Carol Burris and Darcie Cimarusti of the Network for Public Education argue here that the candidates who forcefully stand up for public schools and speak out against privatization will win in November 2018.
Their evidence is the Elections of 2017.
Start with the remarkable results in Virginia.
“The most important race of 2017 was the hotly contested race for the governor of Virginia, in which a strong public education advocate, Democrat Ralph Northam, faced off against Republican Ed Gillespie. Gillespie fully embraced the entire DeVos agenda — charter expansion, online virtual schools, home schools, and vouchers in the form of tax credits and education savings accounts. There was not an inch of policy daylight between Gillespie and DeVos.
“This should come as no surprise. Gillespie received over $100,000 in campaign contributions from the DeVos family, including a donation from the Secretary’s husband, Dick DeVos. Americans for Prosperity, which is controlled by the Koch brothers, launched a digital video in which a charter school leader criticized Northam for being the vote that stopped the neo-voucher “educational savings accounts.”
“Northam, who was supported by the teachers union, has been a strong and consistent supporter of public education. As stated on his website, “Ralph took tie-breaking votes to protect Virginia’s public education from being raided with unconstitutional private school vouchers and to keep decisions about public charter schools in the hands of local school boards.”
“The election of Gillespie would have been a game changer for public education in the Commonwealth. Virginia is one of a handful of states that allow charter schools to only be authorized by local school boards. In Virginia, charters are subject to the same transparency guidelines as public schools in the state. There are only eight charter schools in Virginia, much to the chagrin of charter advocates.”
Northam, who calls himself a “friend of public schools,” will keep privatization out of the state and instead work to strengthen and improve Virginia’s public schools.”
Friends of public schools will win. Democrats who abandon public schools will not be able to take advantage of “The DeVos Effect.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wouldn’t count on the elite Dimocraps who run the party to understand that concept.
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bingo
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The DNC is still in the hands of the neoliberal branch of the party. If Democrats confirm that if public ed. supporting candidates start winning, hopefully, they will present a united front and support for public education.
If anyone is on Facebook, I hope you receive the posts from NPE. Please find them on Facebook and share them as widely as possible. Please share them as with friends, family, colleagues even some older students. We need to maximize the potential of these posts and cast a wide net. We have few tools at our disposal to spread the word so we should take advantage of this opportunity.
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Good advice, retired teacher.
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It strikes me that smart republican candidates might win by separating themselves from the privatization agenda as well. My exposure to all of this came when Bob Dole called out the teachers “union” in his acceptance speech in the 1996 convention, he lost my vote for all the republicans who ran thereafter, both national and local. This, of course, meant that the Democrats did not have to consider me when making up their platform. Thus we arrived at an Obama presidency, which sought the same failed reform measures championed by their opponents. I was caught suggesting that the only thing anybody could agree on in Washington was that I was worthless.
My vote is for the taking. I will vote for any candidate who supports funding for public education, reason in foreign policy, and domestic policy that quits stacking the deck in favor of the wealthy. If republicans started sounding like that, I would vote for them too. I am not holding my breath for either party to accept my vision for equity in society.
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Smart analysis, Roy.
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Democrats don’t seem to have any coherent “public education policy” which is probably why they parrot Jeb Bush.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Obama ed department and John Kasich were identical as far as public education in Ohio. State after state cut public education funding from 2010 on and I didn’t hear a peep out of Democrats. As long as the charter agenda was going strong they couldn’t be bothered with the 90% of Ohio families who use public schools.
They need to offer something positive for public school families. Not only do they NOT do that, they don’t even seem to feel it’s necessary.
I guess the assumption is we’ll vote for them anyway- that they don’t even have to offer us anything outside testing and ed tech sales pitches.
It seems like a real opening for a political party, given that most children attend public schools but listening to the national ed reform rhetoric one would think 90% of children attend private and charter schools.
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Unfortunately what has happened in Ohio is federal and state politicians are increasingly irrelevant to public school families. After a decade of neglect and disinterest in our schools and our kids I think a lot of us have decided we’re better off working locally, where we DO find passionate committed supporters for our schools. We replaced the federal and state cuts to our local schools with local tax increases. Increasingly I’m not sure why national and state politicians bother with public schools at all. They’re irrelevant.
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At the National Council Teachers of English Conference in St. Louis, we had a silent protest (for justice) where we marched (while holding signs) to the nearby park where some took a knee (not easy and hurts the knee), then returned to the convention center.
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When was that conference, Yvonne?
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So, Diane, how about Jason Kamras? He just got appointed Richmond Public Schools new superintendent. He is a former teacher. Can I feel good about hime?
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