Changing Times

It’s Wednesday, June 18^th – I’m back from a short absence.

Members of the Democratic Party have started to question whether the way our traditional K-12 system currently runs is the best way to get all kids smarter and stronger when it comes to reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development skills. Instead, the Democrats have started to push school choice strategies like education savings accounts, long believed to be a Republican Party rallying cry.

The 74 reported last week that,

“For 11 years, Jennifer Walmer led Democrats for Education Reform Colorado, the state chapter for the national organization that advocates for school choice.”

“Among the biggest wins of her tenure, she counts increase in charter funding and twice electing Democrat and school reformer Governor Jared Polis as governor. After serving as chief of staff for the Denver Public Schools, she fully expected to finish her career at DFER.”

“’We worked hard to build power in the Democratic Party specifically around accountability, choice and the role of public charter schools,’ she said. ‘Everything had always been grounded 100% in public education.’”

“But last year, she said she ‘saw the writing on the wall’ when the organization’s leader embraced Education Savings Accounts and other forms of private school choice. She is among several who have since left the group over the issue.”

“In a May 5 policy paper, DFER CEO Jorge Elorza, former two-term mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, suggested that instead of ‘rejecting the offhand,’ his party should explore how ESAs can advance Democratic values like uplifting needy families and protecting civil rights. Eighteen Republican-led states now have such program, which parents can use for private school tuition or homeschooling. Most Democrats say vouchers and ESAs lack accountability and threaten funding for public schools.”

“To Alisha Searcy, who joined DFER just last year, Elorza’s about-face felt like a betrayal.”

“’DFER has done extraordinary work to get courageous Democrats elected to push bold policies that would truly improve public education,’ said the former Georgia state legislator. She was hired last year to expand the organization’s reach into her state, Alabama and Tennessee, but resigned in May. ‘We need strong Democratic voice, now more than ever. This move to embrace vouchers and ESAs is the exact opposite.’”

“The issue has brought bubbling to the surface a debate that was previously restricted to Democratic backrooms. Elorza took the helm of DFER at a time when polls began to show that voters were losing confidence in Democrats as the party they most trusted on education. Parents, the surveys suggested, were more preoccupied with whether their kids were recovering from pandemic learning loss than how schools were teaching issues of race or gender in the classroom. The soul searching only intensified in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s election.”

“Founded in 2007, DFER always advocated for wider public school options. Leaders worked with the Obama administration and reform-minded Democrats to support policies like magnet schools, dual enrollment and lifting state caps on charter schools. Now, Republicans and their push for parental rights are dominating the education conversation, including a recent proposal to enact a national tax credit for private school choice. Elorza is among those who say the party needs to be open to more options for families if it’s going to regain its edge with voters, especially parents. But he recognizes the risks.”

“’There are a lot of Democrats who are choice curious,’ he told The 74. ‘They’ll say privately that they’re open to the idea of choice, including private school choice, but that the politics of it are just so darn challenging.’”

“In a recent op-ed, he pointed to Pennsylvania as the best opportunity for a swing state to pass an ESA program. Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro came close to supporting such a bill in 2023.”

“Some observers say Shapiro and Elorza are outliers in the party. During the Obama years, DFER ‘nudged’ the party toward school reform policies like merit pay for teachers and maintaining strong assessment systems, said David Houston, an assistant education professor at George Mason University in Virginia. But now it’s ‘further from the center of Democratic politics.’”

“The recent departure of other DFER staff offers further evidence that Elorza’s positions doesn’t reflect the Democratic mainstream.”

…

“…In a recent blog, Virginia Board of Education Member Andy Rotherham, who served in the Clinton White House and co-founded Bellwether, a think tank, said Democrats need to welcome ‘a much wider range of perspectives on these questions,’ given school choice’s surge in popularity since the pandemic.”

“’This is America – we like choice,’ he wrote. ‘Being on the wrong side of that culturally and politically is not a great place to be.’”

…

Democrats need to be careful defending under-performing schools and expecting primarily black, brown, and poor families to send their kids there. If education savings accounts are used to allow these families to locate and pay for better learning options for their kids, both Democrats and Republicans should be in favor and supportive.

Til tomorrow. SVB