In New Role, Foxx Targets Education Department, Seeks More Charters And Vouchers

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx prides herself both on her conservative values and her work ethic. She plans on using those principles to guide her as she heads the House Education and Workforce Committee. The former Watauga County Schools Board member, university administrator, and teacher says she will also rely on her experiences.

Foxx recently began her seventh term in Congress after winning re-election in November. She serves the 5th Congressional District, which covers much of Northwest North Carolina.

Her new role is a big one, and the Republican from Watauga County says she wants to start by gutting President Obama's policies.

From our education desk, WFDD's Keri Brown spoke with Foxx who says she believes in offering alternatives for students.

When students have choice, then the quality of all of the choices rises. So, if students start leaving public schools to go to a charter school or religious school, then I believe we will see improvements in the public schools, and that's the whole concept. It isn't just a matter that all public schools are bad and all charter schools are good. There's a range of quality in all of the types of schools you have, but when parents choose, they generally are much more engaged, are much more involved in their [child's] education.

President-elect Donald Trump and his pick for secretary of education, Betsy Devos, both support the use of vouchers, or opportunity scholarships, to provide families with more private school options. Critics of these programs argue that they divert funds away from public schools. They claim that many families—even with scholarship dollars—are unable to take advantage of new education options due to lack of resources for basic needs like transportation. 

Foxx sees a role for states in addressing these concerns.

Education is a function—or should be a function—of the state and localities, so it isn't up to the federal government, in my opinion, to provide the resources for charter schools or public schools. That's something that needs to be worked out at the state level. Now, we have passed legislation to encourage charter schools and because the federal government is in charge of Washington D.C., we have allocated money for the opportunity scholarships here and have been much more involved, but it's not our role to be that involved in the schools in North Carolina or any other state because that's not the role of the federal government.

If it was up to her, Foxx says she'd get rid of the Department of Education altogether, but she adds that she's a realist.

Therefore, if we are going to have the government, let's minimize the involvement and let's make sure that the hard working taxpayer dollars that are spent at the federal level are bringing the best results possible. Now, you say, where would the oversight come if we didn't have the federal government?You wouldn't be bringing the tax payer dollars to Washington. You would leave those at the state and local level and the states and the localities would do the oversight.

This shift from federal to local control is unnerving for public school advocates who worry that it excludes the most vulnerable students. They point to the need for federal programs like Title 1, which provides financial assistance to schools that serve high populations of students facing poverty and other challenges. Critics also say they're concerned over efforts by some Republican leaders to remove initiatives like Common Core from the classroom, which aims to set unified standards for the nation's schools.

Foxx says she's going to stress fiscal accountability in her new role, especially when it comes to teacher pay. 

I'm a heretic when it comes to teacher salaries. And I'll tell you why. I taught at Appalachian State University and I actually had a wonderful experience there. I was also an administrator. But I think we do it backwards in this country. I think we should pay elementary and secondary teachers what university faculty make, and pay university faculty what public school teachers make. Because by the time the students get to the universities, the public schools have done their job.

So, I'm in very much favor of paying public teachers more, but I don't think you are going to get a whole lot more out of the system until you change the structure. If you take off a lot of the rules and regulations, the public schools would say we would put more people in the classroom if we didn't have to have so many administrators keeping track of things to make reports for the federal government.

Foxx says her views on education have been greatly shaped by the challenges she faced growing up in rural Appalachia. She gets most animated when asked about the future of education.

“It's an exciting time. We have more innovation going on than we've ever had, we have more choice. We have the best opportunity in the world,” she says. “Here I am someone who grew up dirt poor and yet I had an opportunity to get a good education and work hard and turn that experience into a modicum of success. I want to preserve that opportunity for all Americans in this country and that is what education is about: opportunity.”

Foxx officially began her new role as chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee on January 3.

*Follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news