Columbus Board of Education member James Ragland is drawing criticism from the teachers union for appearing on a panel with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in suburban Columbus Thursday. The Columbus Education Association said the event focused on "school choice" which they say undermines public schools. But not many people were even aware the event was taking place. Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.
Democratic Representative Allison Russo says she was surprised when she saw on Twitter that Devos was at a roundtable discussing education during the pandemic.
“At the very least I think some of the local elected officials who work on education including our school board members and members of the General Assembly would beat least given a heads up but from my understanding, none of us were.”
Devos spoke at a private Christian school with parents, students and educators….as well as Senator Matt Huffman , a Republican who supports school choice and vouchers and whose district is about two hours away from the event.
![Randi Weingarten, of the American Federation of Teachers, says the message of her organization's lawsuit is clear: "Protect the students of the United States of America — not the for-profit [schools] that are making a buck off of them."](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c32c79c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5041x2809+0+276/resize/560x312!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2020%2F01%2F21%2Fgettyimages-1124273943_slide-5c348f247ded888fb00d0839c50b63ca65bad54d.jpg)
