematic media coverage'' of Betsy DeVos, in which 
     journalists have latched onto hyper-simplified story lines 
     while ignoring complexities and eschewing nuanced criticism.
       Whatever your take on DeVos or the media, everyone loses 
     when the line between fact and falsehood is blurred beyond 
     distinction. At a time when the president's advisers proudly 
     tout ``alternative facts,'' critical, fact-based reporting is 
     more necessary than ever, especially from outlets with the 
     weight and influence of The New York Times. Their readers, 
     and America's schoolchildren, deserve better. Correcting the 
     record would be a good start.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I am on the floor today to stand with 
parents, students, teachers, families, and communities across our 
country to make sure they have a voice to strongly oppose Betsy DeVos 
and her plans to privatize public schools and destroy public education 
in America. I urge my colleagues to stand with their constituents and 
join Democrats and Republicans in rejecting this nomination.
  I come to the floor as a former preschool teacher, someone who got my 
start in politics fighting for strong public schools, a former school 
board member, a Senator committed to standing strong for public 
education in America, and a mother and grandmother who cares deeply 
about the future of our students in our schools.
  Like so many people across the country, I am someone who owes 
everything I have to a strong public education I received growing up in 
this country. I believe it is my responsibility to do everything I can 
to make sure the opportunities that were there for me and so many 
others are open to every student in this country, no matter where they 
live or how they learn or how much money their parents have. In 
general, I believe the Federal Government and specifically the 
Department of Education has an important role to play in making that 
happen.
  I take the position of Secretary of Education very seriously. Leading 
this agency in this moment is a critical job. I consider it to be my 
job to do everything I can to make sure the person who fills it is 
truly committed to putting students and families first. As I will 
discuss in detail today and in the coming days, I do not believe Betsy 
DeVos is the right person to do that.
  Before I get into Ms. DeVos's failed record and her lack of 
experience, I wish to make a point about how I approach nominees and 
how that impacts my perspective on this one.
  Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to 
spend their time in this debate trying to impugn the motives of 
Democrats and Republicans who are trying to stop this nomination. They 
will try to say that President Trump won the election and he should be 
able to pick anyone he wants to fill this position and that we should 
all sit down and be quiet. I reject that. I believe the Senate has an 
important role to play in this process. It is our constitutional duty 
to take these nominations seriously, and I refuse to stand by and just 
watch.
  President Trump absolutely has the right to nominate people for his 
Cabinet who he thinks will carry out his vision for the country, but 
that does not mean the Senate should be a rubberstamp. To the contrary, 
we owe it to the people we represent to make sure every nominee is not 
only qualified for the position and free of conflicts of interest but 
that he or she will put families and workers first and not millionaires 
and billionaires or big corporations.
  President Trump was the first Presidential candidate in decades to 
not release his tax returns, and he is openly flouting ethics 
conventions regarding his personal and family businesses.
  I believe that in an administration where lines around potential 
conflicts of interest are very likely to be blurred at the top, they 
need to be even clearer at the individual agencies. So I will not 
apologize for demanding that the Senate do its job when it comes to 
doing our due diligence with these nominees. I will not back down from 
asking my questions for my constituents--the ones they would want me to 
ask. I will not stop fighting as hard as I can to oppose a Secretary of 
Education who doesn't stand with them.
  I am extremely disappointed at how this process has gone so far. I 
have great respect for the chairman of our committee, but I have never 
seen anything like it, especially coming out of our Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee, where until now we have worked together 
across party lines so well. Right from the start, it was very clear 
that Republicans intended to jam this nominee through the process as 
quickly as possible. Corners were cut, precedents were ignored, debate 
was cut off, and reasonable requests and questions were blocked. Again, 
I have never seen anything like it on this committee, Democratic 
administration or Republican, Democratic majority or Republican. It has 
been truly frustrating and deeply disappointing.
  I believe it is our job in the Senate to scrutinize nominees, but 
Republicans were acting like it was their job to protect Ms. DeVos, to 
shield her from questioning. First, Republicans rushed us into a 
hearing before we had Mrs. DeVos's ethics paperwork in. That might seem 
like a small thing, it may seem like a procedural issue, but it was 
important.
  Every single nominee during the Obama administration had their ethics 
paperwork in before a hearing in our committee. The Republican majority 
leader made having ethics paperwork in before a hearing a core demand 
of his during the Obama administration. The reason for this is simple: 
Senators should be able to ask nominees questions about their finances, 
their potential conflicts of interest, how they plan to avoid them, and 
how they plan to uphold the letter and spirit of our ethics laws. But 
without the Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure and 
without their review, Senators go into a hearing in the dark on a 
nominee's ethics and finances, and that is exactly what we were pushed 
into with Mrs. DeVos.
  Secondly, when we got into that hearing, we were told that Democrats 
would only have 5 minutes each to ask questions--5 minutes to ask about 
Betsy DeVos's finances, her long record of privatization of public 
education, her vision for this Department, and the many, many issues in 
this Department's jurisdiction--5 minutes and, then, cut off.
  Now, this was completely unprecedented and absolutely wrong. Never 
before had it been the case in our committee--not a single time that I 
recall--that a Senator, who had a question for a nominee, was cut off 
and blocked from asking it. Democrats were sitting in the hearing, 
waiting, hoping the chairman would change his mind, but we were shut 
down and we were silenced, and Mrs. DeVos was protected from answering 
additional questions.
  Third, after we finally got Betsy DeVos's ethics paperwork and had a 
number of questions about it, I requested another hearing where we 
could ask her those questions. That was a reasonable request. It was 
rejected.
  Fourth, I had a number of questions for Betsy DeVos about missing 
information in her paperwork to the committee, and she has simply not 
provided the committee with the required financial disclosures.
  We have a strong tradition in our committee of not moving to vote 
until the ranking member's questions are answered to satisfaction, and 
that tradition was ignored as Betsy DeVos was jammed through.
  Then, finally, after a vote was pushed through the committee as 
quickly as possible, with questions about rules being bent or ignored 
to get that done, this nomination is now being rushed to

[[Page 1776]]

this floor, and Republicans are attempting to jam it through here as 
well. It is pretty clear to me why. The more people learn about Betsy 
DeVos, the more they realize how wrong she is for our students and our 
schools. The more they hear about her background, the more they see her 
as one more way President Trump has broken his promise to ``drain the 
swamp.'' The more that comes out about her failed record, her tangled 
finances, conflicts of interest, and her lack of understanding or 
experience, the more the pressure increases on Republicans to put their 
allegiance to President Trump aside and stand with their constituents.
  So I understand why some Republicans want to rush to get this 
through. I think it is absolutely wrong, and I know people are paying 
attention.
  I want to make one final point on this. The chairman of our 
committee, the senior Senator from Tennessee, has brought up the idea 
of ``fairness'' when it comes to how we should approach this 
nomination--that he believes President Trump's nominees should be 
treated ``fairly.'' But my friend, the senior Senator from Tennessee, 
is defining fairness in an interesting way. He is saying that, if 
Republicans didn't scrutinize President Obama's nominees and if they 
didn't take the time to do their due diligence, then, it would be 
unfair for Democrats to do that for President Trump's.
  Well, I don't agree with that. I define fairness very differently. I 
believe the fair thing to do is what is fair for our constituents, that 
we work for them and should do right by them--not for a party, a 
nominee, or an administration. I believe the ``fair'' thing to do is to 
scrutinize these nominees, ask tough questions, and push for real 
answers, and that we should err on the side of deeper review and more 
robust questioning, rather than on the side of pointing to how 
Democrats and Republicans were treated in the past and ``fairness'' to 
nominees.
  So I think it is clear that this nominee is being rushed through and 
corners are being cut.
  I want to take some time now to talk about why I will be opposing her 
and urging all of our colleagues to do the same. I have three main 
reasons, and they are these: open questions about her tangled finances 
and potential conflicts of interest; strong concerns with her record, 
her lack of experience, and her clear lack of understanding of basic 
education issues; and the belief that her vision for education in 
America is deeply at odds with where parents, students, and families 
across the country want to go.
  First of all, there is her tangled finances and potential conflicts 
of interest. I mentioned this a bit before. I have never seen a nominee 
with such tangled and opaque finances and who is refusing to shine 
anything close to an appropriate level of light on them.
  Mrs. DeVos is a billionaire, and her inherited money is invested, 
along with other members of her family, in potentially hundreds of 
holding companies. Now, these holding companies often invest in other 
holding companies, and it is often very hard to untangle the individual 
companies in which she and her family actually own stakes. That is very 
relevant because we know her family has had significant education 
company holdings in the past, and they would be impacted by the 
decisions she made if confirmed.
  Mrs. DeVos has told us that she will comply with all ethics rules 
should she be confirmed, but we still have questions, and she still has 
not fulfilled the committee requirements. We have questions about areas 
in Mrs. DeVos's ethics paperwork, where it is simply unclear if assets 
she continues to hold have potential conflicts of interest, and we have 
not been given the full answers.
  We also want to know more from her about the family trusts she is 
maintaining positions in, and we have not been given the full answers.
  Finally, as I mentioned before, I have raised a number of questions 
about Mrs. DeVos's failure to provide the required financial disclosure 
to the committee, and I have not been given full answers there either.
  Secondly, I have very strong concerns with Betsy DeVos's record, her 
lack of experience, and her clear lack of understanding of basic 
education issues. I will take these one at a time.
  Nominees for this position have generally been people who were 
committed to students, had a long career dedicated to education, and 
were focused on keeping public education strong for all students and 
all communities.
  Betsy DeVos is very different.
  First of all, she is first and foremost a Republican and conservative 
activist and megadonor. She was chair of the Michigan Republican Party, 
and she and her family have reportedly donated hundreds of millions of 
dollars to Republicans and conservative groups over the years.
  Second of all, Betsy DeVos has spent her career and her fortune 
rigging the system to privatize and defund public education and hurt 
students in communities across our country. She has no experience with 
public schools, except through her work trying to tear them down.
  She has committed herself for decades to an extreme ideological goal: 
to push students out of public schools and weaken public education, no 
matter what. She has spent millions of dollars in political donations, 
organizations, and super PACs to try and influence elections and 
policies to accomplish that goal.
  It is not difficult to pick out where Betsy DeVos has focused. The 
signs are usually pretty easy to see. Where she has succeeded in 
getting her way, too often there are weaker public schools, worse 
outcomes, and fewer true opportunities for students.
  In fact, the only people guaranteed to benefit when Betsy DeVos 
focuses her attention on a community or a State are the TV stations who 
see hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in money pour into 
attack ads against her political opponents.
  But all people need to do is watch her hearing in our committee, and 
they can learn everything they need to know. This is a hearing that 
people across the country heard about--and for good reason. From local 
newspapers to local news to the ``Daily Show'' to ``The View'' and 
posts that went viral on social media, a whole lot of people heard 
Betsy DeVos herself for the first time in that hearing, and they were 
not impressed, to put it mildly. They watched as Democrats were blocked 
from asking questions in an unprecedented and disappointing attempt to 
protect this nominee. Then, on the questions we were allowed to ask, 
they saw a nominee who was clearly ill-informed and confused and gave a 
number of very concerning responses to serious and reasonable 
questions.
  Let's go through what Betsy DeVos said to us. She refused to rule out 
slashing investments in or privatizing public schools--privatizing 
public schools.
  She was confused that Federal law provides protections for students 
with disabilities.
  She did not understand a basic issue in education policy--the debate 
surrounding whether students should be measured based on their 
proficiency or their growth.
  She argued that guns needed to be allowed in schools across the 
country to ``protect from grizzlies.''
  Even though she was willing to say President Trump's behavior towards 
women should be considered sexual assault, she would not commit to 
actually enforcing Federal laws protecting women and girls in our 
schools.
  Her hearing was such a disaster, and it was so clear how little she 
understood about education issues, that a number of people and groups 
who usually stay on the fence--or even sometimes stand with Mrs. DeVos 
on some issues--could not stand with her anymore.
  Parents watching across the country saw a nominee who doesn't seem to 
care about or understand the education issues that impact them and 
their kids.
  This takes me to my final point right now on Betsy DeVos. Her vision 
for education in America is one that is deeply at odds with where 
parents and students and families across the country want us to go. At 
a time when education and the opportunity it affords is more important 
than ever, she would take our country in the absolute wrong direction.

[[Page 1777]]

  Eli Broad, a philanthropist and a strong charter school advocate, put 
it very well when he said: ``At the risk of stating the obvious, we 
must have a Secretary of Education who believes in public education and 
the need to keep public schools public.''
  He went on to say: ``With Betsy DeVos at the helm of the U.S. 
Department of Education, much of the good work that has been 
accomplished to improve public education for all of America's children 
could be undone.''
  I completely agree. Parents across the country want their government 
and their representatives fighting tooth and nail to improve public 
schools for all students in every community, while Betsy DeVos is 
committed to privatizing public schools and diverting public funds into 
taxpayer-funded vouchers that will leave far too many of our students 
behind.
  I will add that I have many friends here in the Senate representing 
rural States that will be severely impacted by a Secretary of Education 
who implemented a radical agenda like this.
  The bottom line is that strong public education is at the heart of 
true opportunity in America--something we all strive for and work for 
every day. People understand that. They see that Betsy DeVos's vision 
for this job is a direct attack on that core national value.
  I truly believe this is what has motivated so many people around the 
country to stand up and speak out. They saw her disastrous hearing on 
the news and going viral on social media. It is clear that people 
across the country care so deeply about education and are so passionate 
about making sure we have strong public schools that seeing President 
Trump nominate someone like Betsy DeVos to run this Department just 
hits very close to home to a whole lot of people, and it is so deeply 
offensive to them. For parents of students in our public schools, it is 
very hard to see a billionaire--who never went to public school, who 
didn't send her children to public school--put in a position to work 
against your interests.
  For teachers who work so hard every day in our public schools, it is 
hard to see your work denigrated.
  For so many others in communities across the country, something about 
Betsy DeVos has lit a fire underneath them, as well, and they have all 
decided to do something about it. Senate office phone lines have been 
shut down over the past week with so many callers weighing in against 
Betsy DeVos. Every office is receiving tens of thousands of letters 
asking the Senate to reject her. Almost 40,000 have come in to my 
office alone. Millions of people have signed petitions with the same 
message. There have been rallies and protests across the country and 
millions more posting on Facebook, sharing it with their friends, 
tweeting, and doing everything they can to make their voices heard.
  I wish to share just a sample of what I have heard from my 
constituents.
  One teacher from Mukilteo School District, a 26-year veteran of 
Washington State public schools, said she has worked tirelessly at 
title I elementary schools to help children achieve their greatest 
potential. If DeVos is confirmed, this teacher is terrified her school 
will lose its funding.
  Another constituent of mine from Federal Way tells me she has 
grandchildren in Michigan who are at risk because of Mrs. DeVos's 
reckless policies there, and she does not want to see this disaster 
repeated throughout our country.
  The regional superintendent in Wenatchee, a small city in North 
Central Washington, told me that he and his colleagues didn't even know 
where to begin laying out their concerns about Betsy DeVos.
  A fourth grade teacher from Spokane, WA, reached out to tell me she 
watched the confirmation hearing and was shocked at how little Betsy 
DeVos seemed to understand about the issues she faces every single day 
in her classroom.
  Those are just a few examples. There are thousands upon thousands in 
every community, in every State, and it is having an impact. Every 
Member of this body has felt the pressure. Already, two Republicans 
have made it clear that the voices of their constituents have pushed 
them into the ``no'' column, and I know there are other Republicans who 
take seriously what their constituents have to say and who have serious 
concerns about putting partisanship ahead of their States' and their 
constituents' interests.
  I don't like that we are rushing into this without the information we 
need. But if the majority is going to jam this through, we are going to 
do everything we can to have a robust debate over the next few days.
  So I am here to say: I am proud to stand with parents; I am proud to 
stand with students; I am proud to stand with teachers; I am proud to 
stand with those in my home State of Washington and across the country 
who support strong public schools and true education opportunities for 
all; and I am proud to stand up and fight back against Betsy DeVos.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  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. LANKFORD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Nomination of Neil Gorsuch

  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I rise to talk about what is going on 
in the Senate right now and the work that is done. It is early in the 
morning right now. It is 8 a.m. In Senate time, we have already done a 
series of votes that started at 6:30 this morning to be able to work 
through some of the nominations, and we have a great deal of work to be 
done.
  In the middle of the work that we are taking on right now, there is a 
lot of conversation about personnel. As you know well, the Senate is in 
the personnel business as much as we are in the legislative business, 
especially at the beginning of a Presidential term. One of the biggest 
decisions that we will make in the Senate will be the Supreme Court.
  Americans voted last year, in great measure, about the Supreme 
Court--in the direction of the Supreme Court. President Trump put out a 
list of 21 individuals he said he would choose from so the American 
people would be fully aware that this is the type of individual he 
would go after, and you can look at any of these to be able to evaluate 
it.
  As I looked through that list of 21, one name stuck out to me. It is 
the name Neil Gorsuch, who is from Oklahoma, as many people in this 
Chamber know. Neil Gorsuch represents the Tenth Circuit. He served on 
that circuit with great distinction, which includes Oklahoma. We have 
been able to see his work in what has happened on the bench, the 
opinions he has put out and the consistency, how he has been respected 
by individuals on both sides of the aisle throughout Oklahoma and 
across the Tenth Circuit.
  Neil Gorsuch went onto the bench in 2006. He was put on the bench by 
President Bush. What is interesting is this body, when they debated 
Neil Gorsuch in 2006, unanimously approved him with a voice vote. Not a 
single Senator opposed Neil Gorsuch when he went onto that Tenth 
Circuit bench in 2006. That means at that time Senator Barack Obama 
supported him. Senator Hillary Clinton supported him. Senator Joe Biden 
supported him. Senator Chuck Schumer supported him in 2006. All these 
individuals looked at who he was, what he was about, and supported him 
going on the Tenth Circuit bench.
  What has he done since that time? He has been a remarkable judge. He 
has advocated for something very clearly; that is, the role of each 
branch of government and each branch of government doing its job and 
only its job. He has spoken out on an issue I have spoken out on this 
floor about several times and oftentimes in committee, an issue called 
Chevron deference. It is one of those issues that most people don't 
track, but I hear a lot of people say the Executive orders are out of 
control and the executive branch is putting all these Executive orders 
out. I will typically smile at folks and say, actually, if you want to 
go down into

[[Page 1778]]

the heart of it, it is not Executive orders, it is Chevron deference.
  In the 1980s, the Supreme Court gave the ability to every President 
to interpret the law as they choose to and to be able to put 
regulations in if under this term they were reasonable in 
interpretation. In other words, if a piece of legislation mentioned a 
topic, then a President could create regulations around it.
  It started slow, but I will tell you that has accelerated in the last 
several years. What has happened in the last several years is, 
Presidents have reached in, looked at a statute, tried to find a gray 
area of the statute, and used their deference ability to be able to 
interpret it.
  In his writings, Neil Gorsuch has stepped out and said what that 
does, to be able to give that kind of deference to any President, is to 
give the President the ability to literally legislate an issue and then 
implement the issue and do his own interpretation of the issue. That is 
all three branches all piled into one. That is the President having the 
ability to say I am also the Court, I am also the legislative branch, 
and I am going to execute this out. That is a government out of 
balance.
  What Judge Gorsuch has done is over and over again pushed out this 
basic judicial philosophy that our Nation was founded on three separate 
parts of government; that the legislative branch is the only branch 
that legislates; that the executive branch carries it out; and there is 
only one branch that interprets the law, and that is the courts.
  If we were to move back to that simple model, it gives balance and 
consistency to all individuals to be able to know what the law says, 
what is the law, and to be able to actually push that out in such a way 
that people can trust it stays consistent.
  I am proud to be able to sit down and have conversations with Neil 
Gorsuch in the days ahead. I am looking forward to getting a chance to 
meet with him in my office and to be able to work through other areas 
and issues he faces.
  When President Trump selected Neil Gorsuch and suggested him for the 
bench, as I have mentioned before, my first thought was we couldn't 
have a better judge to be able to come out of the Midwest and to be 
able to speak out for the issues that real Americans want to be able to 
speak out for and to be able to have a Court that is consistently 
speaking, ``What did the law say when it was written? Let's just do 
that.''
  There are a lot of other personnel issues that are in front of the 
Senate right now. Betsy DeVos is in the process of what is called a 
cloture vote right now for Secretary of Education. That is final 
closing of debate and to be able to move to a vote that will happen 
Monday or Tuesday of next week.
  I will tell you, there has been a lot of conversation about Betsy 
DeVos, and I have heard the debate on this floor and in conversations 
and things I have read. What is interesting to me is, to be able to 
hear person after person stand up and say she is not for public 
education.
  Let me tell you where I am on this. Nine out of ten students in our 
Nation are in public schools. I grew up in public schools. My kids 
attend public schools. Many of my family members work in public schools 
or have worked in public schools. I am very passionate about what 
happens in our public schools because the vast majority of our students 
will be influenced and will be trained in our public schools. That has 
to be a primary focus of what we do.
  What is interesting to me is, Betsy DeVos was very outspoken during 
her confirmation process about her support for public schools. Did her 
children attend public schools? No, they did not, as Barack Obama's 
children did not attend public schools, as many other wealthy families' 
children did not attend public schools. Many wealthy families choose to 
do that because they have that option. Betsy DeVos, though, has been a 
person to raise her hand and say: Why do only wealthy families get to 
choose where their kids go to school? Why is that? Why don't other 
families have the same option that wealthy families have? But Betsy 
DeVos has been outspoken in saying it is a main responsibility to be 
able to focus on the improvement of our public schools because, again, 
that is where the vast majority of our students attend school.
  It has also been interesting to me that all of these statements 
against Betsy DeVos often don't take into account this basic thing: 
Betsy DeVos for decades has been passionate about trying to help 
students in the inner city, students who are in poverty--any student--
to be able to have every opportunity in education they can possibly 
have. I would think that as a nation we would encourage that, and that 
would be a positive thing rather than a negative thing.
  In 2015, this body looked at a public school education law called No 
Child Left Behind and said that the direction of public school 
education was going the wrong way. And for 15 years, we have had 
mandates coming down on our schools from Washington, DC, mandating what 
type of curriculum they use in their school, what kind of teacher 
evaluation is done for our public school teachers, what kind of testing 
requirement will come down on our schools. This body, with 85 of 100 
voting for it, said that No Child Left Behind is putting Federal 
mandates on every school. The place where those decisions should be 
made is not Washington, DC; it is in local districts--done by parents, 
done by teachers, done by superintendents, and done by State 
legislators. That is exactly what Betsy DeVos has said as well.
  Betsy DeVos has been very clear. She is not trying to promote every 
State and every district doing charter schools, allowing vouchers for 
private schools, allowing other options. That is completely the 
decision of the school. While I have heard people say that if she is 
put in place, she will take away all this money from the schools, it is 
not her role nor her capacity to even do that. She has been very clear 
in saying that all of those decisions are made by local districts and 
by State legislators and by parents--where the decisions should be 
made.
  Betsy DeVos has been very clear that No Child Left Behind was the 
wrong direction. In a very bipartisan way, 85 Members of this body 
agreed with that 2 years ago. President Obama agreed with that 2 years 
ago. And we all said that the best place for education decisions to be 
made is at the local level.
  Betsy DeVos was asked very directly: Will you go to these districts 
and try to impose on them to be able to put charter schools and private 
school access there? Her answer was: No, it is up to that local 
district what they choose to do--but nor would she try to stand in the 
way. If a local district or if a State chose to provide other options, 
it is not her role in the Federal Government to try to stand in the way 
of that. Quite frankly, I find it refreshing that someone would say: We 
are not going to run your school from Washington, DC. What you choose 
to do in your schools, you are allowed to do.
  Again, there has been a lot of conversation about charter schools and 
other options that are out there. I hear people all the time say that 
there is a problem with vouchers. How could the Federal Government be 
involved in any money going to private schools or public schools or 
whatever that may be? We settled that issue decades and decades ago. It 
is called the GI Bill. When the GI Bill was passed after World War II, 
the Federal Government told those veterans coming back from the war: 
You can choose to go to any school you want to go to--public school, 
private school, wherever it may be. The GI Bill is still considered one 
of the most effective tools that our Nation has ever done in higher 
education. It is a voucher program. And many people have not had the 
opportunity to think through: What does this mean?
  Again, Betsy DeVos has been very clear in saying it is not her desire 
to be able to impose that on every State, but if a State chooses to do 
that, why would we stop them when we have already seen clear evidence 
that the GI Bill was already successful in its time, going back now 60-
plus years? It is an issue that we look at and say: Why would we stand 
in the way of charter

[[Page 1779]]

schools when, in the past, they have been very well received by 
Republicans and Democrats alike?
  President Obama was a supporter of charter schools. Both of his 
Secretaries of Education were outspoken supporters of charter schools. 
In fact, one of them helped found a charter school. Charter schools are 
public schools, and they are received well.
  In my State of Oklahoma, we just had another school that came online 
that is a charter school that has been approved by our State board of 
education in a unanimous vote just a few weeks ago. These are decisions 
that are made by local districts. These are decisions that don't work 
in every area, in every location, especially in many rural areas. It 
doesn't work the same way. So why don't you allow that local district 
to make those decisions? Why don't you allow that State to make that 
decision? Why don't you give the authority to Oklahoma to do it? Let's 
not ask Betsy DeVos; in fact, allow Congress to hold her to account to 
make sure that our Secretary of Education is not trying to impose on 
our States what she wants to do but is allowing our State to do what we 
want to do. What we ask of a Secretary of Education is not to run our 
schools but to stay out of our schools' business and to allow us to be 
able to make those decisions.
  She is not going to step in and try to take funds away. Those are not 
her funds to give and to be able to monitor. Our decision is--what do 
we want to do as a State in education? What options do we want to 
provide to our kids? What I would ask most of a Secretary of Education 
is to leave us alone and allow us to do what we can for our kids.
  Quite frankly, I don't have a problem with school choice, even as a 
parent who sent my kids to public schools when I could have sent them 
to private schools. I thought the school was doing a great job in my 
area. I was glad for my kids to be able to be involved in it.
  But why would we ever tell a parent: If you will give us just 5 more 
years, we will get this school cleaned up and turned around. Their 
child doesn't have 5 more years. Their child has one shot. And if they 
wait 5 more years, they graduate from high school and without the 
opportunities they needed. It may work for their younger brother, but 
they couldn't wait.
  Why don't we give that ability back to the parent? As an avid 
supporter of public education, as a person with deep respect for 
teachers in my school, as a person who--I myself have a secondary 
education degree from college; I spent 22 years working for students, 
and I cannot tell teachers enough: Thank you for your thankless 
service. They spend all day with students who don't want to be there 
most of the time. They deal with parents at night who are upset that 
their child got a B-plus rather than an A. And they work tirelessly 
through a lot of bureaucracy. We are grateful for that. I can assure 
them that this Congress will make sure that no Secretary of Education, 
including the next one, reaches into any classroom and tells them how 
to do their business.


             Nominations of Jeff Sessions and Scott Pruitt

  Madam President, we have a couple of others I want to mention, as 
well. Jeff Sessions, who is coming out of this body, will be the next 
Attorney General. He will be a great Attorney General because Jeff 
Sessions has proved over the years that he is passionate about the law. 
He did it when he was in Alabama. He has done it here in the Senate. He 
has been an individual who is very focused: What does the law say? 
Let's do that.
  He has been a person who is a lover of all people but also a person 
who is not opposed to confronting people when they need to be 
confronted. It is a good role for an Attorney General. I look forward 
to seeing him in that spot.
  We have a favorite son in this fight as well. His name is Scott 
Pruitt. Scott Pruitt has been beat up a lot by the special interest 
lobbyists and environmental lobby. They put out all kinds of stuff 
about him. I encourage them to actually meet Scott Pruitt and to hear 
from him. Scott Pruitt has been passionate about the environment. Scott 
Pruitt actually likes breathing clean air. I know that may be shocking 
to people, but he actually likes clean air. In fact, he likes clean 
water as well. I don't know if you knew that or not.
  Scott Pruitt has been a very good attorney general for us and has 
also been very focused on doing this one thing: What does the law say? 
Let's do that.
  Some of the pushback that Scott Pruitt has had is not that he is 
opposed to the law; it is that he is not willing to push beyond the 
law, to be more creative with the Clean Water Act, and to be more 
creative with the Clean Air Act. It is not the job of the executive 
branch to be creative with an old law; it is to implement the law and 
to do it well.
  I fully expect Scott Pruitt to hold every person and every company 
that are polluters to account because we as a nation all want clean air 
and clean water. But I also fully expect him to push back when someone 
says to him ``You ought to do this,'' and for him to respond ``That may 
be nice, but that has to pass Congress because the Environmental 
Protection Agency can't make up the rules; they can only implement the 
rules that have been given to them by Congress.'' I am looking forward 
to Scott Pruitt serving in that role.
  In the weeks ahead, as he has advanced out of committee, he will come 
to the floor, and we will have a full vote here. I am willing to tell 
all of my colleagues that when Scott Pruitt is at the Environmental 
Protection Agency, you will be pleasantly surprised with how fair he 
is, how responsive he is, and how passionate he is about actually 
implementing the law.
  These are long days for us because there are an awful lot of stall 
tactics going on. President Trump is trying to put his Cabinet 
together. By this point, 2 weeks in, President Obama had almost all of 
his Cabinet done already. Over 20 individuals were already in place in 
President Obama's first term. The other party has blocked as many as 
they possibly can so that President Trump can't get to work. You may 
think that is a nice political thing to do, but the Nation had an 
election. And as President Obama said, elections do have consequences.
  President Trump should be allowed to put together his Cabinet just as 
Republicans allowed President Obama to put together his Cabinet before. 
It is a fair thing, and it is the right thing to be able to do. We all 
need to be able to get our work done, President Trump included. Let's 
let him put his team together and get to work as the American people 
have asked him to do.
  Madam President, with that, I yield back.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Capito). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Madam President, I come to talk about a topic that is 
near and dear to my heart. Although I don't serve on the committee of 
jurisdiction, I will tell some stories today that will demonstrate to 
you about why I feel so strongly about this nominee and so strongly 
about this position.
  I want to start with my dad's story. My dad grew up on a small family 
farm outside the town of Barney, ND, not that you would know where that 
is. When he became an eighth grader--when he graduated with an eighth-
grade education, he wanted to go to high school in Wyndmere, but as was 
the custom at the time, the oldest son was expected to stay on the farm 
and not get an education beyond the eighth grade and help support the 
family. That is not unusual. There is probably a number of people in 
this body whose parents have a similar experience, but this story 
really came home to me when my dad was diagnosed with melanoma.
  Unfortunately, with part of that disease, the cancer moved to his 
brain and something remarkable happened for all of us, and that was 
that he would relive

[[Page 1780]]

parts of his life. He would believe--as the cancer took over his brain, 
that part would activate his memory, and he would be doing things like 
calling bingo in the middle of the night during this time when he was 
in hospice care. It would alarm us, and maybe sometimes even amuse us, 
but he would truly believe he was calling bingo at the Mandan VFW Hall.
  I remember taking care of him one night, when he started reliving the 
experience of not going to high school and started really talking about 
how that affected his life, begging his father. I would never have 
known that without the cancer, but that education experience was so 
critical to his future and the future of his children. That experience 
that he had taught us and informed us and mandated that we appreciate 
public school education and the opportunity that came with it.
  That leads to our story, the seven children of Ray Heitkamp who had a 
great public school education in Mantador, went to high school in 
Hankinson. Some of my siblings were fortunate enough to go to parochial 
school before St. Francis closed down, but we all graduated from 
Hankinson High School. Then something truly remarkable happened in this 
country--truly remarkable because we had a chance to go to college. 
From the time we were just children, my mother would tell us we were 
going to college. We would wonder, back in the sixties, how that was 
ever possible.
  Then the Federal Government did something truly remarkable. It said 
our most important asset and our greatest future lies in the education 
of our children, and we want to help our children advance with that 
education. We saw what happened with the GI bill when GIs came home 
from World War II and went to college and became doctors and lawyers, 
became bankers, became businessmen, and worked to build their 
communities. We saw that.
  We said: Wouldn't it be great if every kid had that opportunity, not 
just returning veterans but every kid.
  So I remember coming here, my first day that I presided in the U.S. 
Senate after I was elected in 2012, and I was so busy getting ready to 
serve that I hadn't really gotten to that spot where I realized: Wow. I 
am standing in the most deliberative body in the world, and I am a U.S. 
Senator. I remember gaveling in, asking Pastor Black to come forward 
and give the prayer, and then we turned--as the pages know, we turned 
to say the Pledge of Allegiance. It was at that moment when I asked 
myself, ``In what country can the daughter of a school cook and a 
construction worker serve in the U.S. Senate?''
  We are blessed in this country to have opportunity, but that 
opportunity is diminished if we don't support public school education. 
That opportunity will not be available to future generations. We will 
continue to divide this country in ways that will destroy our 
democracy.
  So where do we go today and how does this have anything to do with 
today?
  This is our Nation's story. Public school education, which began in 
Massachusetts, and every step and every development of public school 
education has expanded the opportunity for children with disabilities 
to achieve their highest calling through public school education. 
Children of a school cook and a construction worker can become a U.S. 
Senator. Any achievement we all have is because someone cared about our 
education and cared about our opportunities.
  I was fortunate, I had parents who believed in education. Way too 
many children today are in homes where education isn't a priority. 
Maybe that home is racked with poverty, addiction, huge challenges. 
Even homeless children deserve a public school education, deserve 
access to education.
  We are the envy of the world. Children in other countries die for the 
opportunity for public school education. This is foundational, not just 
to the individual development but to the future of our country.
  So where are we today? Sure, we have challenges in education. No one 
is denying that. No one is saying our public school education, our 
entire education system is perfect. The challenge I have in North 
Dakota is achieving quality education in a rural setting. How do we do 
that when maybe there are only two high school seniors, and if they are 
going to go to the next school, they are going to drive at least an 
hour and a half a day. That is not unheard of. I can only imagine what 
that looks like in Alaska.
  There are parts in our State where we are challenged every day to 
deliver high-quality education. We have a technology barrier. 
Fortunately, in North Dakota, we have technology and broadband in many 
of our schools. That is not true across this country. We need to do 
more in broadband, bringing high-quality education tools to schools. We 
need to recruit the best teachers for our rural schools, the best 
teachers for our urban schools--the best people.
  During my time as Attorney General, I did a project involving 
juvenile justice. We went around to all of the schools, mainly talking 
to junior high kids because we believed that was the point at which 
they were making choices that may change the trajectory of their life. 
We were going around high schools talking to junior high kids. One of 
the things that kids told us over and over again is, they did not want 
their teachers to know when they had done something illegal. Why is 
that? It is not because they didn't trust their teachers with that 
information. The other group they didn't want to know was their parents 
because they didn't want to disappoint the heroes in their lives. 
Contrary to what people think--because they think children's heroes are 
some sports hero or some rapper or some performer, and that is 
absolutely not true. Do you know who kids' heroes are? First, they will 
say their grandparents or parents or a sister or a brother, one of 
their family members. Next what we hear is their third grade teacher, 
their seventh grade math teacher, their high school coach who maybe 
made their life a little bit easier when they were in school. Those are 
their heroes. These are the people who are doing the critical work all 
too often of helping to raise our kids in very challenging 
circumstances.
  So when we do not support public school education with highly 
qualified nominees for the highest education job in the country, what 
does that say to people who may choose an opportunity in education? It 
says we don't think very much of them because we are just willing to go 
ahead with a D-minus applicant because maybe that applicant had a big 
checkbook.
  I want to talk a little bit about my colleague who is on the floor 
today, Patty Murray, and a colleague who is not, and that is Senator 
Alexander. I can state that I was in State office when No Child Left 
Behind was passed. It was so apparent to me and everyone at that level 
that this was not a public policy that was going to achieve the 
intended results, but yet we maintained that public policy for 
decades--through gridlock, through the inability to sit down and 
compromise, through the inability to put politics aside and put 
children first.
  Then something remarkable happened in the last Congress. In a highly 
contentious partisan environment, two great leaders, Senator Murray and 
Senator Alexander, sat down, and they knew the time had come to reverse 
the No Child Left Behind Act and replace it with something that was 
going to be much more successful so the Every Student Succeeds Act was 
passed, and we are now on the path of implementation. We set a new 
policy for public school education.
  We need a leader in the Department of Education who believes in 
public school education and who can administer that policy, who can 
leave policy to the local and State school boards, to parents, to PTAs, 
and to local folks. We want policy. We need someone who can collaborate 
and implement and work with schools across our country to make this 
policy work and then report fairly back to us when something is not 
working to tell us that wasn't a good idea. We need more afterschool 
programs. We need a hot lunch program that actually serves more kids in 
the morning so kids are ready to learn. That is what we need.

[[Page 1781]]

  So what did we get with this nominee? In my opinion, we got a highly 
unqualified nominee for one of the most significant positions in 
government for our most precious resource, our children. That is what 
we got.
  So I am standing today, explaining my belief that we need to do 
something different than approve this nominee. We need to send the 
right message to all of those educators, all of those State officials, 
and all of those parents who came together and worked with Senator 
Murray and Senator Alexander to form a policy. Dissent was hardly 
anywhere. If it was, it was whispered on the edges. We need somebody 
who appreciates that work, who understands that work, and who would 
never say public schools are a dead end.
  Public schools are not a dead end. They are the beginning of 
opportunity. We have to work hard to make sure that happens, but we 
have to start from a foundational belief that public school education 
is critically important and needs to be protected, supported, and 
advocated for. We have to start there, and I think we are not there 
with this nominee.
  I wish to say it is not just my judgment that I bring to the floor of 
the Senate today. I bring to the floor the judgment of thousands of 
North Dakotans who have called me.
  Hopefully, I did something to give people greater access to my 
advocacy in the Senate for them. I opened a portal on my Web page and 
asked people to tell us what they wanted to have done with these 
nominees. I have received thousands--in fact, 4,600. It may not sound 
like a lot to other offices, but that is a lot from a State of only 
730,000 or 740,000 people. Of those 4,600, over half were on this 
nomination. Of those who called this office or sent a message to the 
portal, 92 percent of them said: Please, do not vote to approve Betsy 
DeVos. These are incredible statistics, very telling statistics.
  I wish to read some of the comments I received from North Dakotans. I 
received a comment from Amber of Burleigh County, who said:

       My husband and I are both public educators and we know how 
     critical a good public school education is for students all 
     across North Dakota, including our two daughters. We need a 
     leader at the U.S. Department of Education who supports 
     students, teachers, and public schools. Unfortunately, Betsy 
     DeVos wants to dismantle public schools.

  Judith from Cass County said:

       DeVos has no public education experience or training of any 
     kind; she has never been a teacher or school administrator, 
     served on any public board of education, or even attended a 
     public school. It is clear DeVos is not qualified to be the 
     head of the U.S. Department of Education.

  Patricia from Bottineau County told me:

       As a former public school teacher and grandmother of 6, I 
     do not support Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. She 
     should not get this job with no experience in education other 
     than trying to get rid of public schools.

  An editorial today in the Fargo Forum, a very conservative newspaper 
in my State--I might say, it is not known for its liberal bias--said:

       Of Trump's Cabinet nominees, DeVos is among the least 
     qualified for the intended job because of her uninformed and 
     ideologically skewed views of public education. Her ignorance 
     was on display during her Senate committee hearing during 
     which she was unable to answer even softball questions about 
     long-standing education policies.

  If we were inclined to support Ms. DeVos, I felt it was my job to 
watch the hearings. By anyone's measure, I think the hearings were 
clearly a disaster for this nominee. But I think it also represented--
more than the lack of knowledge and qualifications--an attitude. That 
attitude is that it is clear she doesn't understand the importance of 
public schools and refused to rule out taking Federal investments away 
from public schools. In fact, I think it was very clever in not 
revealing the true agenda, which is to privatize--not just charter 
schools. In fact, some of the greatest charter school advocates in this 
country do not support her nomination.
  She doesn't understand basic education policy, yet she wants to lead 
the Federal agency overseeing education in our country. She doesn't 
understand or know of current Federal laws that support and protect 
students with disabilities. She has shown her severe lack of knowledge 
about rural schools, which represent about one-third of the public 
schools nationwide. She never attended or taught in a public school or 
had any of her children in a public school.
  Students, parents, and teachers across North Dakota have stood up to 
say no to Betsy DeVos. In the Senate, only one more vote is needed to 
stop this nomination from proceeding.
  I ask my colleagues who have not made up their mind, my colleagues 
whom I know care deeply about children to think about the great history 
of our country and think about the enormous privilege we had as 
children and as young adults to access that public school education. I 
ask them to think about how else someone who is the daughter of a 
school cook and a janitor and a seasonal construction worker could be 
in the Senate if it weren't for public school education.
  Please, we can find someone so much better--someone who understands 
the new Federal policy, who has the ability to collaborate with public 
officials and not criticize, someone who hasn't said the work of these 
people who have dedicated their lives is a dead end, and someone who 
has respect for public school education.
  We can do so much better. Our kids need it and deserve it. Children 
in the most precarious and difficult situations need a champion, 
whether it is because they have disabilities or whether they come from 
poverty and don't have a parent who really cares about their education 
or is too busy trying to put food on the table to worry about whether 
the homework gets done. We can make a difference here. We can send a 
message out to all of those school teachers who have dedicated their 
lives, who are our kids' heroes, that their life work matters. We are 
going to send them the best this country has to offer to be their 
leader.
  Madam President, with that, I yield the floor, and I yield my time to 
Senator Murray.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Madam President, I yield the remainder of my 
postcloture debate time to Senator Murray.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I rise today to address the potential 
confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. I rise today not 
just as a Senator from Montana; I am a former public school teacher, a 
former public school board member. I have a mother who was a teacher 
and an aunt who was a teacher. I have a daughter who is a teacher. I 
have a sister-in-law who is a teacher. I have a number of teachers in 
my family. They all have either taught at or currently teach at public 
schools. When I was growing up, education was a critical part of what 
we developed into. Public education was something that my parents 
thought was very important. That was instilled in them by my 
grandmother, who over 100 years ago immigrated to this country from 
Sweden, due in part to the public education system we have in this 
country today.
  When I came home from school every day, my mother would quiz me on 
what went on in public education. By the way, I went to the same school 
she did. She would find out what had transpired, both the interactions 
with the kids and what went on academically in the school, and also 
offer me a hand if I needed help with the academic portion. We would 
talk about my experiences in the public school because it

[[Page 1782]]

was important. She knew it was important.
  She was the daughter of a homesteader. When she was a child, 
homesteading wasn't exactly looked upon kindly by the ranchers of the 
community. They thought homesteaders were taking away their right to 
make a living--breaking up that good grass and putting wheat on it, 
making it so cattle couldn't continue to graze there. There was a lot 
of friction between ranchers' and farmers' kids. They all went to the 
same public school. In my particular case, it was Big Sandy Public 
Schools. In the environment of that public school, those kids learned 
to get along. What resulted from that was the ``greatest generation.'' 
We live in a world today due in much part to their figuring out a way 
to get along, figuring out a way to communicate, figuring out a way to 
make the world a better place. That was due I think entirely because of 
the public education system we have in this country today.
  Our public education system is--and this cannot be argued--the 
foundation of our democracy. When I was growing up and the Vietnam 
conflict was going on and there were conflicts around the world, 
everybody said: You know, these countries need to have a democracy. And 
then there was a realization that without an educated population, 
democracies really don't work.
  We have had a democracy in this country for nearly 250 years because 
of the success of our public education system. We have had a middle 
class in this country that has been the envy of the world because of 
our--listen to me--public education system. It is the foundation of our 
democracy, it is the foundation of our economy, and it is a place where 
we learn to live together peacefully.
  What is troubling about the nomination of Betsy DeVos as Education 
Secretary is that she wants to privatize this public education system 
we have. I had her in my office. We talked about vouchers, and we 
talked about privatizing education. We talked about accountability. Her 
response to the public education system was that it was failing. Her 
response to that was, pull a few kids out. Pull the kids out who don't 
have any disabilities, pull the kids out who are a little smarter, and 
put them into a classroom, and that will be what makes this country 
great again. This country is already great, and if we do that, I am 
here to tell the people of the Senate today that we will destroy the 
foundation of this country and we will destroy--it may take a few 
years--we will destroy our democracy.
  It would be different if Betsy DeVos had spent 1 hour, 1 minute, 1 
second in a public education classroom. She was not educated in public 
schools. She has not dealt with public schools. I dealt with it as a 
teacher. I dealt with it as a school board member for 9 years. In fact, 
my second public service job was on the Big Sandy School Board. It is 
important because my first one dealt with soil and soil conservation, 
and my second one dealt with education. She has been in neither of 
those positions. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter that she wasn't in 
those--except it does because if you don't touch base with what is 
going on and see the successes that are happening in public education, 
you can have a warped view of what is going on in this country right 
now, and that warped view will cause you to do things like say ``You 
know what, we are going to put up charter schools, we are going to have 
vouchers, and ultimately we are going to take away public education as 
we know it today.'' Instead of saying ``You know what, we are going to 
invest in accountability, we are going to invest in teachers' salaries, 
and we are going to invest in a 21st-century education system so our 
kids can compete,'' the answer is ``No, we are going to pull kids out 
of the school.''
  I am going to tell you a secret. I taught in the late seventies. I am 
far from a master teacher; I taught for a couple of years. I quit 
teaching because I could do anything else in society and make more 
money. I could cut meat for a day and make as much money as I made 
teaching school for a week.
  Wouldn't it be a little bit smarter, instead of privatizing the 
schools, as Betsy DeVos wants to do, to invest in those schools? Let's 
give the kids the maximum opportunity we can give them. Let's value 
public education, and let's value education.
  I am going to tell you what happens in a rural State like mine with 
privatization. My school system in my hometown of Big Sandy has about 
175 kids. That is not an exception for Montana; there are a lot of 
schools that have 175 kids or fewer. By the way, that is not high 
school; that is K-12. Let's say that for whatever reason, somebody 
wants to set up a charter school a few miles down the road and suck a 
few kids out of Big Sandy and maybe suck a few kids out of the Fort 
Benton school system and a few more out of the Chester system. Pretty 
soon, they have their little charter school, and there is less money to 
teach the kids who are left in those public schools. What do you think 
is going to happen to those kids who are left there? That is going to 
take away from our public education system. Ultimately, it will cause 
those schools to close because the money that funds our education is at 
a bare minimum right now.
  The other thing that has happened in our public education system is 
that Congress--people here--has made the promise to local schools to 
fund kids with disabilities, the IDEA Program, things we can do to help 
fix public education. Let's fund what we promised--40 percent. It is 
funded at 16 percent right now. So if we had a person who was going to 
go in as Secretary of Education and said: You know what, this is a 
problem, and we are going to fight to make sure that folks have the 
money from the Federal level to be able to teach the kids; and we are 
going to live up to our promise; and, by the way, IDEA is a good 
program that needs to be fully funded, and the Federal Government needs 
to do their part at 40 percent, I may have a different opinion. But 
that is not what she wants to do. She, in fact, wants to do something 
far worse than that.
  She told me she wanted to block grant the money for IDEA, which would 
further put another nail in the coffin of schools around the country, 
and then put three or four in the rural schools.
  It has been documented here earlier this morning that the phones have 
been ringing off the hook. They have been ringing off the hook opposed 
to Betsy DeVos. There are 1 million people who live in Montana. Over 
3,000 people have contacted me opposing her. I have had 20 contact me 
to support her. Phones are ringing off the hook. In fact, the phones 
are ringing to the tune of 1,200 to 1,500 calls a day. The phone system 
has shut down. There are some Senators who aren't even answering their 
phone because they don't want to hear it. But the truth is that public 
education is important in this country. People know what is at risk 
here. To have somebody who has never spent any time in the classroom of 
a public education system is asking for catastrophic results.
  I am going to read a few comments from people in my great State who 
have sent me emails and letters about Betsy DeVos. Here is one from 
Melee in Missoula:

       Mrs. DeVos has no place in our national education system. 
     She is clearly not prepared nor does she even have the most 
     basic experience to do this job well. Our students, teachers, 
     and parents, deserve an excellent candidate, and she is not 
     it.

  Kelly from Laurel:

       As a mother of an 11-year-old daughter, the thought of this 
     woman in charge of our Nation's school system scares me.

  Sandy from Billings:

       It would be nice to have an Educational Secretary who has 
     actually worked, I say WORKED, in education instead of some 
     rich woman who has never spent a day in public schools.

  Kim in Kalispell:

       We need an Education Secretary that knows what the I-D-E-A 
     Act actually is and the needs of rural school districts. We 
     can do better and our kids deserve better.

  Jenessa from Froid wrote me quite a long letter. I think it is 
particularly poignant, so I want to read this to you. It is a little 
bit long, but I think it is very clear. I want to back up a little bit 
and tell you that Froid is a very

[[Page 1783]]

small town, not unlike Big Sandy. It doesn't have a lot of kids, but it 
has great people. Here is what Jenessa says:

       After marrying my husband, a local farmer, in August 2010, 
     I put down my roots with plans to spend my entire teaching 
     career in Froid. With Mrs. DeVos pushing for private school 
     funding, our small school will be one of the first to suffer.
       Having two small boys that will be soon entering into their 
     school years, they will be the third generation to walk the 
     halls of Froid Public School. I want them to be able to spend 
     all 13 of their public school years in the same school.
       As an educator, I have seen what a small rural school can 
     do for a student. While we may not get the same opportunities 
     as large schools, when the opportunities knock on our door, 
     we have a large percentage of students take advantage.
       They have pride in their school and their community. 
     Montana is currently suffering from teacher shortage. With a 
     lack of funding, this shortage will only get worse.
       I am currently in the process of earning my Masters degree 
     in Educational Leadership. With this degree, I have been 
     given the opportunity to become the principal of our small 
     school. A school my family attends, my roots are dug, and I 
     do not want a woman like Betsy DeVos having control over [our 
     school].
       Please vote no. A vote for Betsy is a vote for private 
     control. A vote for Betsy is against the community of Froid.
       A vote for Betsy is against Froid Public School. A vote for 
     Betsy is a vote against public school teachers across this 
     country and against the great State you represent. A vote for 
     Betsy is a vote against my family. A vote for Betsy is a vote 
     against me.

  Mary from Red Lodge:

       As a 32-year veteran educator in a rural public school, I 
     am deeply concerned about the appointment of Betsy DeVos as 
     Education Secretary. I'm inclined to say that her loyalty and 
     financial backing of Mr. Trump were the reasons for the 
     misguided appointment and not her experience and knowledge in 
     education issues.
       To be in such an esteemed position as Education Secretary, 
     one would expect years of experience and an advanced degree 
     to understand the ongoing issues we face in U.S. education.

  Sara from Billings:

       As a first grade teacher in a low-income school, I believe 
     wholeheartedly in Montana's public schools.
       Betsy DeVos believes in school privatization and vouchers. 
     She has worked to undermine efforts to regulate Michigan 
     charters, even when they clearly fail.
       The marketplace solution of DeVos will destroy our 
     democratically governed community schools. Her hostility 
     towards public schools disqualifies her.
       She will not work to provide a free and fair education to 
     my students who struggle every day with hunger, with 
     homelessness, and more. I am asking you to vote against the 
     confirmation of Betsy DeVos.

  But I have heard from far more than that--from parents to 
grandparents, to doctors, to average Joes who oppose this nomination. 
Education is something that affects everybody's life. In my opening 
remarks, I talked about the need for public education for democracy to 
work and exist. As a former school teacher and as a former board 
member, I can tell you that there are a lot of things we can do to make 
public education better, and we ought to do it.
  There are hard things to do. It is much easier to say: Let's just 
destroy the program and privatize it, and then see what we end up with. 
That would be a bad decision, and that is why we should not vote for 
Betsy DeVos.
  The impacts are huge. They are huge on our economy, they are huge on 
our form of government, and they are huge for us being a leader in this 
free world we live in.
  In closing, I want Montanans to know that we have heard you. You 
called, you wrote, and you contacted me on Facebook and Twitter. Your 
message has been loud and clear. It is a message that we are hearing 
all across this country. It is a message that, quite frankly, if we 
confirm this lady, will not make America great again. In fact, it will, 
over time, destroy this very country that we love.
  As to people who I talk to who say: The Secretary of Education 
doesn't matter; it is not going to affect me--I don't know whom you are 
kidding. The fact of the matter is, this will affect every school in 
every community in this country.
  We can say President Trump got elected, and he needs to have the team 
that he wants. I am not going to vote for a team that destroys the 
public education system in this country. I would not be doing a service 
to the people who came before me--the previous generations--and I 
certainly would not be doing a service to my kids and my grandkids and 
the generations to come after. This is a very important decision. If we 
want to do the tough work of debating our public education system and 
determining how we can make it better, get the best people in the 
classrooms, and get the best academic material in there for them to 
work off of, let's do that. But let's not destroy the public education 
system that has made this country great for generation after generation 
after generation.
  I urge my colleagues to stand with the thousands of Montanans and the 
millions of Americans who have told us to vote no on Betsy DeVos.
  Madam President, I yield my remaining postcloture debate time to the 
Senator from Washington, Mrs. Patty Murray.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  Mr. TESTER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, why are we even debating the nomination 
of a person who clearly does not believe in our Nation's public 
schools? No matter whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, 
no matter what part of the country you live in, whether rural or city, 
whether you have children or not, who would say that education is not 
important or valuable? Who would say that education is not foundational 
to success in life?
  Nine of every 10 students in the United States attend a public 
school. Who among us would say those students should be led by a person 
who does not believe in public schools? Who among us would say that we 
should have an Education Secretary who does not commit to making public 
schools better for the sake of all of our children?
  Then we should ask ourselves: Is Betsy DeVos the best that we can do 
for our children and young people? Does Betsy DeVos believe in public 
schools? No. Has Betsy DeVos ever been a teacher, a principal, or even 
attended public school? No. Does Betsy DeVos believe that we should 
hold charter schools--which are public schools, by the way--equally as 
accountable as other public schools? No. Does Betsy DeVos understand 
educational civil rights laws that provide all children with 
disabilities the opportunity to pursue a free and appropriate public 
education? No. Did Betsy DeVos commit to holding schools accountable 
for campus sexual assault? No. Again, I ask: Is Betsy DeVos the best 
that we can do for our children and young people? No.
  Again, why are we even here to debate whether such a person should 
lead the Department of Education? I feel as though we are going down a 
rabbit hole where up is down and down is up. It should not be asking 
too much to have an Education Secretary who will stand up for public 
schools and the millions of our children and young people who attend 
our public schools all across our country.
  Education is foundational. I think we all acknowledge that. I speak 
from experience. When I came to this country at almost 8 years old, I 
did not speak a word of English. I attended public schools where I 
learned how to speak English, developed my love of reading, and 
ultimately prepared for college. Public schools really helped prepare 
me for life.
  I had a great sixth grade teacher. His name is Yoshinobu Oshiro. 
Before he was a teacher, Mr. Oshiro served in the military intelligence 
service during World War II, one of the segregated Japanese-American 
units that went on to earn the Congressional Gold Medal. He really 
cared about his students, and he encouraged me to study hard.

[[Page 1784]]

  I have stayed in touch with Mr. Oshiro for decades. When I was last 
home in Hawaii about a month ago, I invited him to the historic meeting 
of President Obama and Prime Minister Abe of Japan at Pearl Harbor. I 
wanted to make sure that Mr. Oshiro met both Prime Minister Abe and 
President Obama. This happened. Today, I have a photo of Mr. Oshiro. 
There he is, meeting President Obama on that historic day in Hawaii.
  Mr. Oshiro was a very important part of my life. In public schools 
across the country, there are many more Mr. Oshiros, teachers who go 
out of their way to support and encourage their students. They deserve 
a leader who will fight for them, who understands the challenges our 
public schools face, and who is committed to meeting those challenges. 
They deserve a leader who wants all of our children in public schools 
to succeed. If you can truly say that Betsy DeVos is that leader, that 
she is the best we can do for the millions of children attending public 
schools in our country, then vote for her. But I cannot. Thousands of 
my constituents agree.
  I yield the remainder of my postcloture debate time to Senator 
Murray.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may receive up to 40 minutes.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Remembering LaVell Edwards

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise today to honor the memory of 
LaVell Edwards, a giant of the gridiron who guided the Brigham Young 
University football program through decades of unprecedented success. 
Surrounded by his family, Coach Edwards passed away peacefully on the 
morning of December 29, 2016.
  Born to Philo and Addie Edwards in 1930 in Orem, UT, he excelled in 
football and basketball at Lincoln High School.
  Following graduation, he decided to attend Utah State University to 
play football. LaVell figured that if he played for BYU, the hometown 
school, he would have lived at home and been required to milk the 
family cows, so he went north to Logan. At Utah State, he met the love 
of his life, Patti Covey. A few months after the two went on a blind 
date, they were married in Beaver Dam, UT.
  Following graduation, LaVell served in the Army for 2 years. After 
receiving an honorable discharge from the military, he became head 
football coach at Granite High School in Salt Lake City.
  After eight seasons as head coach, LaVell was hired at BYU by Hal 
Mitchell in 1962. LaVell humorously remarked that he was hired only 
because Coach Mitchell wanted to run the single wing offense and Coach 
Edwards was the only Mormon running that offense at the time.
  After 10 seasons as an assistant coach at BYU, he was promoted to 
head coach in 1972. Prior to his promotion, BYU had never achieved much 
success in football. In LaVell's words, it was a matter of when, not 
if, he would be fired. So he decided to do something that few other 
coaches were doing at the time: make the forward pass the focal point 
of the offense. LaVell's bold move revolutionized the game of football. 
His quarterbacks ended up throwing for over 100,000 yards, and four of 
them won the Davey O'Brien Award, given annually to college football's 
best quarterback. One of his quarterbacks even won the Heisman Trophy, 
which is awarded each year to college football's best player. LaVell's 
high-powered offense boosted the team to national prominence and 
culminated in BYU's 1984 national championship victory.
  Following this historic season, Coach Edwards was named the AFCA 
National Coach of the Year. With LaVell at the helm, BYU consistently 
finished in the top 25. He would eventually lead the Cougars to 19 
conference championships and 257 victories, making him the seventh 
winningest coach in college football history. He coached 31 all-
Americans, 6 College Football Hall of Famers, and 2 Outland Trophy 
winners. Coach Edwards himself was ultimately inducted into the College 
Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
  Despite his tremendous success on the field, LaVell always remained 
humble. He also never lost his sense of humor. Although college 
football fans typically remember Coach Edwards for his trademark 
sideline scowl, he was renowned for his wit. He quipped on this fact, 
saying, ``Someone once said I'm a happy guy; I just forgot to tell my 
face.'' With his disarming humor and clever one-liners, LaVell could 
lighten the mood and make almost anyone laugh.
  Coach Edwards also had a remarkable ability to delegate. Although he 
knew football forward and backward, he surrounded himself with capable 
coaches and he let them do their jobs. His assistants were some of the 
best ever in college football, partially because he let them have free 
reign. This quality allowed him to focus on the personal element of 
football.
  He valued all of his players, and by all accounts, his door was 
always open to them. Indeed, many of his players have spoken about 
having frequent meetings with him that helped change their lives for 
the better. At his funeral, hundreds of former football players showed 
up--Hall of Famers, top-notch-rated people in almost every case. I was 
there at the funeral on Saturday.
  Coach Edwards simply cared about people, and I was fortunate to 
witness this up close. In the 100th Congress, I had the pleasure of 
working with him when he was president of the American Football Coaches 
Association. Together, we helped to pass legislation that allowed the 
AFCA to establish multiemployer pensions for college football coaches. 
Given the uncertain nature of the coaching profession, this legislation 
was an important achievement for coaches and their families across the 
country.
  Although football was important to LaVell, his faith was first and 
foremost. While he was coaching at BYU, LaVell served as a lay bishop 
in a Mormon student congregation. He thoroughly enjoyed the 
interactions he had with those students.
  Throughout his life, he served his church in many other positions of 
responsibility. Following his retirement from coaching in 2000, LaVell 
and Patti served a public affairs mission in New York City for the 
Mormon Church. He served honorably in that capacity and even put his 
experience as a football coach to good use.
  I might add that he invited me to come up and go to dinner with a 
number of dignitaries in that area so that he could chat with them and 
tell them a little bit about his faith and his beliefs, and it was a 
privilege to do so.
  He and Patti were terrific missionaries and good people. While a 
missionary, LaVell aided in the establishment of Harlem's first high 
school football program in decades.
  Coach Edwards and Patti also met with many different political and 
religious leaders, and, as he put it, they looked to ``build bridges'' 
between these leaders and his church.
  Madam President, LaVell Edwards was a champion on and off the field. 
Not only was he one of the most successful coaches in college football 
history, he was also one of the greatest men I ever knew. I will be 
forever grateful for my own friendship with LaVell, and I pray that we 
will always remember the humility and humor that were the hallmarks of 
his life. It was one of the privileges of my life to have a personal 
relationship with him and Patti. They are two of the finest people I 
have ever met.
  I have to say that LaVell would drop anything to support his 
religious beliefs, and he was a tremendous influence on literally 
hundreds, if not thousands, of football players and others who watched 
what he said, watched what he did, and loved how well he did those 
things.
  I personally was befriended by him on a number of occasions, and it 
meant a lot to me. It means a lot to me to

[[Page 1785]]

this day not because he was so important, he was one of the greatest 
coaches who ever lived, and he was in the Hall of Fame, but because he 
was down-to-earth, a person who loved to play golf, loved all sports, 
and loved being with people. And when he supported you, it was really 
support.
  All I can say is, he is one of the greatest men I have ever met in my 
life. He had a great influence on so many people--still does. His wife 
is every bit as great as he has been. Both are tremendous human beings 
who have made this world a better place to live.
  From a football standpoint, I think most coaches who knew him would 
say he was unexcelled, and I agree that is true, but that was minor 
compared to the type of life he lived, the type of things he did, the 
type of honors he shared, the type of kindness he showed, the ability 
to talk to people and help them through the problems they had, and, of 
course, the overall genuine goodness of a fellow whose life was well 
spent, who touched so many lives, literally hundreds of thousands of 
lives over the years, and who had this tremendous sense of humor that 
made being around him a real pleasure.
  I am grateful I knew LaVell Edwards well. I am grateful for the life 
he lived. I am grateful for the example he set. I am grateful for the 
joy he brought to so many people. And I wish his dear wife Patti well. 
I just hope that these words will be a little bit of consolation for 
her.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. 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.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise to strongly oppose the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.
  I want to start by just reading from some letters from some young 
constituents that I received.
  From one little boy named Theodore:

       Dear Senator Gillibrand, I am a public student in PS 3. I 
     love my school.
       Please vote against Betsy DeVos because she's against 
     public schools. I'm happy here.

  From Felix:

       Dear Senator Gillibrand, I am a public school student in 
     New York, and I love my school. Please vote against Betsy 
     DeVos as Secretary of Education because she is prejudice 
     against public schools. I am in third grade and am a boy. 
     Love, Felix.
       Dear Senator Gillibrand, my name is Mina, and I am a public 
     school student. I love my school (PS3), and I hope you vote 
     against Betsy DeVos because she does not support public 
     schools. Sincerely, Mina.

  These are just three letters out of thousands of letters, phone 
calls, and emails from my constituents. I have never heard so much from 
my constituents about someone so ill-prepared for the job they have 
been nominated for.
  I am unconvinced that this nominee in any way would use her position 
to actually fight for the 2.6 million students and 200,000 teachers in 
the public schools in my State.
  She refused during hearings to commit to protecting the Federal 
funding that goes to our title I schools which serve students from our 
lowest income families. She refused to uphold critical Federal laws, 
like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, in schools that 
receive this absolutely necessary Federal funding. She refused to 
commit to upholding title IX guidance from the Department of Education, 
which has played an instrumental role in addressing the problem of 
sexual assault in our schools across the country. She even wavered on 
whether guns have any place in and around our schools, she said she 
would oppose gun-free school zones. She doesn't have any experience 
working as a teacher or as a school administrator at any point in her 
career. Instead, she has spent decades advocating for education 
policies that would fundamentally undermine our public school education 
system.
  What kind of message does this send to our students and their 
families and our teachers if we put our trust in a person who has 
worked so tirelessly throughout her career to weaken public schools?
  I am astonished by how little the nominee seems to understand about 
the basic needs of New York's schools, teachers, and parents. I am very 
disturbed about how out of touch her statements are with basic values.
  In New York, we have over 2.6 million students who attend public 
schools, including 450,000 with disabilities. We have over 200,000 
public schoolteachers.
  Ninety percent of all students in our country go to public school. 
Public schools serve all kids. They feed them if they show up hungry. 
Public schools help all kids with disabilities and don't send them 
somewhere else. Public schools help all students reach their God-given 
potential, and public schools are held accountable for meeting the 
requirements of our Federal education system and essential civil rights 
protections, but this nominee has vilified public schools.
  Teachers and students around the country have raised their voices 
about this nominee, and they have made their views very clear. They do 
not want us to confirm Betsy DeVos to lead the Department of Education 
because they feel she is not an Education Secretary for all of America. 
I have heard from tens of thousands of them. Listening to what my 
constituents say, they are pretty concerned.
  I would like to read a couple more letters. This one is from a school 
social worker in a middle school. She was hired to help underserved 
children develop effective executive functioning skills and survive 
their day-to-day lives.

       My students are resilient, intelligent, loving young women 
     and men, and they face indescribable hardships that no child 
     should have to experience.
       The ideologies and policies represented by Betsy DeVos and 
     the Trump administration put my students' futures on the 
     line.
       Please continue to represent and fight for my students by 
     denying the confirmation of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of 
     Education.

  Here is another letter:

       While I teach in a private school setting, my sixth grade 
     daughter attends a public middle school, and my second grade 
     son attends a funded special education school to address his 
     speech and language delays.
       We rely on the excellent public schools in our community to 
     support the learning needs of our children, as do hundreds of 
     thousands of other families in New York City and millions of 
     families across the Nation.

  Here is another letter from a teacher in one of the poorest school 
districts in my State. He wrote:

       I not only teach the State-mandated curriculum--we offer 
     elite educational programming to all those who reside in our 
     district.
       I am honored on a daily basis to know that I have been able 
     to level the playing field for many students by offering them 
     the keys to success through their education.
       Students who come to us homeless, underfed, victims of 
     poverty and trauma are given the same access to success as 
     those more fortunate.
       Because of our public school systems, they have been able 
     to achieve the American dream and achieve all their dreams.

  These are real concerns. These are heartfelt worries. This is what 
the people of New York are saying and people across this country. We 
need to listen to our constituents. We need to serve them. We need to 
represent them. We need to listen to our teachers across our States who 
work so hard every day to make sure our children can learn and reach 
their potential. We need to listen to our families and our students who 
have expressed very real fears that this nominee will cause damage to 
our public schools.
  So I stand with my colleagues from both parties to oppose this 
nomination. I will not support the confirmation of someone who is such 
a threat to our public school system.
  I encourage everyone in this Chamber to think about the students and 
teachers in their States who desperately need a leader to run the 
Department of Education. I urge all of my colleagues to vote this 
nominee down.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page 1786]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of 
Betsy DeVos to be the Secretary of Education. This is not a position I 
take lightly. I have never opposed the confirmation of a nominee for 
Secretary of Education. I also have never seen the intensity of 
opposition to a nominee for this position as we have witnessed with 
Mrs. DeVos.
  Thousands of Rhode Islanders--educators, parents, community leaders--
have written or called to express their dismay that a person with Mrs. 
DeVos's record and background would be chosen to lead the Department of 
Education. What I have seen and heard about Mrs. DeVos leads me to 
agree with my constituents--she is uniquely unsuited and unqualified 
for this critical position.
  The U.S. Secretary of Education oversees the Federal Government's 
role in ensuring educational equity in our public schools regardless of 
family income, race, ethnicity, language, or disability. Mrs. DeVos's 
work has been in the opposite direction. She has dedicated her time, 
political capital, and personal fortune to creating private sector 
alternatives to public education.
  She has also fought to shield those alternatives from the same 
standards and accountability that apply to public schools. For example, 
she spent a reported $1.45 million to reward or punish Michigan 
legislators as part of her effort to kill an accountability plan that 
would have included charter schools. This hostility to public schools 
and affinity for using public dollars to fund private schools or for-
profit education companies makes her, in my estimation, a poor choice 
to lead the U.S. Department of Education.
  Mrs. DeVos's crusade for vouchers raises another fundamental question 
about whether she respects the separation between church and state. 
This is a founding principle of our Nation. However, in the past, she 
has talked about her education reform efforts in religious terms as 
advancing God's Kingdom and reversing what she feels is a trend of 
public schools displacing church in community life. In an 
administration that has signaled a willingness to discriminate based on 
religion, these views are cause for real concern and they have no place 
at the U.S. Department of Education.
  Mrs. DeVos's crusade for school choice in Michigan has been a failure 
for students. Since 2000, student achievement in that State has fallen. 
In 2000, Michigan students scored above the national average on the 
National Assessment of Education Progress in fourth grade reading and 
math. By 2015, they were below average.
  As a single-issue educational reformer, Mrs. DeVos does not have the 
breadth of knowledge necessary to oversee our national education policy 
from preschool through adult education and postsecondary education. Her 
policy solution for education is choice. As they say, when all you have 
is a hammer, everything is a nail. This one-size-fits-all approach is a 
real danger given the diversity of our students, our institutions, our 
communities, and the different educational challenges across the 
lifespan of individual Americans.
  I know many parents and students and employers are worried about our 
schools. I share that worry, and we need to do more, but Mrs. DeVos's 
plan to eliminate those neighborhood schools rather than do the hard 
work of repairing, renovating, and providing the supports that enable 
all schools to be ready to learn at school is cause for alarm.
  During her hearing, Mrs. DeVos displayed little understanding of the 
Federal student aid programs that provide approximately $150 billion in 
assistance to students struggling to pay for college. So not only does 
she have a single-minded focus on private charter elementary schools, 
she has very little grasp--from her hearing testimony--on the 
challenges for postsecondary education in the United States.
  She also appeared confused about questions regarding the Individuals 
with Disabilities Education Act--the landmark law enacted in 1975, and 
updated many times since, that protects the rights of children with 
disabilities to a free and appropriate education. At first, she 
suggested that States should be allowed to decide whether or how to 
enforce the law, and that, in my view, is a disqualifying answer. This 
has been a Federal initiative that has proved successful.
  Indeed, many of us can recall when students with special needs were 
ignored--totally ignored--until the IDEA, and now they have been 
incorporated into our public school systems and into our educational 
system, which has benefited these students, their families, and our 
country.
  I also share my colleagues' concerns about Mrs. DeVos's finances and 
her ability to carry out her duties as Secretary free from conflict of 
interest. Her ethics disclosures show investments and relationships 
across a range of education interests from for-profit early childhood 
education companies to for-profit education management entities, 
advocacy organizations, education software, campus services, private 
student loans, and student loan debt collectors. She has not fully 
disclosed her assets to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee and has declined to provide information on the 
holdings in two family trusts that she will retain if she is confirmed. 
This lack of transparency raises real questions about whose interests 
will be served under her administration at the Department of Education.
  Education is really the launching pad for the American dream. It is 
the engine that drives this country forward. The Secretary of Education 
must be a champion for public education.
  As we have seen from the Office of Civil Rights data collection, we 
have significant gaps in opportunities and resources in schools across 
this country. Our Secretary of Education must be dedicated to helping 
States and school districts close those gaps. These children cannot 
afford to have resources drained from their public schools for vouchers 
that will do little to improve the quality of education in their 
communities.
  And as many of my colleagues in rural States have indicated, there is 
just, in many places geographically, the inability to substitute a 
public school with a vouchered charter or private school. If we break 
faith with these public schools, we will leave thousands of Americans, 
particularly in rural communities, without any real choice.
  The Secretary of Education should be working toward helping our 
teachers, principals, school leaders, and parents ensure that we are 
reaching all students and helping them succeed. All students include 
students with disabilities and English language learners. All students, 
together, learning from one another and not in separate and, indeed, 
perhaps inherently unequal environments. Our goal should be equal 
opportunity. And if we pursue that goal, we will see the progress and 
success of America continue.
  We need a Secretary of Education who is prepared on day one to lead 
our Federal student aid system that includes a student loan portfolio 
of over $1 trillion with more than 40 million borrowers. This is 
another aspect of the responsibilities in postsecondary education that, 
in her testimony and in her presentation, Mrs. DeVos appeared to be 
ill-informed about. Our Secretary of Education must be at the forefront 
of expanding college access, improving affordability, and ensuring that 
students' educational and financial interests are protected.
  We need a Secretary of Education who is prepared to address the needs 
of adult learners, especially those who have been left behind in a 
changing economy. Mrs. DeVos has provided no insight as to how she will 
lead the Department of Education's efforts to support adult learners.
  In fact, one of the realities of this economy is that learning today 
is lifelong, lifetime learning. We have left the period in which a high 
school diploma would be adequate for a person to get a good job, move 
up through the ranks in a company, retire comfortably, and provide for 
the next generation. Now, the intensity of education and the duration 
of education

[[Page 1787]]

has to be for a lifetime. And, once again, that knowledge, that 
expertise, was not demonstrated in her testimony.
  Sadly, I do not believe that Mrs. DeVos is the Education Secretary 
that we need. She has dedicated her time and wealth to promoting 
alternatives to public education, which I believe is the bedrock of our 
democracy. I think one of the most significant reasons this country 
grew and expanded was that going back to our earliest days, we, more 
than any other Nation in the world, pioneered free public education, 
accessible to all, and that engine drove this country forward. To 
ignore that, to abandon public education, would be a tremendous setback 
to not only our economy but to the fabric of our society.
  Her focus on vouchers and for-profit education calls into question--
very dramatically--her commitment to public schools. It does not seem 
to be her major priority, and I would argue that has to be a major 
priority of the Secretary of Education, along with the Federal role of 
ensuring that the rights of all students are protected, regardless of 
where they live. This can't be a Department of Education that is 
focused on certain ZIP Codes and ignores other ZIP Codes.
  Furthermore, nothing in her background and in her testimony before 
the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee inspires 
confidence that she has the experience or vision necessary to oversee 
public education policy, including higher education and adult 
education.
  For these reasons, I cannot support her nomination, and I would urge 
my colleagues to join me in voting no.
  As I indicated in my opening remarks, having served under both 
Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents, this is the first time 
I have ever felt that I could not support a nominee for the Department 
of Education.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I wish to thank my many colleagues who 
have been here this morning to talk about this critical appointment, 
the Secretary of Education, who oversees all of our K-12 and higher 
education in this country. It is a principle so many of us care about. 
I have heard passionately from so many of my colleagues here today 
about what public education means to them, what it means to our 
country, what it means to our democracy, and what it means for kids of 
all different backgrounds to come together in a public education system 
that is guaranteed by this country. The dangerous views of this 
nominee, Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education--who has said repeatedly 
she will not protect the investments we have made, but rather has the 
philosophy that we should take money away from our public education 
students and put it to vouchers for private schools--will undermine our 
whole entire democracy. It is why we have heard across this country 
from so many parents and teachers and students and grandparents and 
business leaders who are urging Senators from every State to vote no on 
this nominee.
  Certainly we can do better. Certainly the last election was not about 
sending our K-12 and higher education system into chaos, certainly not 
at a time when one of the most important things people care about is 
the stability of our economy, the ability to get a job. Fundamental to 
that is being able to know you can go to a school, no matter where you 
are or where you live or how much money you have, and get a good 
education. We need to keep that, and no one wants to send that system 
into chaos at this time. That is why people are speaking out.
  As I mentioned earlier today, I have heard from thousands of people 
in my home State who have contacted me with concerns about this 
nomination of Betsy DeVos to be the Secretary of Education. An 
overwhelming number of them are people who have spent time in our 
classrooms with our kids; that is, our teachers. Many of them have 
spent decades in public schools dedicating their own lives to helping 
our children learn in school districts of all different sizes, and 
those teachers deserve a voice today.
  So I thought I would take a few minutes to tell my colleagues a 
little bit about what I am hearing and why they believe we should 
oppose Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.
  I heard from a teacher from my hometown of Bothell, WA, who wrote me 
and said that public education is the basis of equality for all 
students in this country. Our Founding Fathers recognized the 
importance of having educated citizens and the need to provide it for 
all of our children. Education for profit doesn't work. And we need to 
do what we can to make sure we fight privatization of our education 
system.
  I heard from another woman in central Washington who works with low-
income students. As she noted, taking title I funding and putting it 
toward private schools will be devastating to small communities. She is 
echoing what I am hearing from rural communities across my State and 
what I am hearing from many other Senators who have talked to me about 
what they are hearing from rural communities in their States.
  From Seattle, I heard from an educator who told me that she wanted to 
see fellow educators--or at least people with some experience in our 
public schools--running this Department. That is why she opposes Betsy 
DeVos--no experience.
  A retired teacher from Mercer Island asked me to oppose this 
nomination. She has spent 37 years teaching children in our public 
schools.
  On the other side of my State, in Spokane, a 28-year teaching veteran 
says strengthening public education is the best thing we can do for 
schools like hers that are located in a high-poverty district.
  In Prosser, a public school teacher and a former lawyer told me that 
he is committed to both the public education system and the 
Constitution. He called the nomination of Betsy DeVos an affront to 
both, given what he called her track record of undermining public 
schools and the need for separation of church and State. He said that 
only through access to high-quality learning opportunities can we 
remain free.
  I heard from a teacher--also a parent--from Issaquah who said: ``This 
nomination is very disappointing.'' In order to ``make America great 
again'' she said we need fully funded schools for teachers who have the 
time and the resources to prepare students to be lifelong learners.
  In Monroe, WA, a teacher for 35 years says she is afraid of what 
DeVos could mean to public education.
  From Camano Island, a retired teacher of 31 years said all children 
deserve the same access to high-quality public education.
  A teacher from Vancouver School District tells me that our public 
schools deserve better than someone who has called them a dead end, 
adding that the Secretary of Education should be an advocate for the 
principle of free, quality, and equal education. She worries that if we 
don't defend public education from the views of Mrs. DeVos, then we 
have failed the future of this democracy.
  I received a succinct message from Dave in Seattle, in all caps, 
where he writes: ``ABSOLUTELY NO.''
  Those are just a few of the many, many people I am hearing from. 
There are literally thousands and thousands more. I know that is true 
from all of our colleagues here. Why? Because people are making their 
voices heard loud and clear. They want a Secretary of Education with 
real experience in public schools who is truly dedicated to 
strengthening our public education system across the country.
  I am proud to stand with my constituents and the public school 
educators from Washington State to urge our colleagues to vote no on 
Betsy DeVos.
  We have had a good number of Senators here today to talk about this. 
I know we are going to be spending Monday, Monday afternoon, into the 
night Monday, Tuesday morning hearing from many other Senators and 
having a very robust debate.

[[Page 1788]]

  I hope that all of those who are listening, and everyone in this 
country, stands up at this time and thinks about what public education 
means to this freedom and this democracy, and I know they will, as they 
have been continuing to let their voices be heard by their elected 
representatives.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________