The Network for Public Education doesn’t have any capacity to fund political campaigns, unlike the billionaires and millionaires who are trying to buy school board seats to advance their privatization agenda.
We endorse candidates, based on surveys of all the candidates on all sides and interviews with local education activists, parents and educators. The endorsement committee reaches its decisions carefully and thoughtfully, based on our principles described on our website.
This is our mission:
The Network for Public Education is an advocacy group whose goal is to fight to protect, preserve and strengthen our public school system, an essential institution in a democratic society. Our mission is to protect, preserve, promote, and strengthen public schools and the education of current and future generations of students. We will accomplish this by networking groups and organizations focused on similar goals in states and districts throughout the nation, share information about what works and what doesn’t work in public education, and endorse and rate candidates for office based on our principles and goals. More specifically, we will support candidates who oppose high-stakes testing, mass school closures, the privatization of our public schools and the outsourcing of its core functions to for-profit corporations, and we will support candidates who work for evidence-based reforms that will improve our schools and the education of our nation’s children.
Here are our endorsements
Atlanta School Board, GA
- Cynthia Briscoe Brown
- Ed Johnson
- Mary Palmer
- Nisha Simama
El Rancho School Board, CA
- José Lara
South Pasadena School Board, CA
- Suzie Abajian
Denver Public Schools Board of Education, CO
- Rosario C de Baca
- Michael Kiley
- Roger Kilgore
- Meg Schomp
Douglas County School Board, CO
- Bill Hodges
- Ronda Scholting
Bridgeport School Board, CT
- Howard Gardner
- Andre Baker
- Dave Hennessey
State Assembly, NJ
- Marie Corfield
Centennial School District School Board, PA
- Michael Hartline
- Betty Huf
- Jane Schrader Lynch
Houston Board of Education, TX
- Anne Sung
Seattle School Board, WA
- Sue Peters
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bravo to NPE, of which I’m a member, for endorsing and morally supporting candidates.
It is fascinating yet not surprising that NPE has not yet endorsed Bill De Blasio.
It is my sincerest hope that Mr. De Blasio will really shift the paradigms of rich/poor/middle class in NY City in a radical and dramatic way to make a fairer, more just city, one that is accessible in all aspects to anyone regardless of their income.
Predictably, wealth gaps and taxation are at thier most historical unequal levels in the Big Apple since the 1920’s.
Mr. De Blasio has taken his precious – and it is exactly that: precious – time and resources to meet up with Obama and Rahm Emanuel. Yet he has not had a rendez-vous, too curiously enough, with Karen Lewis of the CTU.
Will De Blasio turn out to be a medium strength version of Obama or just another neo-liberal Democrat?
The picture, while not conclusive yet, is becoming somewhat more clear.
Of course, I would not want the Republican challenger to win. I don’t see myself voting for either.
When will mainstream Democrats get it right and really represent working class people, unions, and wealth redistribution? Are Bernie Sanders and Elisabeth Warren the only overt politicians who do so?
Bill De Blasio is not looking so wonderful in my so-far-informed eyes . . . .
It does not surprise me if NPE is silent about endorsing him . . . I would not blame NPE, yet I have found that my allies and I overlap 95% of the time and almost never 100%.
Robert Rendo,
I personally endorsed Bill de Blasio. He was the candidate most opposed to Bloomberg’s corporate reforms. He has said that his primary concern is to help the schools that enroll 95% of public school children. He also has pledged to charge rent to charters that take public space, on a sliding scale related to ability to pay.
Diane,
You did the right thing.
I don’t question your motivations. I question how De Blasio will govern vs. how he is campaigning.
I am becoming a bit of a carmudgeon and heavily guarded in today’s American political culture. Yet, I am reminded we are still a democracy, and it is indeed our job to advocate and hound our (soon to be) elected officials.
Anne Roosevelt, granddaughter of FDR and Eleanor, recently said that her parents would be urging everyone to become active and participate in government as civic participants. . .. that the whole concept and execution of “government” is not an alien force separate from us, but that we ARE the government.
Although I disagree with Ms. Roosevelt’s enodrosement of Hillary Clinton as potential Presidential material (I fear Hillary is another neo-liberal Democrat), I do agree with her urging us to participate civically.
What does one do when neither candidate is good and other parties are not running?
Not a question I expect you to answer, yet it will make us think harder. . . .
How I would love to convince Albany legislators to elect me and other educators as members of the Board of Regents . . . .
Excellent questions – I’ve been fearing those same things. I hope DeBlasio turns out to be everything he claims, but I could easily see him becoming New York’s Obama.
Thank you for endorsing Cynthia Briscoe Brown in Atlanta. Tireless supporter of public school students especially when the system has been rocked by so much uncertainty.