Critics saw her as a longtime leader of the movement to privatize education who got the job despite having no experience as a teacher or even a public school student — and her departure is delighting them. For example, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers union in the country, had two words for her: “Good riddance.”
DeVos and Weingarten had a mutually critical relationship: Weingarten accused DeVos of undermining public education and DeVos accused the teachers unions of wanting to maintain “the status quo” and caring only about their members.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country, was equally direct, tweeting: “Her complicity, cowardice, and complete incompetence will be her legacy.”
DeVos also antagonized teachers, Democratic legislators, parents and others with her policies. Some critics slammed her on social media for resigning now after spending four years standing by President Trump no matter how damaging his policies were to children.
Even some who supported her school-choice policies did not do much to praise her tenure Thursday night in their social media reactions.
Her resignation prompted a lot of comment; a Washington Post story about her resignation had more than 2,200 comments shortly after it published on its website Thursday night.
Here are some reactions to her resignation. The first is from Wes Moore, parent of two girls, author, social entrepreneur, decorated U.S. Army combat veteran and CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, a leading nonprofit organization that fights poverty.
The following tweet refers to a statement that DeVos made at her January 2017 Senate confirmation hearing that a particular Wyoming school district might want to allow guns in schools to protect students from “potential grizzlies.” On the poster, “ECOT” refers to an Ohio cyber charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, that was forced to shut down over taking in tens of millions of dollars in overpayments from the state for students who did not meet requirements for being classified as full-time. It was run by an ally of DeVos’s.
The following reactions are from key figures at conservative education think-tanks in Washington, D.C., who supported some of DeVos’s school choice policies. Even they did not thank her for service in their tweets.
