Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday delivered a gut check to thousands of charter schools advocates gathered in Washington, D.C., reminding them that when it comes to school choice they are not the only player.

"Charters' success should be celebrated, but it's equally important not to, quote, 'become the man,' Devos said at the annual conference of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

"There is no one right way to help kids learn, and just because a school educates children differently than you might propose to does not make them the enemy," she said, making a veiled reference to the growing fracture in the school choice community largely driven by the Trump administration's education agenda, which includes both public and private school choice.

"Let's applaud and encourage others who serve students well," DeVos said. "It's a both-and situation, not an either-or."

The three-day conference in the nation's capital convened charter school advocates of all persuasions, including those who support private school choice and those who do not – two camps whose philosophical divide has recently grown in large part due to proposals in the president's budget request.

DeVos urged the audience to remember the entrepreneurial spirit that led to the creation of the sector.

"Charter schools were created to address the fact that for too many kids, their assigned public school wasn't working for them," DeVos reminded the packed conference hall.

"But somewhere along the way, in the intervening 26 years and through the process of expansion, we've taken the colorful collage of charters and drawn our own set of lines around it to box others out, to mitigate risk, to play it safe," she said. "This is not what we set out to do, and, more importantly, it doesn't help kids."

She continued: "No one has a monopoly on innovation. No one has a monopoly on creativity. No one has a monopoly on knowing how every child learns."

To be sure, the tough love came with heaps of praise for the sector, which has exploded in the last decade.

But, as DeVos has done in past speeches, she used the opportunity to tout the administration's private school choice agenda without providing details about what, exactly, that looks likes.

"We must recognize that charters aren't the right fit for every child," she said. "For many children, neither a traditional nor a charter public school works for them."

She continued: "Charters are not the one cure-all to the ills that beset education. I suggest we focus less on what word comes before 'school' – whether it be traditional, charter, virtual, magnet, home, parochial, private or any approach yet to be developed and focus instead on the individuals they are intended to serve."

Some conference attendees lamented the fact that DeVos did not more specifically address concerns about quality and accountability, particularly when it comes to how the administration would ensure that taxpayer dollars for a federal private school choice program are used effectively.

"She was vague and nebulous and she kept repeating herself," says Kayla Meadows, a kindergarten teacher at River Oak, a charter school in Ukiah, California, where she's taught for 17 years. "There was no substance."

Meadows, who is working with a cohort of teachers and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform to develop a set of high-quality standards for charter schools, says her biggest qualm with DeVos and the administration is what she considers a lack of focus on quality.

"She keeps talking about giving parents more choices, but you have to have accountability," Meadows says – something she said she believes would be difficult to execute with a voucher or tax credit scholarship program that allows students to attend private schools.

When asked about this specific issue during the interview portion of her presentation, DeVos said simply: "It's a robust discussion and I'm happy to be part of the discussion about how to meet the needs of students today. Again, our focus should be not on choice for choice's sake, but choice because parents are demanding something different for their child."

Another big criticism of the speech was that the secretary did not more clearly address the widespread opposition within the education community regarding the administration's budget request, which would slash $9 billion in education spending.

"She was very broad and didn't provide many policy details," says Mihir Garud, a teacher at Chicago's Instituto of Health Sciences Career Academy, which enrolls a large proportion of low-income Latino students.

Garud says he wished DeVos had given a better response as to why the administration is proposing to eliminate dozens of programs, including $2.4 billion that provides teacher preparation.

"My big concern with this administration is that I don't think they see education as a public good," Garud says.

DeVos only momentarily addressed the president's budget request.

"While some of you have criticized the president's budget – which you have every right to do – it's important to remember that our budget proposal supports the greatest expansion of public school choice in the history of the United States," she said. "It significantly increases support for the Charter School Program and adds an additional $1 billion for public school choice for states that choose to adopt it."

Indeed, the administration's budget request included a $168 million boost for charter schools, as well as a $1 billion increase for Title I for school districts that allow the money to follow students to the public school of their choice, which charters could benefit from.

The budget also included $250 million for a private school choice program, which in addition to a forthcoming tax credit scholarship proposal, has many charter school advocates concerned that the Education Department would not be able to hold private schools accountable for student outcomes.

But the secretary was steadfast in her message that charter schools are not a silver bullet when it comes to school choice.