Margaret Good won a special election to the Florida House yesterday. Supporting public education was one of the major planks in her platform. She flipped a seat in a district Trump won in 2016.
When will the Democratic Party wake up and realize that nearly 90% of families enroll their children in public schools and are opposed to privatization?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Democrat Party will “wake up” when we replace the New Dems and Blue Dogs with true progressive Democrats not employed by the plutocracy. Unfortunately, we the people will have to do it, because the Democrat establishment is actively undermining those progressive candidates now running.
No, that is not a conspiracy theory. It’s a fact. There are progressive candidates who have been running as Democrats for the better part of the year no one has heard about because of a deliberate media blackout; were it not for social media they’d have no means of wide-spread communication with voters at all. I can name two in Texas alone.
There are progressive candidates who are running as Democrats who now face at least one Republican-lite entry recruited and supported by the national Democrat Party establishment.
The only way to reclaim the Democrat Party and turn it back into the Democratic Party is to gut the list of those clinging to power therein and replace them with people who truly want to represent the people who elected them. For further information: Brand New Congress/Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, Blue America, and the Democratic Socialists of America.
LikeLike
The Democrats need to wake up and realize that supporting public education wins elections. Parents and citizens that support public education are voters that count. The party also should stop catering to the whims of corporate Democrats that support charter school expansion. They love the big money from Silicon Valley and Wall St, but elections are not won by money alone. It takes votes! When Democrats try to waffle on the issue of public schools, they appear deliberately misleading and sneaky. The public finds this dishonest dance distasteful, and it is costing them votes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Elizabeth K. Burton,
I support replacing pro-charter Democrats but let’s be clear that many of then ARE supposedly “progressives”. I think we will all be better off if we stop using labels and stereotypes and start looking at each candidate where he or her stands.
Tom Perriello — a favorite of DFER — was a “progressive” running against a Democrat who was attacked by progressives for being to right wing. But that conservative Democrat happened to support public education while the “progressive” had sold it out long ago and benefited handsomely from his selling it out. (And Bernie Sanders endorsed the pro-charter “progressive”).
Your spouting ridiculous things like a “deliberate media blackout” is nonsense since the “media” is not monolithic and “the media” blacks out mainstream Democrat ideas all the time.
We all need to decide which things we are willing to compromise on and I see many self-described “progressive” Democrats who compromise on things that I don’t think they should all the time. Those who claim to have all the answers are not to be trusted any more than Trump. Those who want to discuss honestly the issues and trade offs should be supported.
LikeLike
When 90%of the mainstream media are owned and controlled by five huge multi-national conglomerates, I’d call that monolithic. And yes, there very much is a blackout, because I’ve been watching it for the last year.
LikeLike
Ms. Burton,
Careful not to criticize the Democrats too much because NYCPSP might attack you as she did me . . . .
She should only be brave enough to realize that both parties are done for, and that the USA needs a multi-party system.
But I say she should cling to whatever gives her comfort, including the dying hope for a real Democratic party. No one knows her pain the way she knows it.
LikeLike
You are in good company as to being attacked by NYCPSP. Consider it an honor.
LikeLike
Elizabeth, your comments are well taken, but your continual mis-naming of the Democratic Party obscures the good points you were making.
In no state of the Union is the Party legally named the “Democrat Party”. This re-naming was initiated by conservatives and Republics in an effort to separate the word “Democratic” from their opposition party. They simply didn’t want the word “democratic” associated with a party they characterized as evil, anti-American, and socialistic. Sadly, the MSM and even some Democrats have accepted this awful involuntary change.
I am a Democrat, but I am a member of the Democratic Party. I serve as a Democratic Party Committee member in my home town. Perhaps you dislike the Democratic Party as much as the Republics do, so your mis-naming of the party is intentional as well, and meant to irritate Democrats and diminish the long-held democratic ideals of the Democratic Party.
Or you made a mistake.
I’m being honest…I found your comment frustratingly difficult to read because of your repeated use of that incorrect name. I’ll bet that I’m not the only one, and I respectfully request you correct it in future posts. I’m part of the choir and I agree with much of what you said, but you may put off other Democrats who’d also agree with you.
LikeLike
Nice try. Those happy with the party as it is love to use that “correction” as a distraction. There is nothing “democratic” about the party’s current incarnation, as its lawyers stated unequivocally in the first phase of the lawsuit brought by party members who gave it money on the basis their donations would be distributed equitably. There are many of us lifelong Democrats who use the name “Democrat Party” for that reason.
We are also immune to the attempt to shut down criticism just because something may have originated from conservative and/or Republican sources. As the cliche says, even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
When the party divorces itself from the elite and the plutocrats, then it will deserve the name “Democratic” and not before.
LikeLike
FIne. You will continue to have potential supporters tune you out, and that seems to be OK with you. I wasn’t trying to shut you down. Quite the opposite, I was trying to have your viewpoint be made stronger.
Ineffective arrogance seems to be the combination that you think will win the day. I’m a lifelong Democrat as well, and if you want the changes in our party you seem to want, you’ll need the support of others like me. I am very unhappy with the party as it is, both locally, on a statewide level, and nationally. But rather than gripe about it I and others are making those changes by taking control of the party from within.
I’m sure it’s far more satisfying for you to complain instead of working for change and persuading others to your point of view.
Good luck with that.
LikeLike
I have no problem with people “tuning me out” other than those who see the issue as an intellectual exercise. I can recognize them by their referring to presented facts as a viewpoint. You’re not sufficiently uncomfortable with the status quo yet to be a potential supporter, even if I were looking for any. Which I’m not. My purpose is to present facts, which people are welcome to discuss and counter with other verifiable facts. Nitpicking my choice of words doesn’t fall into that category.
LikeLike
I wonder if the Florida district in mind consisted of a majority of voters who had children in school. There are places in Florida as well as other sunbelt states where most of the voting public is retired from somewhere else and is looking for low taxes. This is one of the influences that has made it difficult to get funding for schools in these areas. These voters tend to ignore the needs of schools.
LikeLike
I am a retired educator now living in Sarasota, FL and am devoting my life to fighting school privatization in Florida. I am also a precinct captain in the district that Margaret Good won. She made fighting corporate-managed charter schools and school voucher tax credit scholarships a major part of her platform and I am proud that I was an active participant in her campaign. Next November in Florida, we have to re-elect Margaret Good (this was a special election) and elect legislators all over Florida who will take a firm stand against school privatization and reverse the horrendous legislation (HB-7069) that passed last year and a companion bill, HB-7055, that cleared the Florida House last weeks. Critics have called both bills “the death knell of public education in Florida.” These bills together contain over 70 anti-public School provisions that, among many things, legislate replacing so-called “failing” public schools with corporate charter schools, siphon millions of dollars from public school capital funds to charter schools, expand tax credit scholarships to new areas such as tutoring and threatens to shut down most teachers’ unions. The current HB-7055 bill even has a provision that require public schools to offer tax credit scholarships (aka vouchers) to children that are bullied, harassed, have had property stollen or are the victim of a fight. These children can then go to private schools, most of which have no anti-bullying programs or even training and the majority (70%) are religious schools that can even ban LGTBQ students (often the victims of bullying).
Last summer a group of retired and current educators as well as parents and interested citizens formed an advocacy organization, Protect Our Public Schools, Manasota, to fight school privatization in Sarasota and Manatee Counties as well as Florida as a whole. We look forward to working with Margaret Good and other state legislators who are making the improvement of public education a top priority.
Carol Lerner
Sarasota, FL
LikeLike
Thank you, Carol. It is people like you who will drive away the privatizers and profiteers. We can’t do without you!
LikeLike
Diane FYI . . . Here is a book review on Teachers College Record–the title is self-explanatory:
“These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon Our Public Schools”
The review itself is a good read, but it talks about public school as the “bedrock of democracy.” Some snips below:
SNIP: “One of the most important chapters is Meier’s The False Promise of High Stakes Accountability, in which she makes apparent the fraud that is our current system of student and teacher accountability through standardized testing. Though not new information, Meier’s concise and simple treatment of the problematic system is invaluable in a time when facts are expendable and collective memory is hazy. Teachers and concerned citizens, repeat as often as necessary: no, standardized testing is not a valid measure of student success; yes, standardized testing precludes the “success” of all students by necessitating academic winners and losers; and yes, standardized tests contain cultural biases to ensure that the academic losers are students of color and students with a lower SES.”
SNIP: “Another significant issue addressed by Meier is the co-opting of educational reform language by the very forces that seek to defund and dismantle public education. In the same straightforward manner in which she dismantled the argument for standardized testing, Meier lays bare the hollow calls for school choice by proponents of voucher programs, such as those from the grossly unqualified Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. In What Happens to Democratic Education Deferred? Meier explains how the lack of accountability “choice” schools enjoy leads to discriminatory admissions policies that exclude children marginalized by race, class, language, and exceptionality.”
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=22267
LikeLike