A quarter century after abolishing the U.S. Department of Education as a plank in the national Republican platform, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has now told Newsmax on Tuesday she wants to put it back in her party's manifesto for 2024.
Asked by Newsmax if she favors her party officially calling for scrapping the Cabinet department she headed from 2017-21, DeVos replied without hesitation, "certainly."
"Since the department was created in 1979 as a political payoff [to teachers' unions], over $1 trillion has been spent on it," DeVos said, "and the achievement gap wasn't closed. [The Education Department] has failed to move the needle. We need to stop doing what we have been doing."
From 1980-96, the quadrennial Republican National Convention adopted a plank calling for dismantling the Department of Education. President Ronald Reagan campaigned hard on the issue in 1980 and, as president, would frequently ask Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell how he was coming along at dismantling his department. However, realizing it would take legislation to undo the 1979 bill creating the department, Bell made little progress in making the GOP plank come true.
In 2000, then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, taking his lead from certain GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush, the chairman of the party's platform committee, oversaw the removal of the plank putting the party on record as favoring the abolition of the education department. Bush and campaign manager Karl Rove felt it would be too negative and incendiary.
Asked at the Philadelphia convention whether he was in favor of maintaining the Department of Education, Thompson replied: "I'm in favor of winning."
As to whether she would testify before the platform committee at the '24 convention and recommend abolishing the education department be put back in the party manifesto, DeVos replied: "I'd certainly consider that. It would make sense."
DeVos spoke to Newsmax at the Young Americans for Freedom conference in Washington, D.C.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.