Good day, CharterFolk.
It’s good to be back from a little family time. So much has unfolded since last we connected. Some of it, as we all know, has been completely appalling. I’ll leave the non education related implications to others and will stay focused on our lane – the quest for better and fairer public education.
Let’s get to it.
Strength vs Weakness
Going into Milwaukee, if there is any one message the Republicans seem to want to stress, it’s strength vs weakness.
And education matters are clearly something they think a flex opportunity.
In their party platform released last week, Republicans prominently posted their education policy positions among their other top priorities.
Within the section on cultivating great K-12 schools, the document articulates an aggressive 9-point agenda, which covers the following topics.
- Ending tenure
- Expanding universal school choice into every state
- Supporting tougher discipline
- Expanding vocational and career oriented programs
- Expanding parental rights
- Defunding CRT and gender-oriented Instruction
- Promoting patriotism and civics instruction
- Permitting public support of religious education
- Shuttering the U.S. Department of Education
They were noteworthy enough that EdWeek published an article elaborating on all nine.
Little of it I found surprising other than seeing that “ending tenure” was positioned above “universal school choice,” which is clearly the combustion engine putting energy into everything the Republicans are doing on education matters in the post-Covid era.
Further evidence of the prominence Republicans attach to private school choice came in the form of a prime-time speaking slot for Rep. Byron Donalds from South Florida on Monday night.
Donalds allotted nearly all of his seven minutes to the subject of school choice. After thanking his mother and grandmother for having found a way to pay for his private school tuition so he would not have to attend inadequate public schools, Donalds turned his attention to other kids:
But what about those kids whose parents can’t scrape money together for private schools? Don’t those kids who grew up like I grew up deserve the same chance that I had? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sent their kids to high-priced private schools. But since they are in the pocket of the far-left teacher unions, they trap poor kids like me in failing schools with no way out. They say they are pro choice but not if you want a choice over what your kids are taught. Donald Trump believes that every parent deserves a choice, and every child deserves a chance. And when Donald Trump is elected president we will make sure that every student in America gets that chance.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic base side, the speech that has gotten the most attention of late is the one made by NEA President Becky Pringle at the organization’s national convention earlier this month.
We will do this work because our students are depending on us to win all the things. All the things. All the things. Our colleagues are depending on us. To win all the things. Keep going NEA. To preserve our democracy. We must win all the things! Delegates … We … won’t … go … back! We will keep going forward because we are the NEA! We are the NEA! We are the NEA! And that’s what we do!
What I found most interesting was less the speech’s over the top delivery and and more its utter lack of specificity on policy matters.
Having little, if any, substance to anchor her comments, Pringle ends up shouting “all the things” the union is fighting for over and over without ever identifying what those things might be.
The vacuousness of Democrats on all things education these days was reinforced by a draft of their party platform which was released a couple days ago.
Much as the rest of the document finds its focus on what the party opposes rather than what it supports, the section pertaining to public education does little to articulate what the party stands for.
Literally, education gets no mention in the platform’s chapter headings.
In fact, you have to go into the sub-bullets under Chapter 3 “Lowering Costs” to find any mention of education at all …
… right below “Corporate Greed” and “Housing.”
Scrolling to that section of the document, we find but one paragraph on K-12 matters, sandwiched in between sections about paying for pre-school and forgiving more student loans.
The American Rescue Plan made the biggest investment in public education in history, providing $130 billion to help 15,000 districts reopen, rebuild, and catch kids up; funding that has worked to help our children learn. Since then, we’ve provided an additional $2 billion to high-need, Title I schools. We’ve helped districts nationwide train and hire 14,000 more counselors and social workers, so kids can heal from the disruptions of COVID, the fear of gun violence, and more. We increased investments in full-service community schools five-fold, providing health care, nutrition, job training, and other wraparound services for kids at school, investing in their futures and making families’ lives easier. The Administration supports approaches that have been proven to help students learn: reducing chronic absenteeism, providing intensive tutoring, and extending the school day and school year. We oppose the use of private-school vouchers that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education; and we’ll continue working to increase accountability at charters, holding them to the same transparency standards as public schools. And we’ll prioritize education in cutting-edge STEAM fields as well, especially for students from underrepresented communities, preparing every child to compete and thrive.
So, I guess what we are to take from this is that the next time we see Dems trying to impose some stifling new regulation on charter schools, we’re not supposed to get all worked up about it being some discrete policy priority of theirs.
It’s just part of their bigger effort to “lower costs.”
Got that, CharterFolk?
Picket Lines They Dare Not Cross
The incoherence and anemia that surround virtually everything the Dems are doing on education policy these days was underscored by the fact that one of its most powerful interest groups had their workers go out on strike a couple weeks back.
Incredibly, when NEA staff protested outside the organization’s national convention …
… the union literally locked them out such that, doubly incredibly, Biden had to cancel his planned address to NEA delegates so as to not cross a picket line.
In the end, what resulted was a further vacuum in communication about education priorities coming out from Dems.
And it provokes an interesting question:
If NEA staff decide to protest at the Democratic Party’s national convention next month, will Biden not be willing to cross that picket line either?
Disconnects and Reckoning
For years now, I have been writing about Great Disconnects that are happening in public education.
The first was the disconnect between what public schools were offering and what parents were willing to accept.
That disconnect grew into a great chasm during the pandemic and led to The Great National Crack Up on education policy …
… with red and blue state policy makers going in opposite directions …
… such that little overlap in policy making between red and blue states exists at all any more.
Red state policy making asserted that the expansion of school choice would lead to greater excellence and equity in public education …
… though their recently developed phobia over the use of the word “equity” …
… leads them to talk about the same concepts …
… using slightly different terms.
Blue state policy making has been no change at all but a doubling down on the protection of what already exists. It was positioning I equated to lighting a fuse under the way public education is provided in blue contexts across the land …
… and all many Dems have been doing since is attempting to lengthen the fuse such that the day of reckoning never comes.
Well, I’m here to tell you, CharterFolk.
That day of reckoning has most definitely arrived, as the state of public education in the host cities …
… of this year’s conventions …
… clearly demonstrates.
The Charter that the Charter School Movement Needs Now
None of this is meant to offer blanket endorsements or criticisms toward either Republicans or Democrats.
The merits of the parties’ various policy positions are topics I have written about repeatedly before, and I will certainly return to them in future posts.
But they aren’t the topic for today.
Today’s topic is strength vs weakness.
Having a theory …
… and the conviction …
… and the political muscle …
… necessary to adjust the positions of your own base such that you can stake out new ground.
It stands in stark contrast to being so void of new thinking and so hidebound to your own special interests that that you babble …
… and ultimately become frail.
In fact, I would say that the topic of today’s post is in no way externally focused.
Something concerned with whether Republicans or Democrats or any other outside parties are strong or weak, or are vital or frail.
No, CharterFolk.
Ultimately, this post today, like most our posts here at CharterFolk, is internally focused.
On us.
On what our own needs are going forward.
Looking at the relative strength and weakness, and the relative vitality and frailty, of our major political parties right now puts our own challenges in clear repose.
Will we have the strength and vitality we need to thrive over the long term, or will we end up weak and frail?
As I often write here, the charter school movement has it within our potential to be the strongest, most vital, force in all of public education today.
But should we lose our tether to the bigger purpose that lies at the heart of all that we have done for more than thirty years, we run the risk of blatant contradiction.
Like locking out our own kind.
Or mounting picket lines we ourselves refuse to cross.
Lines of limitation.
Of ambivalence.
Of fear.
Fear that saying our truth might make things worse.
Such that we end up saying nothing at all.
Thereby leaving ourselves, like a flailing political party, without a compelling platform by which to navigate the road ahead.
Is this what the future holds for us, CharterFolk?
Incoherence? Anemia? Erasing the most important topics from our chapter titles? Burying the discussion of our most pressing matters underneath “Corporate Greed” and “Housing?”
For what is a party platform other than what we in our realm would call “a charter?”
A document of renewal providing energy and direction for the road ahead.
A document where Folk come together to articulate a critique.
To assert a reason for being.
Tethered, yes, to the values that have always held us together, but infused with new thinking to reflect the conditions we encounter today.
Grounded in a theory of action.
And pursued with all the collective conviction and muscle we can possibly muster.
Such that we flex an abiding confidence that we are on the right side of history.
And have, in fact, history on our side.
In many prior posts I have referred to what we need along these lines to be “a North Star.”
But I’m hereby changing my language, CharterFolk.
I do so to ratchet up a sense of urgency.
Because if there is any single thing that most risks us experiencing an enfeebled future it will be an inability to unabashedly declare what we stand for.
For what is something that purports to call itself a “charter school movement” that can’t itself demonstrate that it is guided unquestionably, energetically, unapologetically by a charter?
It’s what we need above all else right now.
The thing that will unleash our next chapter of collective strength and vitality:
A charter for the national charter school movement.