MACKINAC ISLAND — Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire who serves as U.S. education secretary in the administration of President Donald Trump, decried the federal government's role in schools in a speech to Republican activists on Mackinac Island on Saturday.

DeVos, speaking at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference at the Grand Hotel, said education policy has evolved around not the interests of children and students but those of teacher unions and other adult special interests. The results, she said, have been scandalous.

"Over the past 40 years the federal government alone has invested well over $1 trillion in K-12 education," she said.

Despite that spending, the U.S. has made no progress in closing the student achievement gap with other countries and today ranks 24th in reading achievement, 25th in science and 40th in math.

"The only proposals are for more of the same — more spending, more regulations, more government."

The first school is and should be the family, she said.

DeVos, a major GOP donor and past Republican Party official, is a champion of greater school choice through charter schools and also advocates public support for parochial schools, which is prohibited under the Michigan constitution.

She ridiculed proposals from Democratic presidential candidates for "free college," saying such plans would cost taxpayers trillions of dollars, with two-thirds of families with children who do not attend college paying for the one-third who do.

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"You don't need to be an economist to understand how this is crazy," said DeVos. Quoting former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, DeVos said that "eventually ... you run out of other people's money."

Recent data from the Congressional Budget Office shows the federal deficit under Trump will hit a record $960 billion for the 2019 fiscal year and top $1 trillion in 2020. Fiscal experts have cited the Trump tax cuts as a significant reason for the spiraling deficit.

DeVos, turning to $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, said students are borrowing far more money than they will ever be able to repay in a reasonable time and said her office is working on providing students with more information about what specific programs will cost at specific schools and what types of income can be expected after completing those programs. She also called for a greater emphasis on financial literacy in K-12 schooling.

She said she knew in 2017 she was taking over a huge and slow-moving bureaucracy, but she did not realize to what extent.

"It's very difficult to get things done at the pace that I am used to getting things done," she told the crowd.

DeVos, a businesswoman, and her west Michigan family have contributed tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes, though DeVos has paused her political donations while serving as education secretary.

She is married to Dick DeVos, a billionaire who headed the Amway company founded by his father and who was the Republican candidate for governor in 2006. Betsy DeVos, who grew up in Holland, Michigan, was already wealthy when she married DeVos. Her father, Edgar Prince, was a billionaire auto parts supplier.

Devos, who has been Trump's education secretary since early 2017, served as Republican National Committeewoman for Michigan from 1992 to 1997 and as chair of the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and from 2003 to 2004.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.