Our nation's commitment is to provide a quality education to

“Our nation’s commitment is to provide a quality education to every child to serve the public common good. Accordingly, we must shift the paradigm to think of education funding as investments made in individual children, not in institutions or buildings.” Thus spoke Betsy DeVos, in words that echo not merely as policy, but as a call to conscience — a summons to remember that the beating heart of education is not brick or bureaucracy, but the living spirit of the child. Her declaration is both a challenge and a vision: that the measure of a nation’s greatness lies not in the grandeur of its schools, but in the enlightenment of its people.

In ages past, the wise understood that a society rises or falls by how it tends to its youth. The philosophers of Greece built no vast halls of marble for learning; they gathered their disciples beneath olive trees, believing that wisdom is carried in minds, not monuments. In the same spirit, DeVos reminds us that education must not be bound to the walls of institutions, but must live and breathe within the soul of each student. To invest in a child is to plant a seed that may one day shade the whole nation. To invest only in buildings is to polish the vessel while neglecting the flame within.

Yet the world has often forgotten this truth. Across generations, the wealth of nations has been poured into systems and structures, while the individual learner — with all their dreams, struggles, and potential — was treated as a mere statistic in a ledger. DeVos’s words cut through that illusion. She calls upon her listeners to shift the paradigm — to see not the system, but the soul; not the institution, but the imagination of the child who sits within it. For the purpose of education is not to sustain buildings, but to awaken minds; not to preserve traditions, but to prepare free spirits who may build a better world.

Consider the story of Horace Mann, the great reformer of American education in the nineteenth century. He, too, saw the need to make learning universal, believing that “education is the great equalizer of men.” He fought not merely for schools, but for the child within them — the poor farmer’s son, the immigrant’s daughter, the orphan who hungered for knowledge. His vision was not of grand academies alone, but of justice and hope. It was this spirit that built the first public schools — not for the sake of the buildings themselves, but for the future they promised. In this way, DeVos’s call continues the same ancient song: that education is sacred when it serves humanity, not when humanity serves it.

And yet, we must be watchful. For every age has those who would turn education into an idol — worshipping the institution rather than the inspiration. They mistake administration for wisdom and funding for progress. But no marble column, no glittering campus, can replace the power of a teacher who believes in a child. No budget line can equal the worth of a young heart that learns to dream, to question, to strive. Thus, we must return, as DeVos urges, to the individual child — the sacred center of learning — and build from there.

This truth demands not only awareness but action. Parents, teachers, and leaders alike must see themselves as investors in human potential, not caretakers of systems. Each child is a world unto themselves — unique, unrepeatable, divine. To invest in that world is to ensure the public common good, for a nation that raises thoughtful, moral, and creative citizens will never fall to ruin. Let every resource, every reform, every policy be weighed not by its comfort to the powerful, but by its power to uplift the smallest among us.

And so, the lesson is clear: let us rebuild the house of learning not from the top down, but from the heart outward. Let every child be seen, known, and nurtured. Let education be measured not by test scores or funding totals, but by the light it awakens in young eyes. If we heed this wisdom, the wealth of our nation will not lie in stone or steel, but in the living treasury of minds made free. For in the end, buildings crumble, but knowledge endures; systems fade, but souls that have been taught to think — they light the way for generations yet unborn.