You heard from our first guest why we need the Department of Education. Now you're going to hear from

someone who believes we should get rid of it. I'm Jenna and this is Smarter News.

First up in our Smarter series on Education, we heard from Arnie Duncan. He's the former

Secretary of Education under President Obama. If you missed that conversation, we aired it yesterday. He told us why he believes

federal oversight is so key to the successive education in our country. Now we're going to hear

a completely different perspective from Erica Donalds. She serves as the chair of the America

First Policy Institute Center for Education Opportunity.

A few personal points for Erica.

She is the wife of Congressman Byron Donald, a Republican from Florida, who's now going

to be running for governor of the state.

She's also a mom of three kiddos, which is something we have in common, Erica.

So three is just enough to either

keep you on your toes or drive you crazy. It depends on the day. Well, and it depends on the kids.

I always joke that my third one is like two, so it's kind of like having four. I'm going to use

that with my third because I actually believe that. I think suddenly you get past that number

and you're

like, what's adding a few more at this point? I'm really fascinated with your personal evolution too.

I see that you had a really successful career, continued to in business, but that you also have this

expertise in education. So tell us a little bit about that. How did you start in the business world?

And how did you transfer some of that or apply some of that into a passion about education?

Yeah, I started my career in business and financial services. I was a CPA. I have a master's in accounting. And I worked my way up in an investment management firm to the chief financial officer and managing partner. And so I had really achieved a lot of what I

wanted to achieve in my career when I made the questionable life decision to run for school board.

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