Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigns over Trump’s role in Capitol riot

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned in wake of U.S. Capitol riots. Yahoo Finance’s Aarthi Swaminathan and Reggie Wade share the details.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, the resignations are piling up in Washington in the wake of those violent riots that played out Wednesday. The latest cabinet member to step down, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Our very own Aarthi Swaminathan and Reggie Wade out with a look back on her, shall we say, volatile or controversial tenure over the last four years. They join us with that conversation. Aarthi, let me start with you because it's interesting when you think about an education secretary that has been so high profile over the last four years-- you highlight the fact that the Education Department's been sued 455 times during her tenure. What's the legacy she leaves behind?

AARTHI SWAMINATHAN: Yeah, Akiko, she has had a big impact in terms of so much deregulation that she has done, right? So speaking on higher education in particular, people are so confused about what's going to happen with how we look at for-profit colleges, how we look at accreditors, how we process borrower defense claims-- so if a person went to school and it shut down, how they get refunded.

There's so many issues that basically are on the backlog for the next secretary of education. So that's sort of the legacy that we looked at in the story.

And, you know, a lot of the debate about school reopening is also on the table, and I think Reggie will be able to talk about it a little bit. But to me, being sued 445 times is insane. Like, I read in one different paper that every morning they would turn up at the education department and read a list of lawsuits that consumer advocates had filed. So that is certainly something that I don't know if we're going to have that much litigation in the next administration, but it's certainly worth noting.

REGGIE WADE: Aarthi, you're exactly right. Betsy DeVos lives with a legacy of controversy. I mean, and it all started at her confirmation hearing. She had arguably one of the worst Senate-confirmation performances in recent history, routinely getting stuck on fundamental education issues such as the debate over proficiency versus growth, and the senators were very surprised that she was not educated on these topics.

But if we look at her record through K-through-12 education, I think it will go down as someone who tried to fundamentally change the public education system and tried to privatize that. And that's why she had so many criticisms levied on her by Democratic lawmakers because they felt this was almost trying to be a takeover of the public education system.

AKIKO FUJITA: As we look ahead here to January 20 past the inauguration, of course we've got a new Secretary of Education coming in, Miguel Cardona. Certainly a very different background given his experience in public schools. Aarthi, first to you. I mean, how significant a pivot are we likely to see from the Department as we see one door close and sort of Miguel Cardona walk in with a real focus on public education?

AARTHI SWAMINATHAN: On higher education in particular, I've spoken to a couple of people who think that he's going to have a big impact on basically bringing back a lot of the Obama-era regulations in terms of accountability, like I mentioned. But on the K-to-12 space, it seems like he really wants to make sure this reopening process goes through smoothly, and so that's something I'll be watching.

REGGIE WADE: One thing I'll be watching is that he's an actual educator. I remember when Betsy Ross got picked for this position-- I was a former teacher. I couldn't believe that I had more education experience than the sitting education secretary. So I think that's what you're going to see.

Many people say that Mr. Cardona will approach this with the heart of an educator, and we'll really see that in K through 12 as reopenings come and especially the debate in the learning gap when it comes to technology. We see Black and brown students falling behind when it comes to remote learning because lack of resources, lack of devices, lack of internet connectivity. So I think those are some of the things that you're going to see the next education secretary address right away.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, perhaps that controversy or a period of controversy behind us now, at least in that seat. As you said, Reggie, the first time we saw a cabinet member having to get decided there by a tie-breaking vote, but very interesting there. I love having you guys on with your education backgrounds here to weigh in on all that. Aarthi Swaminathan and Reggie Wade, appreciate it.