Good day, CharterFolk.
So Harris has made her choice.
Most seem to see it to be a safe one.
Some see it as a choice so safe it was actually bold.
I find his selection well-aligned with what I thought likely …
… from a charter/education standpoint.
Shapiro made the most sense politically, but status quo protectors objected to his stand on school choice matters.
So go with the next best alternative.
I said in that piece that Walz has done little to stake out a position on charter schools.
But Joe Nathan tells me that, in his many interactions with and observations of Walz up close, he finds him to be a progressive supporter of chartering.
I find that encouraging.
Meanwhile, Harris has studiously avoided taking positions on charter school matters aside from launching a shot across the bow at for-profit virtuals almost a decade ago.
It’s a studiousness she demonstrated again at her recent speech before the AFT.
Nary a mention of the word “charter.”
For me, there are two possibilities explaining why it is that we have a Dem ticket that seems at least somewhat less hostile to charter schools than we saw in 2020.
The first is that Dems have seen the light and are mending their ways.
Conditions in the city/state where the campaign introduced Walz would seem to underscore this idea.
The fact that Governor Shapiro …
… and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker …
…support choice and charter schools in a battleground state as important as Pennsylvania underscores how nonviable it is for Dems to simply stand in support of the public education status quo.
The second possibility is that the lack of a primary process this cycle robbed the NEA of its opportunity …
… to force candidates …
… to kowtow before them …
… as they did so effectively the last time around.
As I wrote earlier this week …
… forcing policy makers to profess fealty to their charter school agenda is the NEA’s primary lever by which they pressure policy makers to defend the indefensible.
Whichever of the two it is, the Dem ticket, should it be elected, would enter office having greater latitude to forge a new course on charter schools than the last administration did.
Whether they do so is something we can influence a great deal.
How?
By keeping the name of Harris’s new running-mate central to our thinking.
Walz.
Our mission is to eliminate the indefensible walls that have been built up in public education that prevent kids from accessing better educational opportunity.
Especially those kids needing great public education most.
Of course, it means growing as quickly and as unapologetically as we can thousands of additional great charter schools that make use of no such indefensible walls.
But it means also adopting and fighting collectively to advance policy agendas that make the dismantling of indefensible walls within public education the North Star that all in our world strive for.
It’s a mission that no policy makers, no matter how aligned they may be with status quo interests, can stand in opposition to.
And yes, it’s a mission that, no matter which political party may occupy the Oval Office, we can stand behind for decades to come.