Opponents of school choice policies are akin to “flat-earthers” who are fighting innovation in education, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said Monday night.

DeVos gave a speech praising President Donald Trump’s plans for the “most ambitious expansion of education choice in our nation’s history ― a day before his administration released a budget proposal that would slash Education Department funding by more than $9 billion.

“The time has expired for ‘reform.’ We need a transformation ― a transformation that will open up America’s closed and antiquated education system,” DeVos said at the American Federation for Children’s annual National Policy Summit in Indianapolis. “Defenders of our current system have been regularly resistant to any meaningful change. In resisting, these ‘flat-earthers’ have chilled creativity and stopped American kids from competing at the highest levels.”

DeVos chaired the AFC, which advocates for school choice, before Trump nominated her to lead the Department of Education. She also suggested that refusal to embrace school choice was like hanging on to your flip phone in the age of smartphones and said that she wanted to “drag American education out of the Stone Age.”

DeVos likely used the term “flat-earthers” to refer to people who believe in an outdated, discredited theory, but she has faced criticism for her support of religious education, which in some institutions undermines scientific theory. She has made significant donations to a Michigan private school that taught creationism alongside evolution in science classes and has served on its board.

A billionaire who has long been involved in education advocacy, DeVos has pushed for school choice and reforms that would benefit parochial and private schools.

School choice policies include expanding charter schools and voucher programs that let students use the public dollars allocated for their schooling to enroll in different districts or in charter or private schools. DeVos believes these policies give kids more opportunities and access to better schools. Critics see school choice as kneecapping public education, particularly poorer school districts and their students.

Story continues

Trump’s 2018 budget, released Tuesday, calls for a 13 percent decrease in funding for the Education Department and major changes to student loan programs.

For K-12 education, it would actually increase funding for school choice initiatives, adding $1 billion in grants for school districts, $167 million for a charter school program and $250 million for a program that gives low-income families scholarships for private and parochial schools.

The cuts will hit various programs that enjoy broad bipartisan support, The Atlantic noted, including state grants for career and technical education and the federal work-study program. A $2.3 billion program that supports professional development and class-size reduction would be eliminated, as would $1.2 billion in grants for after-school and summer school programs used by nearly 2 million students.

DeVos said in a statement that the budget “makes an historic investment in America’s students” and gives states and parents more decision-making power.

She explained away the cuts as “tough choices we have had to make when assessing the best use of taxpayer money” and said the administration is “taking a hard look at programs that sound nice but simply haven’t yielded the desired outcomes.”

The budget is only a proposal and needs approval by Congress, where it will face steep opposition. But the potential cuts have appalled education advocates.

The “shortsighted and cruel proposal” is “an assault on the American Dream,” said John King, president of the Education Trust and former education secretary under President Barack Obama.

It “would make the climb to success much steeper for all our young people, especially students of color and students from low-income families,” King said.

Also on HuffPost

India

Kashmiri school girls playing during recess in Kulhama district, Bandipora on August 11, 2015 in Srinagar, India.

Somalia

Pupils walk on September 10, 2013 inside the Gambool high school in the Garowe region, Somaliland. The school is a project funded by the European Commission and has the capacity for 1,750 pupils both boys and girls. As key partners, Somalia and the European Union (EU) will be co-hosting a High Level Conference on A New Deal for Somalia in Brussels on September 16, 2013.

Japan

School girls, wearing surgical masks, cross a street at lunch time in Kyoto, western Japan November 19, 2014.

Philippines

A woman accompanies some students as they wade in the shallow part of a rocky beach to their school to attend the first day of classes in Sitio Kinabuksan, Kawag village, Subic, Zambales Province, north of Manila June 1, 2015.

India

Children sit on the ground with a temporary roof to protect them against the strong sun in a small village called Bilwadi in the state of Rajasthan. The children who come from nomadic families are 6-14 years olds who are taught mathematics as well as reading and writing in Hindi. This photo was taken on October 29, 2014.

Iran

Iranian school girls observe Members of Parliament discussing a draft to limit photographer's and cameramen's access to cover parliament's open sessions in Tehran on February 27, 2013.

South Africa

School girls walk past riot police standing guard outside Hillbrow magistrate court during an appearance of students who were arrested during a protest demanding free education at the Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, October 12, 2016.

The United States

Precious Perez listens during a class on United States history at a high school in Chelsea, Massachusetts January 24, 2014. Sixteen-year-old Perez has been blind since birth. She lives in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a working-class city on the outskirts of Boston. Her life is both like and unlike that of many of her contemporaries, blind or sighted. She walks with a friend to their public high school in the morning, takes voice lessons, plays goalball, and spends her time on social media. Picture taken January 24, 2014.

Hong Kong

School students walk down a street in Hong Kong on July 4, 2016.

Brazil

Girls attend a class at a school in the forest in Xapuri, Acre State, in northwestern Brazil, on October 8, 2014.

Iraq

An Iraqi school girl walks up the bank of a river after crossing the waterway on a small wooden boat in the district of Al-Mishikhab, some 25 kilometers south of the holy city of Najaf, as they head to school on April 1, 2015. According to Iraqi women in this area boat is one of the only ways for them to travel.

Syria

A girl carrying a school bag walks in eastern al-Ghouta, near Damascus October 21, 2014.

China

Chinese children attend a class at the Jinqao Center Primary School in Shanghai on September 1, 2014.

Afghanistan

Afghan schoolgirls board a bus in Qara Zaghan village in Baghlan province on May 7, 2013.

Kenya

Two school girls walk towards a commuter train in Kikuyu, Kenya, on September 13, 2016. The railway in Kenya has a long history, with the British laying the country's first rail in 1896.

Russia

High-school graduates celebrate the last day of their classes in Moscow's Red Square on May 25, 2011.

Gambia

Two school girls walk at Kairaba avenue in Banjul, Gambia January 24, 2017.

Haiti

Brazilian UN peacekeepers distribute juice and crackers to students at the Immaculate Conception School February 6, 2013 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Bangladesh

Savar, Bangladesh - April 13: Girls in school uniform walking along a road after school on April 13, 2016 in Savar, Bangladesh.

Iran

School girls walk down the street in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's birth village of Aradan, east of Tehran, March 12, 2008.

England

Withington Independent Girls School students celebrate getting good grades on their A level exams on August 15, 2013 in Manchester, England.

Morocco

A Moroccan girl walks to the school in Taghzirt, an isolated village in the el-Haouz province in the High Atlas Mountains south of Marrakesh on March 4, 2016.

Pakistan

Pakistani school girls pray for the early recovery of child activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head in a Taliban assassination attempt, at their school in Peshawar on October 12, 2012.

Spain

School children wearing costumes walk during a school excursion to a permanent exhibition at Velazquez research centre in Seville May 11, 2009.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan Muslim school girls stand on the edge of a sea port in Colombo on May 20, 2013, after traveling from their town of Kalmunai, over 231 miles away.

Germany

Students of the 7th and 8th classes swimming during a school triathlon on June 19, 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

South Korea

Students take the annual Scholastic Aptitude Test at the Poongmun high school in Seoul on November 13, 2014.

Central African Republic

A student stands in a classroom at a school in the capital city of Bangui, Central African Republic on March 12, 2014.

Cuba

Cuban schoolgirls read during class on November 13, 2012 in Havana.

Ecuador

Girls pose at a rural school at La Palizada in Tulcan, Carchi province, in Ecuador close to the Colombian border on November 7, 2012.

China

A class of students run during a physical training exercise at the temporary campus of the "Walking School" of Xu Xiangyang Education and Training Group on December 22, 2005, on the outskirts of China's southwestern city of Chengdu.

Kosovo

A Kosovo Albanian girl answers a question in a sociology class at Sami Frasheri high school in Pristina, March 2007. (At the time Kosovo was in the process of formalizing its independence from Serbia.)

Zimbabwe

A young schoolgirl listens to a concert at the Glen Forest Development Centre on December 3, 2012 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

North Korea

Primary School students in North Korea on May 16, 2009.

Iraq

Girls walk past a U.S. soldier on a patrol with the Iraqi police in Baghdad's Ameen district October 14, 2008.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.