Betsy DeVos did not visit a public school in Omaha, somewhat strange since almost all children in Omaha attend public schools.
She visited the Nelson Mandela Elementary School, then visited a Catholic school. Her snub of public schools was blatant.
At the Mandela school, she was greeted by the founder, Dianne Seeman Lozier and by students and teachers wearing pro-public school stickers.
Several teachers and students wore “NE (Heart) Public Schools” stickers.
While Mandela is a private school funded by the Lozier Foundation and William and Ruth Scott Family Foundation, Lozier said in a release that school officials do not support charter schools, which DeVos has championed. The school has a strong cooperative relationship with OPS [Omaha Public Schools], she said.
“We agree with Secretary DeVos on rethinking how schools engage and teach students, however, we want to be clear that we are not advocates for charter schools,” Lozier said. “We don’t think taking money away from public schools is the right decision and are adamant that public school systems need those dollars to educate all students.”
In February, Mandela Principal Susan Toohey told The World-Herald that she was “extremely disappointed” by DeVos’ confirmation, which came on a razor-thin 51-50 Senate vote.
“We absolutely don’t think taking money away from public school systems is the right decision,” Toohey said then.
Nebraska was not fertile ground for DeVos’ message of all-choice-all-the-time.
Nebraska Loves Public Schools!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Deplorable DeVos seems unaware that in 1970 Nebraska voters defeated a school voucher plan by 57% to 43%. — Edd Doerr
No, Ed, it just doesn’t matter to her what voters think. The voters didn’t affect her decisions in Michigan. I can’t see any reason that she would pay attention to them now.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Good for Nebraska.
DeVos just showed how little character she really has.
Congratulations to the Nelson Mandela school. Their namesake would be proud.
Indeed!
“Snubbed” is a good word. She’s not snubbing just public schools though. As DeVos herself would say, schools are buildings.
She’s snubbing public school families. It’s amazing how she consistently misses that- that there are public school families. We support our schools. Some of our kids actually like school. There are a LOT of public school families. You have to really WORK to pretend we don’t exist but I guess ideological blinders make it easy to ignore 90% of families.
Can’t hear from public school families if you ignore public schools. The two go together.
I think the all-time award for “snubbing” of public school families is when the DeVos DOE visited the national PTA.
The DeVos hire goes to a MEETING of public school parents and advocates and spends the whole time promoting charter and private schools.
They can’t even get recognition at their own meeting! They must have been baffled- how do you go to a PTA meeting and ignore public schools? That takes real effort.
The flip side would never happen. When DeVos goes to charter school conventions she talks about charter schools. She would never go to a charter school meeting and spend the whole speech praising public schools, because that’s ridiculous and the charter people would wonder why she was talking about schools they don’t attend. But that’s EXACTLY what ed reformers do to our schools.
It’s odd. It’s as if they’re trying to become completely irrelevant to 90% of families.
I still haven’t gotten over the National PTA showing “Waiting for Superman” at its annual meeting in 2010. A film bashing public schools and lauding charter schools. How did that happen? Was it Gates’ payback for millions to PTA?
Good news! Thank you, Diane.
Thank you to the volunteers who helped run shelters in the PUBLIC SCHOOLS in Florida during Hurricane Irma.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/why-werent-charter-schools-used-as-shelters-during-hurricane-irma/2337480
It’s also really odd how she talks to the kids in these schools. She sets it up as some kind of battle between them and public schools- it’s Betsy DeVos and “students” versus public schools.
That’s bizarre. I don’t know how she figures these random kids she briefly encounters are her allies in her ideological crusade.
It’s also REALLY unhelpful. What is the goal here? To convince them that the adults in their schools are somehow invested in their failure? Even if these kids believe this, why would they turn to this complete stranger?
She asked one group of students a rhetorical question- “are you a SYSTEM?”
I mean, I get it but I read these people all the time. I know “systems” are BAD, BAD, BAD and her political point is everyone should get a voucher, blah, blah, blah.
I can’t imagine what they’re thinking. They’re really not privy to ed reform politicking lingo. They must have no idea what she’s talking about.
I’m glad to see that the Mandela school educators were completely honest. An “oops” for DeVos!
Honestly though, had she shown up at a public school, would she have been welcomed with open arms, or protesters? Now believe me, I can’t stand Betsy DeVoid. However, she knows her audience. We wouldn’t want the public schools to go and justify her $1,000,000 per month security detail, would we?
Let Betsy stick to the religious schools and the charters; that is what she does best.
I cannot forget the three gentlemen planting flowers in front of the community school in a small town in the Tallgrass Prarie of Nebraska. It was a beautiful and fading building, erected with pride when the wheat belt was peopled with the proud second generation of immigrants, many German Russian, Czech,what a great place. So many of them would power the country in the last generation. That the public schools were not a vital part of that history is a myth perpetuated by people with a failing agenda. They are desperate to keep their alternative story.
She also visited a public school during her Nebraska visit, but you conveniently left that detail out. I think it’s refreshing that she’s visiting lots of different kinds of schools. That shows that she thinks all American kids are important and deserving of attention.
DeVos did not visit a public school in Omaha. She came to Nebraska to tout charters and vouchers. Nebraska has neither. Nebraska Loves Public Schools!