WASHINGTON – Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made it personal Monday in selling school choice for parents who cannot afford to send their kids to private schools.

It was a “fundamental injustice,” she said, that they did not have the same option she had in sending her children to private schools while raising them in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

DeVos spoke to hundreds of state education officials in Washington for the Council of Chief State School Officers legislative conference, arguing she wants to free them and the parents of school children from restraints on what is best for American students.

Her comments came five days after President Donald Trump released his preliminary budget plan that cut U.S. Department of Education spending by 3 percent, or $9 billion, for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

The education budget would shift $1.4 billion toward school choice programs and includes $250 million for vouchers to help students who want to attend private schools.

DeVos did not address the budget reductions but rather emphasized the spending cuts eliminated duplicate and ineffective programs, and that school choice would benefit students across the country.

Echoing Trump’s broader theme of reducing the federal government’s influence, she said that “no parent should feel the Department of Education thinks they know better than they do what’s best for their child.”

DeVos’ spoke to state school officials as they are in the midst of developing plans for improving education performance and the best way to measure success. She said she’ll stay out of their way, unlike past administrations, who she said created “roadblocks” to improvement.

“Under this administration we plan to break this habit,” said DeVos.

State education officials embraced greater local control, but were concerned about the potential cutbacks in federal funding.

The scale of Trump’s budget reductions even worried Republican Jennifer McCormick, superintendent of schools in Indiana, a state that has already embarked on shifting more money toward school choice.

McCormick said in an interview she supports helping parents find a “good fit” for their students, and praised giving states a larger voice in education policy. But, she added, fewer federal dollars for public schools would come on top of $148 million the state has shifted over the past six years to private school vouchers.

That would be a “double hit” for those who remain in traditional public schools at a time when the jury is still out on how the voucher program is working, she said.

Several school officials took comfort in knowing the final word on how much is spent on education is up to the Congress, members of whom they planned to meet with Tuesday. Trump’s budget proposals, they noted, are subject to congressional change.

“I’m just going to see how it plays out,“said Mitchell Chester, education commissioner for Massachusetts. 

Stephen Pruitt, Kentucky education commissioner, said he’s learned over the years “not to get too worked up this early in the process.”

But others at the conference blasted Trump’s proposed education budget. They said it would disadvantage students from lower-income families, eliminate after-school and summer school programs and create crowded classrooms.

Abolishing after-school funding angered Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers.

“You can’t say not one of the after-school programs in the U.S. is not a good program,” she said during a panel discussion on the changing federal education landscape. “We’re in a state of alternate reality.” 

Kentucky’s Pruitt and other state school leaders, however, praised DeVos pledge not to interfere as states develop education standards required by the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the more prescriptive No Child Left Behind Act.

“This is the plan Kentuckians are developing based on Kentucky values,” Pruitt said in an interview.

Rhode Island education commissioner Ken Wagner said that being freed from “the federal government stepping on our backs” also means more responsibility for states to ensure equal access to education.

He said the Rhode Island Education Department, for instance, does not plan to comply with  Trump’s decision to rescind the federal regulation that transgender students use bathrooms based on their gender identity.

Contact reporter Kery Murakami at kmurakami@cnhi.com.