Quotes from Betsy DeVos

I'm proud to stand beside you as a partner and support Special Olympics - an important program that promotes leadership and empowers students to be agents of change.

When governors such as John Engler, Mike Huckabee, and Mike Pence were driving the conversation on voluntary high standards driven by local voices, it all made sense.

No student should feel like there isn't a way to seek justice, and no student should feel that the scales are tipped against him or her.

We knew we had the resources to send our kids to whatever school was best for them.

At my direction, the Department's Office for Civil Rights remains committed to investigating all claims of discrimination, bullying, and harassment against those who are most vulnerable in our schools.

If politicians in a state block education choice, it means those politicians do not support equal opportunity for all kids.

We must first listen, then speak - with humility - to genuinely hear the perspectives of those with whom we don't immediately or instinctively agree.

If we can manage to break free, to open the system and embrace all choices for education, we will be the first to give politicians awards to hang on their office walls.

It would be fine with me to have myself worked out of a job, but I'm not sure that - I'm not sure that there will be a champion movement in Congress to do that.

I expect there will be more public charter schools.

It is not fair to think that when students transit through a K-12 system that is not preparing them for beyond, that somehow we are going to wave a magic wand and things are going to be perfect for them at the higher-ed level.

The natural instinct is to join in the chorus of conflict, to make your voice louder, your point bigger, and your position stronger. But we will not solve the significant and real problems our country faces if we cannot bring ourselves to embrace a mindset of grace.

If the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence.

I will not be conflicted. Period. I commit that to you all.

My job isn't to win popularity contests.

If you ask any of my kids today what their most important experience was in their education, they would say it was the travel and the ability to see and be in other cultures.

Teaching is hard. It takes a lot of skill. Not everyone who tries can do it well. We need to admit that and act accordingly. We should reward and respect great teachers by paying them more, and we should stop rewarding seniority over effectiveness.

That's where my heart has been for three decades is to really empower and allow all families the same kind of opportunities I've had for my kids.

The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children's schooling and education decisions.

Teachers deserve more respect than many give them, and more opportunities than the system affords them today.

If taxpayer money were limitless, we wouldn't need a budget at all.

We won't accomplish our goals by creating a new federal bureaucracy or by bribing states with their own taxpayers' money.

I expect there will be more private schools.

Government likes committees... a lot. Committees kill all the really good ideas and generally all the really bad ideas. They produce middle-ground mush.