Secretary Betsy DeVos on combating the homeless crisis in schools
Over 114,000 New York City public school students are homeless; Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos explains how she is working to make sure disadvantaged kids have access to top-quality education.
The Trump administration is working to combat the homeless crisis in schools by introducing more and better opportunities for students to achieve their fullest potential, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said Saturday.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends: First" with hosts Lisa Boothe, Dean Cain, and Pete Hegseth, DeVos said she wants to make sure that "every child -- no matter where they learn or how they learn -- has the best opportunity ever to get educated and learn for their future."
"Well, we know that, again, more education freedom -- and it can mean a whole wide range of types of schools or types of learning experiences, and it doesn't have to necessarily even be a school building, but introducing more freedom -- and especially empowering families who don't currently have the economic means to make those decisions, empowering them to be able to find that right fit for each of their children is really a major focus of this administration, of this president," she explained.
DE BLASIO SAYS NYC IS 'ON THE OFFENSIVE' TO TACKLE STAGGERING HOMELESSNESS IN BIG APPLE
Nationwide more students are homeless than ever before. In New York City over 114,000 students were homeless during the last academic year - or one in every ten children in the city's public schools. That number is up a whopping 64 percent since 2010.
This all despite the city spending more than $3 billion to fight homelessness last year.
As of this week, the NYC Department of Homeless Services says there are nearly 60,000 homeless people in the city’s shelters, around 21,000 of whom are children.
Earlier on the show, Fox News Political Analyst Gianno Caldwell said he was "not surprised by [the] staggering numbers."
Caldwell said growing up poor on the South Side of Chicago, he saw firsthand just how "destructive" liberal policies could be and how they could potentially "destabilize" an area for its most vulnerable residents.
Fox News analyst Gianno Caldwell says he saw firsthand in Chicago just how "destructive" liberal policies could be.
"For example," he continued. "New York City leads the nation by having some of the highest tax rates and the most expensive housing in the country. This ensures that the poorest families are displaced because of the unbearable tax load."
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"The nation is watching as liberal states like New York City, California, Illinois, my home state, policies are issuing a crushing blow to many of the residents who claim they want to help the most," he stated.
"Every morning brings fresh horror stories for so many people that live in these particular areas," he told the "Friends: Weekend" hosts. "So, what needs to happen is the residents need to continue to speak up [and] they need to vote a lot of these folks out of office. Because they continue to get these votes and have the same scenarios in play."
Fox News' Greg Norman contributed to this report.