The Network for Public Education Action Fund was divided during the presidential primaries and made no endorsement. It is divided no more. In a contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, our choice is clear. We support Hillary Clinton.
The Network for Public Education Action (NPE Action) endorses Hillary Rodham Clinton for President of the United States. NPE Action is not aligned with Ms. Clinton on all educational issues, however, all members of the NPE Action Board strongly agree that the election of Donald Trump would have disastrous consequences for public education.
“Although we did not endorse a candidate during the primary season, we are united in our belief that Ms. Clinton is a far better choice for President than Mr. Trump,” stated NPE Action Executive Director, Carol Burris. “By his choice of education advisors, as well as his continued reference to public schools as “government schools,” there is no doubt that Trump would attempt to privatize our nation’s public education system. Ms. Clinton, in contrast, speaks of the importance of a strong and vibrant public school system. While we may disagree with some of her positions on how to improve public schools, unlike Mr. Trump, the destruction of public education is not her objective.”
NPE Action President and co-founder, education historian, Diane Ravitch, agrees. “I enthusiastically support Hillary Clinton because she is the most experienced and most knowledgeable candidate; the alternative is unthinkable. Donald Trump would destroy public education, one of the essential institutions of our democracy. With Hillary as President, we can hope for the best; with Trump, we can expect the worst.“
Prior to the conventions, NPE Action submitted a position paper to both the Republican and Democratic platform committees. The Board of NPE Action was heartened to see many of those ideas incorporated into the final draft of the Democratic platform. If Ms. Clinton is elected, NPE Action will lobby for an end to high-stakes testing, a moratorium on new charters, and for regulations to end charter abuses and ensure transparency. We will also demand a commitment to community schools that are democratically governed so that parents—especially parents of color—have voice in how their children are educated.
Co-founder and treasurer of the organization, Anthony Cody, summed up NPE Action’s endorsement of Clinton this way. “Supporters of public education have a clear choice in November, between a candidate sworn to destroy it, and one whom we may pressure to do right by our schools. I hope others will join us in supporting Hillary Clinton. Just as important, we need to continue to build the grassroots movement for democratically controlled, equitable and excellent schools for all our children.”
While I agree with NPE’s assessment of Trump, I can’t “enthusiastically” support Hillary. She is surrounded by people like John Podesta, Jennifer Palmieri, Neera Tanden and others from the Center for American Progress. That alone speaks volumes and really scares me about the continued existence of our public school system. I am glad to read NPE will be fighting for issues to help public schools, but suspect we will all have to fight very hard indeed.
If she is elected, we will keep up the fight for our kids and our schools.
For those still queasy about Hillary, I recommend the new Frontline episode “The Choice” which offers parallel biographies of Trump and Clinton. I found it extremely illuminating. One thing it makes clear is that Hillary was a rabble-rousing progressive at Wellesley and in Clinton’s first term as governor of Arkansas, but that conservative backlash against her forced her to moderate/ “normalize” her outward appearance in order to preserve political prospects for Bill. This tactical retreat was repeated when her universal health care plan went down in flames. We armchair politicians condemn her for impurity, but she would be just a civilian lawyer right now if she hadn’t made tactical moves to the center along the way. I applaud her Machiavellianism. Liberals need more Machiavellis. It’s allowed her to rise to the top. Once in the Oval Office, her inner liberal will come out more boldly than ever.
This is what impresses me. She could have stood on ideological grounds and declared a refusal to compromise. Instead, she has made steady progress on issues that have made a real difference in the world. As the terrain changes, she figures out how to make progress. I look forward to her being at the helm. Oh, and the fact that she is the most qualified person ever in history to lead the free world.
Just as the right-wing conspirators always claimed!
“Once in the Oval Office, her inner liberal will come out more boldly than ever.”
I’ll bet you Ponderosa a beverage of the winner’s choice that she goes in the opposite direction.
Don’t get me wrong, I would be pleasantly surprised, but things like “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and “you can judge a person by the company he/she keeps” come to mind.
I wonder what the rationale is behind this endorsement. Why not just make a statement against Trump? Doesn’t an endorsement make the candidate lazy, thinking, she did enough to earn NPE’s support?
I suspect, a presidential candidate is trying to please the voters the most during the campaign, that’s when she has the most direct exposure to regular folks. Once she is in the White House, she has much less motivation to listen to the people since she will be surrounded by pushy policy makers whose loud voice and the White Walls will keep out the people’s voice, and so she is less likely to change her position on issues that matter to us.
I do not think the whole thing has anything to do with intelligence or even good will. The above observation seems to be the reality, and it’s independent of the candidate.
I want to add that Hillary sometimes manages to scare some Europeans almost to the same degree as Trump with her uninformed statements. For example, recently she made a statement on the refugee crisis
In an interview with The Associated Press, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination said Monday that “everyone should be asked to do more” to help the migrants, many of whom are fleeing the civil war in Syria and from areas in that country and in Iraq under the control of Islamic State militants.
“I think we need to have a broad-based global response,” Clinton said before spending Labor Day campaigning in eastern Iowa and parts of Illinois. “The United States certainly should be at the table, but so should everybody else.”
“And if countries are not able to do more physically in taking in these refugees, they should do more financially,” she said.
Clinton, the former secretary of state, said she was speaking most particularly about the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf.
“They should be funding a lot of the resettlement work and supporting those countries that are bearing the burden of the refugees,” Clinton said.
In a statement like this, every line can be used for any purpose. How does the boldfaced sentence sound to an Eastern European country like Hungary, where the average salary is $10K, and the country was already told that it would have to pay 25 times this amount after each refugee the country is not willing to accept as part of the “refugee quota”?
This election is close. We are giving a clear message especially to swing state voters–get out and vote Clinton. Republicans in both house and senate plus presidency will end public education in 4 years.
I clearly don’t understand politics. I think the clear and honest message is “Trump will end public education, so get out and vote for Hillary (because she may not end public education).” I perceive endorsement to mean, we like Hillary’s views on public education. But I think it’s safe to say, we have no idea what her views on public education are. Anyhow….
An honest endorsement would have conceded that Jill Stein is more aligned with NPE on education issues, but you have reached the self-fulfiling conclusion that third-party candidates are not electable.
What part of this does NPE disagree with?
A candidate who is polling at 2% a month before the election is not electable.
Isn’t it sad that the only candidate to publicly cite you, Diane, on education policy is polling at 2%? How did we get here? Did NPE evaluate all the candidates a year ago and engage them on public school issues?
Personally I find it very sad that the only candidate on the ballot who is very closely aligned with NPE on education issues gets no credit, engagement, or even mention from the organization. Like you’re ready to concede that your positions are politically unfeasible.
Is there anything not to agree her with? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4HJBE62IzI
The Goldwater Girl may come out.
She was raised in a Republican household and was a Goldwater Girl in high school. In this video she explains how she changed thanks to her public high school social studies teachers:
I’d rather have a free and flexible thinker like Hillary than a rigid dogmatist.
I would rather have some one not owned by the Wall Street crew. If wishes were horses all beggars would ride.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.