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Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for joining us. We're going to phone a friend. Excited to have Betsy DeVos. Betsy DeVos is the former Secretary of Education. She's got a real voice and vision on what education should look like in this country. She's been an advocate for some really important measures that we're going to talk about today for a long, long time. So if you've got any questions,
kids care about education, the future of our country. This is the right podcast. Cause I think it's going to be quite insightful on, on,
Where we've been, where we should go, and a little bit more about her because she's not a voice that's just going to go quietly into the, you know, fading off into the future. She's a real powerful voice and had great success there in the Trump administration as the Secretary of Education. So we're going to talk to her. We're going to highlight the stupid because, you know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.
And we're going to start with a few things that were in the news. Again, I like to highlight some things that maybe don't get all the headlines, you know, every day. You can't just click on the Internet. They go so quickly and fast. And I wanted to start today and talk a little bit about this. A former fugitive. His name is Justin Costello.
Now, the allegation is that he was detained without bail pending trial because he is seen as a serious flight risk. Now, he is accused of posing as a billionaire, a Harvard MBA, an Iraq War veteran, and that he somehow, somehow, these scam artists, I tell you, when they get one that knows how to spiel money,
It is absolutely amazing how much they get away with. Again, the accusation that he scammed some $35 million. Now, he's under the recommended prison terms. He's supposedly going to get 27 to 34 years if he's convicted on multiple counts of securities and wire fraud. Now, again,
You know, some people look at this and say, oh, it's a white collar criminal. Oh, you know, shouldn't deal with it. Scamming people out of money. I don't care if it's a hundred bucks or your life savings. I really do like it when the FBI actually steps up and gets people off the street that are doing these kinds of scams. It's particularly against elderly people. I just wanted to highlight it's a fascinating case. It's something I'm watching closely and we'll see where it goes.
It's time to highlight the stupid because you know what there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere And I know we're getting past the election now, but the midterms and there'll be another election right around the corner But I thought one of the funniest things I saw along the way that's just stupid here was were some comments that I saw Al Sharpton make and
Al Sharpton, two weeks before the election, said, we need to talk about the uncomfortable situation with crime. The uncomfortable conversation with the situation with crime. Are you kidding me? I mean, it's the policies that the Democrats have instituted over a long period of time that led us to the point where we are with crime.
I think what's happening about the uncomfortable situation, as he calls it, is that now it's time for an election and people are sick and tired of the crime, the lack of prosecutions. And now that there's going to be a sea change...
And that policies are going to change. Support for police is going to change. It was very rich to hear Al Sharpton saying two weeks before the election, we need to talk about the uncomfortable situation with crime. What about the uncomfortable situation with victims? What about the uncomfortable situation with those that live in fear?
Again, never comes up until it's two weeks before the election. But, of course, Al Sharpton, that's what he did. And I also really got to talk about this Michigan mayor. This Michigan mayor, this is just classic, classic stuff. Okay. A mayor in Michigan, the mayor of Ann Arbor, which is not a small little city. All right.
Christopher Taylor, who happens to be a Democrat, he's served as the mayor of the city since 2014. Well, he decided to install a gas line, a gas line, to hook up his new fireplace earlier this year. The problem is, not that he did that, it's that he's been an advocate and proponent of climate policies, including the so-called A2Zero policy,
Hey, it's Michigan. It gets cold. Everybody wants a fireplace. But the mayor is also telling the residents...
We're going to get rid of all the fossil fuels. We want you to buy electric vehicles. We want you to do solar panels. We want to rely less on fossil fuels. The hypocrisy could not be more stark. It is unbelievable that people like that continue to be involved and engaged in public service with such hypocrisy as if they think the impunity that nobody is ever going to figure it out. Well, mayor of Ann Arbor,
Congratulations, because you're highlighting the stupid for all of us. All right, so we move from the stupid to somebody who's trying to solve the stupid in this country, the former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Now, I've had the chance to interact with her in the past. I've watched her from afar. I love her energy. I love her passion. You watch. We get through this interview, you're going to be like, wow, okay, she's fired up. She knows what she's talking about.
If we just do what she's suggesting we're going to do, our kids and our future and our country will be way better off. So let's take a moment and phone a friend and let's call Secretary Betsy DeVos. Hello. Secretary Betsy DeVos. This is Jason Chaffetz. Hello, Jason. It's great to hear your voice. Well, you're so kind to pick up. I was a little nervous. You know, I didn't know if you're going to pick up my call. So I'm honored that you did.
Oh, I wouldn't think of not doing that, Jason. It's great to be with you. Well, listen, thank you so much. And you know what? As I said in the lead up to dialing you, calling you up here, I just really appreciate, you know, I just love ordinary Americans who do extraordinary things. And then I love people who've had a great deal of success and they get involved, they get engaged, they take the
Certainly not the path of least resistance. And you dove in and you were the Secretary of Education. You had a real impact. And that's what I want to talk about because you've dedicated your life to this and you've been immensely successful. And, you know, Julie and I, our kids are grown now, but I got grandkids. You got grandkids now.
I do indeed. But tell us, why did you do this? Because you had a lot of success in life, but why get in the fray and why be involved and engaged like you are?
Well, Jason, it's a great question. And it really goes back many years to when my children who are now all grown and have children themselves were beginning school. And, you know, Dick and I knew we were always going to be able to send our children where we thought was going to be best for them.
And in the process of looking for that right place, that right fit for them, I got involved as a volunteer at this wonderful little Christian school in the heart of our city, in the heart of Grand Rapids.
That has for almost 40 years served the community around it, mostly low-income families, mostly minority families, and all of them there because benefactors in the wider community made sure that they could be there.
But the more I got involved, the more I realized that for every family that had children at this little school, there were many other families that wanted the same kind of opportunity for their children. And, you know, we started out thinking that this was a logical argument to make that.
that you could appeal to someone's logic or emotion by talking about the fact that it's not fair or right for some of us to be able to make those choices, but not every family to be able to. We know that tens of thousands of dollars are spent on every child every year for their education, and yet very few families have been able to actually decide where their children get educated.
And so that was that was really the start of it now, 35 years ago. And it developed into the you know, the political tussles and battles because it became clearer and clearer that the impediment, the opposition was very formidable in the form of the school unions and all of their allies defend defending and protecting the status quo.
Why is that? You know, I see Amy Weingarten and others just pounding the pavement, raising millions of dollars. I mean, it is about control, isn't it? Well, it really is. It's about adult control, about power. It's about flexing political muscle, which they have done very effectively for many, many years. And, you know, you can trace it back, really, to when Jimmy Carter...
made good on his promise to the teachers unions in 1976 when he was running for president. The first time the teachers unions endorsed a presidential candidate, he promised to form a federal department of education as a result.
And in 1979, he made good on that promise. And now, and it was with the express goal or the stated mission of closing the achievement gap between those at the highest level of performance and those at the lowest level.
And now over a trillion dollars later at the federal level alone, we don't have a narrowing at all of the achievement gap. In fact, in many cases, it's widened.
Well, you know, you're not offended. The department has failed in its mission. It has failed in its mission. And as I've said, you know, on more than one occasion, I don't think the federal Department of Education has a role. It should not exist. It is a role left to the states. And most importantly, it should be left to the family to be able to direct and control where and how their kids get educated and what that fit is for each child.
Yeah, I, you know, I had long said and I was going to ask, I was going to say, I hope you're not offended as being the former secretary of education, but I don't even think there should be a federal department of education because I care about education so much. Absolutely. You know, again, it was a payoff to the status quo, to the powers that be that wanted to coalesce more power. And we've seen exactly that, you know, that dynamic happen and strengthen in the last several decades.
It's really only been the last couple of years. You know, there have been many of us fighting for three plus decades to change policy at the state level to, you know, great success in many cases, but not fast enough or far enough for too many kids.
But the last two years, parents and families have had a front row seat to see just how well or in many cases how poorly their system performed when their children were on the other end of distance learning or locked out of their classrooms for in-person learning for months, if not years on end.
or when they saw firsthand the kind of curriculum that was being delivered to their children. And they were horrified, whether it was hyper-sexualized, whether it was a critical race theory, or in many cases, whether it was just a non-robust, low expectation kind of an approach to teaching kids. Yeah, you touch on so many different things. Yeah.
This idea of dumbing it down so that, you know, everybody gets a trophy and nobody ever fails. And, you know, I hear these stories about certain schools or districts and whatnot. They say, oh, we don't even want to give grades because that's racist. And I just I just don't understand how we make these kids better, smarter, more adept in the in the world by just making it easier for everybody.
Well, it is, as President Bush so well put it during his terms in office, the soft bigotry of low expectations. That has not only taken root in the children that he was talking about at the time, but it's been a growing dynamic. And I believe it's due to a large part because those –
running the system, those defending and protecting the system, are so invested in protecting and perpetuating it that they're trying to obfuscate the dismal results, the failing efforts that all too many of them have had, and the fact that kids, as a result, are being harmed. I mean, we know that the last two years was devastating for kids.
But this was not a new dynamic. This only put a spotlight on what was happening for so many of them before the pandemic. And it's, you know, it's awakened families in a way that I think is fortuitous for the education freedom movement. This notion that everyone should have the ability to choose the right fit and the right setting for their child to learn is
And it's, you know, it's gaining steam in states across the country. And as you know, from your time in Washington, it's really building momentum there as well as many members of Congress who before were, you know, sort of oblivious to what was going on, have had it, you know, thrown right in their face when
When they saw their own children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors experiencing what they did the last couple of years. Yeah. So let's go back to that. Did the...
the illumination, if you will, the engagement of parents because they had closed down these schools. Now, I do love that the Michigan governor, Whitmer, said, oh, it was only three months, which is just a little fabrication. It's just a flat out lie, right? Oh, it's only three months. Like, first of all, it wasn't. And it was much more devastating than that.
But was this kind of curriculum always there? Is it getting worse through the decades? I mean, is it as we enter this kind of woke society that would I mean, the perversion that I saw, was that always there and we just weren't paying enough attention?
Well, I don't think it's a new phenomenon. I think it's really accelerated in recent months. And, you know, in the last year and a half or so, I think it's accelerated. But the seeds have been there for a long time. And, you know, let's also trace back to these teaching colleges where new young educators are being recruited.
ready to get go into the classroom. And this is where much of that is being shared, inculcated, trained, taught. And and so now we're seeing the fruit of that in, you know, in classrooms in the most unlikely of places and the ones that you would be fearful of having
you know, as well. But so it's not a brand new phenomenon, but it's certainly accelerated. And what also is not new is the fact that for too long, these low expectations, these lessening rigor,
really dumbing down in many respects what kids are expected to learn and messaging them that excellence is not something to be sought after or attained. This has potentially devastating consequences for our country in the long term, not to mention what it does to every individual child.
Let me ask you, I want to get specific about teachers because I grew up and I remember Mrs. Peterson, my first grade teacher. I remember Mr. Kobayashi, my fifth grade teacher. There are certain ones that were really impactful. And yet, and I look at my own kids, and there are certain teachers along the way, I just thought, oh, thank goodness that
that they're in her class, but we seem to be failing teachers too because everything I always hear is more money, more money, we need a pay raise, but help me understand the balance and what it should be versus what it is.
Well, let's be realistic. Most of the money, the increased spending around education never makes it to the teachers. And teachers have been failed in this top-down, one-size-fits-all system as well. They have little to no freedom to do what they do best. Great teachers aren't rewarded for being great.
Very poor teachers are protected and passed around between school buildings. And it is wrong for the profession.
This notion of this idea of freeing up students to find that right fit also fits well for teachers. For teachers to be able to find the environment that really is energizing for them would be a huge win as well.
And, you know, we've seen examples of this in the last couple of years, right? Out of necessity, many families decided to do their own thing if they had the resources to be able to do it. And so we've seen, you know, homeschool co-ops or micro schools or...
One-room schoolhouse type approaches, you name it, any kind of version thereof have really become popular and they're growing in size and scale all across the country. Well, teachers are enjoying that environment as well.
If a great teacher is hired to be essentially a teacher in a one room schoolhouse with a dozen or 15 kids and she has or he has the freedom to be able to help encourage and shepherd all of them, and it's a great fit for him or her.
Those kinds of things will be revolutionary for the teaching profession, one which I think many great educators have gone to the sidelines because of frustration around this one size fits all top down system. In fact, a quick story. I had two roundtables while I was in office yesterday.
with teachers who had been named Teacher of the Year in their state or their district and had had their year in celebration of that, had gone around their state or district and talked and had the accolades, then went back to teaching. And within a few months, they had quit teaching. And
and i wanted to understand why i i had an intuition why and my intuitions were largely affirmed
It was, I heard, essentially heard from all of them. You know, after I had my, you know, day in the sun, I really thought I would have something more to add or to offer to my school, to my, you know, to my fellow teachers, that I'd be able to do some more. I'd be able to offer more. And instead, I was basically told, just get back in your box and
And by the way, be on page 32 of your textbook on this day next week. And, you know, it was it was so disheartening to hear who are from these people who are obviously effective at what they do to now hear them say, you know, I just I can't teach anymore because I'm just so discouraged myself.
I believe there are a lot of educators like that and a lot of folks who are very capable of educating and inspiring and engaging kids that can't get into that space.
setting either because of all the hoops that they have to go through and the certifications. You know, we've heard it before, right? The most brilliant medical doctor who is on the verge of retirement and can't go teach chemistry or biology in the classroom because...
you know, they don't have the certifications. So all that to say, an environment policies that support the money following the student will radically change that dynamic, both for students and for teachers. And I think that will be a blessed thing for everyone. Now, it just seems like a basic principle that would be true and that it would be so clear and obvious. I
I think Washington, D.C. was the place, right, that had the highest per capita, per person funding. It was $22,000, $24,000 something dollars. But their testing was so poor. And in a place like Utah, where I live, we've always had some of the lowest, which is not something we like to brag about. But somehow our test scores have been
Above normal or at normal. And, and yet it just seems like such a disparity that literally the people in, in Washington, DC are getting three times the funding that we get from our own, you know, here in, in Utah.
Well, we spend more than $750 billion a year on K-12 education. And on average, that's more than $13,000 per child across the country. If you can metaphorically attach that money to that child's backpack and that family can decide what setting, what environment is going to really unlock that child's potential,
We're going to see creativity in the approaches to education and learning that we haven't seen for decades, for well over 100 years. So, you know, I mean, we're operating on a system today that was founded approximately 175 years ago. The father of that system's name was Horace Mann. Horace Mann said at the time,
that educators are entitled to look upon parents as having given hostages to our cause. And I think we've seen just how many ways our kids have been held hostage this last couple of years in particular.
And in fact, that's, you know, the title of my book is Hostages No More, the Fight for Education, Freedom and the Future of the American Child. And it's a direct reference to that quote. And it was, you know, people say, well, that's, you know, that's, you know, so provocative, that title. It is, but...
But that's what the guy said at the time. And if he were to return today to a classroom, it would look essentially the same as when the classrooms were founded 175 years ago.
Another little tidbit about Horace Mann, Horace Mann died 20 years before Alexander Graham Bell was born. So think about it. He never even thought about the possibility of making a phone call. Right. And we've gone from Alexander Graham Bell's invention to.
to a tiny device that we put into our pockets and communicate multiple ways with anyone anywhere in the world in a nanosecond. And the notion that how we do education, how we approach education for kids in their K-12 years has remained essentially unchanged in all that time.
And how many different ways our whole world, our experience of the world has changed in every other area. It really does make you step back and say, you know, we can't we can't stop doing the same thing, spending more and more money and expect different results. It's Einstein's definition of insanity, right?
You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Secretary Betsy DeVos right after this. Let me ask you about, and I'll tell you a quick story first.
My colleague, former colleague, Trey Gowdy, Congressman, South Carolina. He was a 20-year-plus prosecutor. And he made an interesting observation once. And I've talked about this several times. He said, you know, my 20 years of prosecuting, I have never, ever had to prosecute somebody who obtained an Eagle Scout. That is going through the scouting program. And I've never, ever had to prosecute somebody who was homeschooled.
And I thought that was really interesting. And what do you see the role of homeschooling? It's not for everybody, but it is for a lot of people. How does that fit in our mix of education moving forward?
Well, I think it fits right in there well. And certainly many families have actually opted to go that direction since the onset of the pandemic. And, you know, the official numbers show homeschooling, you know, homeschooled students more than doubling across the country. I don't think there is any real official tally or way to accurately assess just how many have opted to do that.
But we've heard from all income levels, from all socioeconomic backgrounds, that this is an important option for families to have.
And I'm excited about what may unfold in the state of Arizona being the first state to pass a universal education savings account program for every single student in Arizona. If the school they're assigned to isn't working for them, for whatever reason, the family can take 90% of what the state of Arizona spends for that child.
and use it to buy that child's education however they see fit. Now, I know from visiting in the fall of 2020 when we were urging schools to get back in person and reopen and serve their students, I visited with Governor Ducey on a day in Arizona, and we met with a number of families from the urban areas of Arizona as well as some of the Native American families
where they were actually putting together these homeschool hybrids, consortiums, you know, micro schools, whatever you want to name them or call them. And they were excited about what was happening with their kids, how their kids were coming alive and how it was working for them.
I suspect that Arizona is going to be a real model for what can be in supporting families to pursue that as a viable option and multiple iterations of that. Yeah, I hope Governor Ducey of Arizona gets the proper credit because you're right, that was quite an achievement. Now they get a chance to implement it. And, you know, parents, why is it...
I can't even believe that we even have this question before us. But, you know, I look at the Department of Justice and I look at the attitude that some of these people like former Governor McAuliffe there in Virginia, he said the he said the said it out loud and he wasn't supposed to that really parent their attitude has been parents really don't have a role in their kids education. I am stunned that we even have that discussion.
Well, I am too. And, you know, at the time that he said that, I and so many others said, he's going to realize very quickly what a gap he made. And, you know... But he really believes it. I don't know that it was a gap. But he doubled down on it. I don't think it was a gap. I think he really believes that. No, I agree. Exactly. And so I was shocked. But...
Again, I think it just shows how out of touch so many elected and former elected politicians are with what parents want and need for their kids. I'm thankful that many have awakened in this last year, year and a half,
and are really now advocating for parents to be able to be much more involved and much more engaged and make those choices for their kids. But it really did take a couple of moments like that to really awaken folks that had been, I think in many cases, oblivious to what was going on. What is the average parent? What do you tell the average parent who...
They're working hard. They spend a lot of time. They want their kids to get a great education. They care about them. But what do you tell the, what's the average person supposed to do?
Well, first of all, the school to which their child is assigned, if that's where they're attending, needs to be radically transparent about everything they're doing. Their curriculum, their finances, they need to be welcoming of families and parents to getting involved with, to asking questions,
to being engaged with their kids. You know, for many years, folks have been told, just leave it to us. We're the experts. And again, I think parents have been awakened to the fact that maybe not everybody is such an expert and they actually do know what's best for their kids. So I just urge and encourage parents to
Take heart and be involved. You know, elect vote for leaders that are going to give you that freedom to give you to vote for policies that are going to attach the money spent on your child or your children to those kids to be able to make the decisions for them and in their best interest and demand and expect transparency in what's going on in in their neighborhood school if that's where they are.
Yeah, the transparency is not always there. And that really should be, now that you bring it up and couch it like that, that really should be the flashing red light. It's like, what are they not willing to show you? What are they holding back? And do they provide the kind of access and
And do they illuminate what they're going to actually teach the kids in school? And then also listening to your own kids and understand what's actually going on or not going on in that classroom. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And it's been really disheartening to see how this current administration has really gone after parents via the Department of Justice and
You know, basically labeling them domestic terrorists for showing up at school board meetings and and requesting and requiring answers about what's going on in their children's classrooms. It's just unconscionable to me that that, you know, that has been the direction they've taken rather than supporting parents and and ensuring that they have that transparency and that they know what's going on.
Let's talk about the inner workings here real quickly about the Department of Justice. I mean, Department of Education. It has grown. It has expanded, not under your stewardship. I'm just saying if you look at the Obama administration over just the two years that they've been there, massive amounts of money going into this.
How are they using that? Because it just really baffles the mind that they can add that much more and it doesn't follow the kids. I always thought it was just, and you mentioned it earlier, just let the money follow the kids. If we could just take that money and have it follow them, then we'd be in great shape. But boy, they are spending billions of dollars on things that don't necessarily make it to the teachers or the kids. No, absolutely. And the Biden administration has been, uh,
with all of the policies they've pursued to really take back any modicum of control that we were very conscious to push as much as we could to states and communities and to families where the law allowed
You know, with the three COVID relief bills, $190-plus billion was appropriated for K-12 education in addition to the regular budget. Now, the first COVID bill
had $13 billion for K-12 education in it. That was passed by Congress in March of 2020. We turned around and made it available to all states and local districts within the 30 days of it being passed. And so this was early spring in 2020. At the end of 2020,
Less than 5% of that money had even been accessed and applied to ensuring kids could get back to school safely. And that was its stated purpose, to make sure schools could reopen, kids could get back to school in person, that measures were taken, whether it was ventilation, whether it was, you know, all of the protective equipment, whether it was whatever the need was,
needs were for that particular state, district, or locale, they had access to those funds. And in fact, I remember talking to the superintendent, the then superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools, who said late that summer,
We have all the money we need. I don't know how to spend it all. And that was just with the first package passed and most money not accessed. And still to this day, less than 10% of it has actually been spent.
I think this will be one of the big stories. I remember serving in Congress, looking at the TARP money and some of these other aid programs that Obama had put into place. And this was routinely what we found is that they couldn't spend it fast enough. Consequently, there was a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse because they were telling people just blow past the bureaucracy, just spend, spend, spend.
And it never went for the intended purpose. And the other thing is that these agencies were able to, on their books,
put together essentially a slush fund trying to bypass Congress and the appropriators in the House and Senate were not paying enough attention. And shame on them. I mean, shame on Congress for not doing its job. And I think that'll be the same lesson. I think there will be so much waste, fraud, and abuse, so much money that was never spent, and so many things that went to, you know, the good old boys club or to their buddies or to, you know,
they're special projects. And that's why I worry about teachers unions and others who are advocating for other things that have nothing to do with actually making us better at reading, writing arithmetic and everything else that goes into education. No, you're absolutely right. And you, you couple that with, uh,
With President Biden's plan to go and shift the burden of student debt onto the two out of three Americans who never attended college or didn't take out student loans. And, you know, what you have is just a continued, you know, mushrooming disaster. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this.
We're talking, of course, to Secretary Betsy DeVos. Your book is Hostages No More. I'm glad you explained that because I was wondering why that title. But you learned a lot. You contributed a lot. And I hope you continue to be involved and engaged.
Uh, Madam Secretary, I need to ask you a few other questions that have nothing to do with education. And I don't care how many books you've written or classrooms you've been in through the years. I don't know that you're properly prepared for these, but I'm going to ask them anyway. Okay. We just want to get to know you a little bit better. I do this with each person that comes on the show. And, and, um, and again, let me just tell you, I cannot thank you enough for your, uh,
your good service and what you've advocated. There's so much more we could talk about. We just spent a little time here, but a little bit more about you, if you don't mind. Sure. All right. What was your first job?
Not the one where your parents said, hey, you know, Betsy, go take out the garbage. Like, what was the first thing you had to do? My first paying job. Yeah. My first paying job was when I was in junior high school. I worked at my uncle's greenhouse.
after school transplanting seedling plants from a seed flat where there were literally hundreds little seedlings into those kinds of packs that you might go pick up at Menards or Home Depot or your local nursery to plant around your yard. We would transplant the seedlings into those bigger packs and there were generally six or eight plants in each of the little packs and
and about a dozen packs per per tray um and i got paid uh depending on the number of plants uh in the in the pa in in the tray um 11 or 12 cents per tray like the whole tray so like
Several dozen little seedlings planted for 11 or 12 cents. And I would have great races with my cousins who are also doing this on who could plant the most of them after school. There you go. That's good. That's good. First job. First concert you attended. Oh, boy. That's a good question.
probably a Beach Boys concert. I'm I'm if I'm remembering correctly. And you grew up in Michigan, right? I did. I did. So the Beach Boys in Michigan. I do live in Michigan. Yeah. All right. The Beach Boys. I buy that. What what's your superpower? And by that, what I mean is like, I'm really good at this. Like certain people can do certain things. I believe everybody has some some degree of a superpower. What what is yours?
My superpower. Yeah. I come up with lots and lots and lots of ideas. A few of them are good, but I generate lots of ideas. And most of those around me will acknowledge that. And they will also quickly acknowledge that not all of them are good, but a few of them are. Fair enough. Did you grow up with a pet, a favorite pet? My family had a dog. His name was Mitzi, a cocker spaniel.
It wasn't. Yes, he was the only pet that I had as a child. And then we had a couple of pets when my husband, Dick, and I were married and our children were younger. So if you called up your husband and said, hey, honey, guess what? Something special tonight.
I've got somebody coming over to dinner, so we've got to clear the schedule. And if you could pick anybody in history, dead or alive, to come and break bread with the DeVos family, who would that be? That's a great question. I'm going to say St. Peter. Interesting. I would like to hear from him his experience of being a disciple of Jesus and
Just what that was like. Now, that would be interesting. My guess is your husband would make time for that as well. Okay. So unique talent that nobody knows about. What can Betsy do that? Yeah, most people don't know that I can do this. Is it playing the ukulele with your toes? What is it?
No, one thing that most people don't know I enjoy doing is needle pointing. I learned from my maternal grandmother and I really do it
Today, even for relaxation, when I have a chance to, I enjoy that a lot. But I have an aspiration to go back to I played percussion in the band and all through, you know, junior high, high school, and
the marching band, and I would like to learn to play a drum set yet. So that's an aspiration I have to become good at. You could do that. You might want to get a new room on the house or something or just find one that's... Or get the electronic version so I can put the headphones on. That's right. That's right. That's right. That would be fun. That would be good. Of all the instruments out, I mean, if you really let loose, you can get a good workout too doing that.
Oh, yeah, for sure. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no? Oh, yes, along with ham and onion. We are on different planets. I agreed with everything you said up until now.
I do like pineapple on pizza, but it's not my favorite. My favorite pizza is a really spicy one, spicy Sicilian that a little local place here in West Michigan makes in the summer. Now that sounds good. But pineapple, come on. No. Wet fruit on pizza? No. And that should be in our nation's curriculum, by the way. I'm all about, you know, but when it comes to that, I think we need to teach our kids the right things. Just so you know.
Uh, best advice you ever got? Um, best advice was to treat others the way I want to be treated myself. And, um, I, you know, I don't, I'm not perfect at it, but it's, uh, it's something that my parents really tried to, um, inculcate into me and my siblings. And, um,
I try to live by that and I think it kind of flows out of the commandments that I try to follow as well. Well, you know what? I've had a chance to bump into you and chat with you from time to time, a few times, and you're a delightful person. I love your energy and your passion for what is really one of the most important things in our country.
It just affects the future and the quality of life. And families care about it. And they often feel, gosh, what am I to do? And I think your dedication, your commitment has made a huge impact. And I just, I really do hope you continue to be a strong voice in the educational community because there's a lot to learn.
to learn from the principles that you're, that you're advocating. And again, her book is hostages no more. And I can't thank you enough for joining us on the podcast. Well, Jason, thanks so much for the opportunity. It's been great to talk with you and, um, I hope we'll get a chance to catch up again sometime soon. Very good. We'll try to get maybe some of that spicy Italian pizza and, you know, leave the pineapple there and, uh,
That would be good. Yeah. Secretary Betsy DeVos, thank you again for joining us. Thanks, Jason. All right. I cannot thank Betsy DeVos enough for her participation. You know, very successful business family, Betsy DeVos. She could have chosen to go any direction. She could have spent her time doing a lot of fun things and
And she got right in the thick of it and took on the detractors. And she did not take the easy path. And as I mentioned earlier, I really love ordinary Americans who do extraordinary things. And on the other hand, I really appreciate people's immense success,
And they give back. They truly, I believe it's passion for public service. And I think that's the case with Betsy DeVos. And I think she's just absolutely fabulous. And I hope she continues to be involved in public service in every way, shape, or form. I hope you will rate this podcast, subscribe to the podcast.
And I want to remind you that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Again, thanks for joining us. Go over to foxnewspodcast.com. A lot of colleagues have some really good podcasts as well that I think you're going to enjoy.
But again, rate this one, subscribe to this one, share it with others. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next week. The Fox News Rundown, a contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters, and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to foxnewspodcast.com.
