U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos coming to Tallahassee

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will visit two Tallahassee schools Tuesday. DeVos a staunch supporter of charter and private schools will make stops at Holy Comforter Episcopal School and the Florida State University High School, according to her official Department of Education schedule.

“It is an honor to have a national dignitary come on to our campus and see what is unique about our academic community,” said Virginia Culpepper, Holy Comforter’s director of communication.

Holy Comforter has more than 550 students in pre-k through the eighth grade. Culpepper said DeVos’ staff called and offered to include the private school on Fleischmann Road in her Tallahassee visit.

“This is an opportunity for us to showcase our STEM initiative and one-on-one educational programs to a national audience,” said Culpepper.

DeVos also will visit with students at Florida High. The Florida State University developmental research school has more than 1,700 students in kindergarten through the 12^th grade. It is consistently ranked as one of the top charter schools in the state.

A Michigan philanthropist and activist before being appointed the Secretary of Education, DeVos immediately drew fire from the left and right when President Donald J. Trump announced her appointment.

Opponents pointed to her long time advocacy for private-school vouchers and charter schools in Indiana and Michigan and her contributions to politicians who favored school privatization.

“It’s no surprise that Betsy DeVos will be visiting a private school among her stops in Tallahassee,” said Joanne McCall, president of the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teacher union. “DeVos has never committed to the basic premise that all schools that receive public funding should be held to the same standards of accountability.”

In a 2015 speech, DeVos referred to the public school system as a “monopoly,” and said that public schools were at a “dead end.”

Beth Overholt leads Opt Out Leon County, a local affiliate of a statewide group formed to reduce high-stakes testing in public schools and has grown to oppose efforts to benefit charters at the expense of traditional public schools.  She disagrees with much of what DeVos proposes.

“If you look statewide when charter schools fail, they fail because of financial problems,” said Overholt. “And charters have a larger percentage of Ds and Fs schools.”

DeVos is promoting a Trump proposed 2018 budget that would cut total federal spending on public schools by $9 billion but direct an additional $1.4 billion to school choice programs.

The Trump budget includes $1 billion to encourage school districts to adopt an open enrollment program that enables funding to follow a student to the public school of his or her choice; it also diverts $250 million toward new private school choice programs and bolsters charter school funding with an additional $168 million.

DeVos will visit with students at Holy Comforter 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. Her schedule then calls for her to head across town for a 12:30 p.m. talk at Florida High.

According to a list of appearances compiled by Education Week, DeVos has visited 19 schools as of August. The AP reports, so far, the visits have included a mix of traditional public, private and charter schools

Reporter James Call can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com.