Rhetorical Analysis Of Betsy Devos

On September 29, 2017, the United States Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos, gave a political, publicly addressed speech at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her main arguments revolved around the current US education policies, advancements in school options, and the “future of choice” for the next generation of students. As a national leader of the school choice movement, she clarifies to the audience, of both supporters and protesters, that she does not want to destroy the public education system, but instead inject competition through the promotion of charter and private school education systems. This policy-based speech pushes its audience to embrace the future as one that fully integrates choice into every decision parents and students make regarding their education. As she argues her main points and various supporting statements, she effectively persuades the audience through the use of consistent assertions, emotional appeals, and

analytic tools.

Betsy Devos promotes throughout her speech that education is an investment in the individual student and that is why she advocates that more US funding and focus should support the education systems. Each year, the US education budget gets published and educators never believe the amount is fully enough to satisfy the needs of the schools and their students. In fact, the current “America First” budget, which was released by President Donald Trump in 2017, revealed that the funds which are directly put towards education had been cut by approximately 13.5%, or 9.2 billion dollars (Kamenetz). As a result, schools were limited in their spending within the past year. In reference to this budget cut, one of Devos’ main arguments at the start of her speech is that each individual student is unique and in order for them to fully succeed within their system, they should be placed in helpful

educational environments that are properly funded and supported. As she mentions, “it is the inalienable right and responsibility of parents to choose the learning environment that best meets their child’s unique, individual needs” (Devos). To further this point, she draws on the connection of how children’s futures are not to be gambled, referring to the lottery process that certain schools enact for admission purposes. The dramatic image that she describes at this point in the speech, encourages parent viewers to take charge of their own destinies and research different education options that best assist their child. In order to persuade the audience, Devos does offer her extreme point of view, advocating specifically for families to choose the private school route. She infers there is currently a deep division between the school systems because of the fact that public schools are considered to be governmental programs, which she views to be unstable and unreliable.
Regarding the particular way of interpreting the object of criticism, Devos relies upon the analytic tools of ethos, logos, and pathos. At the heart of Devos’ argument is her reference to John F. Kennedy and his quote, “every time we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders and shift that that problem to the hands of the government, we are sacrificing the liberties of our people” (Devos). Using evidence from past political leaders, she appeals to logic in that she argues that the government makes people worry less about others. Instead of choosing what better suits their needs, most American prefer to take the easy way out and rely on the governmental programs like public educations. She also establishes credibility through referencing the fact that she is currently in the position of the United States Secretary of Education. She also often refers to governmental policies, showing the audience that she is well educated on the topic. Lastly, though the emotional appeals of including the children’s futures so many times in her speech, Devos makes the connection that this issue is serious and can highly affect the next generations to come.
Towards the end of her speech, Devos mentions her slogan, “future of choice”, numerous times. This slogan refers to students choosing to immerse themselves within a particular education system that will help in the development of their personal traits and skills, which are intended to help in the future workplace and higher learning. It is clear that Devos strongly advocates for private or charter schools, which she believes offers parents with more opportunities to access various educational approaches and styles. She describes that the current public school systems, which are largely government funded programs, are glorified and create a scenario where the “state replaces the family, the schoolhouse becomes the home, and the child becomes the constituent” (Devos). This synopsis was an effective strategy to include at the end of the speech because she makes the audience reflect on the scenario, as she subtly includes her own opinions into the audience's thoughts regarding education. Although she strives to inject competition through the promotion of charter and private school, she will never verbally tear down the public systems. Instead, she will push that with more choices between public, private and charter school educations, studies have shown that more options that families can choose from, yield better results for students in the long run. Through the use of repetition of the quotation, “future of choice”, Devos makes her connection to the argument both understandable and more memorable for her audience.
The context of Devos’s speech is very important for the understanding of symbolic artifacts of discourse. When analyzing this political, publicly addressed speech, rhetorical criticism provides a general understanding of the words, phrases, and references that Devos mentions within her speech. The specific approach to rhetorical criticism, being Neo-Aristotelian/Neo-Classical criticism, looks at specific arguments that occur in the public sphere. With communication involving framing and probability, Devos displays these techniques within her education policy speech. First, she makes her verbiage and transitions very audience oriented and stylized as she focuses in on her main arguments. Next, through the incorporation of rhetorical based appeals, Devos relies on believable and reasonable explanations to describe why she supports private and charter school educations in addition to public schools. Lastly, she uses conventional wisdom to convince the audience that her belief is true and correct, even though some of her statements do not necessarily align with the exact facts.
In relation to Devos’ claims about the US education system, many other scholars have published articles that discuss their opinions on education. First, Hoshchild and Scott look at whether the federal government should provide vouchers for parents to send their children to private or charter schools. They argue that Americans have a declining confidence in education and that even if they are “dissatisfied with public education, they seem unmotivated or unable to do much in the political realm about their concerns” (Hochschild). Next, the article “Contract Law, State Constitutions and Freedom of Expression in Private Schools” Stevens argues different from Devos, in that he believes that students involved in the private school system have a hard time establishing a right to free speech. He advocates for free expression and aims for to preserve the differences between public and private school educations within the US. Thirdly, when looking at US consumer expenditures for services, Ferber notes that the second largest increase in US expenditures has been put towards private education systems and research. He argues that “private education expenditures fell relatively little during the depression because many of those who otherwise would have been working elected to remain longer in school rather than be unemployed, whereas the subsequent sharp rise is due partly to prosperity, paradoxically enough, and partly to increased emphasis on higher education” (Ferber). Lastly, in Galloway’s article titled “Foreign Languages in the Schools: Through the Looking Glass” she evaluates the efficiency rates of foreign language teaching in the current US education systems. Galloway agrees with Devos in that there are significant advantages in personally-oriented private school educations.
Devos successfully makes a strong case for the advancements in school choice and the differences between private, charter and public school educations. Significantly, because of this speech, she has been referred to by many scholars, politicians, and educators as the “School Choice Secretary.” Through the use of emotional appeals, including having the audience think of the children and understand their impact in the next generation, she effectively persuades the audience to think critically about her views regarding the private and charter school education systems. In particular, Devos’ argument for choice will forever remain a topic of discussion and will be relevant throughout time. This speech is important because educational issues affect every American as it is a requirement for the youth. All schools operate in their own way and every student has different experiences. I personally went through the public education system for 13 years and loved my time spent there and the opportunities I gained. However, I also know friends who come from private or charter school systems that have similar thoughts on their upbringing. In the end, I agree with Devos that a school’s purpose is to fulfill a student’s needs and best prepare them for their future. With that, I look forward to seeing the impact she will make in the United States education field.