The Network for Public Education Action fund is developing a web-based score card for the 2020 presidential candidates.
We need YOUR help!
We want to keep score on where the candidates stand on issues that matter to students, teachers, parents, and public schools.
We want to know if they support public schools or if they support privatization.
We will keep the website updated based on the candidates’ public statements on television and at town halls.
We will check their funding reports to see if they are funded by the usual privatization-friendly billionaires and hedge-fund managers.
We urge you to attend their town halls and ask them questions about funding for public schools, about charters and vouchers, about testing, about federal policy requiring (unnecessary) annual testing, and about (unnecessary) federal funding for charter schools.
We need your help to keep our score care up to date once it is up and running.
We will not let education be forgotten in the 2020 race!
Climate change. Health care. Taxes. These are topics that 2020 Presidential hopefuls are happy to discuss. But as important as these topics are, we cannot let our public schools be ignored.
That is why we started The NPE Action 2020 Candidates Project.
In cities across this nation, public schools are disappearing. The city of New Orleans is now a system of privately run charter schools. Vouchers and voucher “workarounds” send taxpayer money from public schools to private and religious schools. Religious schools are flipping themselves into charter schools in order to get public funds. The Koch Brothers have promised to target five states in which they will work to make public education disappear.
Private “choice” is trumping public voice. Test scores are the rationale to shut and shutter community schools even though charter school test scores are not better than those of public schools, and studies show that students who leave public schools with vouchers often do worse.
The Network for Public Education Action’s 2020 Candidates Project will make sure that the issue of school privatization is not ignored. We will grade candidates on their positions regarding charter schools, vouchers, and high-stakes testing. We will grade them by how much they take from the billionaires who believe in the privatization of public schools and score each candidate on the company they keep. They can run for office but they can’t hide from the hard questions we will ask about school privatization.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Kudos to you and your team for translating all our frustration into political action. This is a great tool for teachers and parents that may not have all the time to research the candidates. Supporters of public education have been playing defense so long. It is about time we use our collective effort to go on the offensive, and the best offense is information. Even if someone questions a rating, it is far easier than trying to sort out information from the media that may or may not be accurate, especially with so many Democrats trying to avoid the public education issue altogether. We should share this with others.
an ESSENTIAL resource; way past time to very publicly separate the reformers from the honestly progressive
An excellent idea. I think that many candidates will try to sidestep the threats to public education and have no understanding of the damage being done by charters and outsourcing education to algorithms burried in software and in tests.
and perhaps have little idea of how big an issue this will be for them when they are standing on their primary debate states (oh, that this is true)
The current occupant of the white house, is the most pro-school choice president ever. The current SecEd, has been in favor of school choice for decades.
Even with a Republican majority in the senate/house, the current administration was unable to bring any effective federal direction on school choice, nor pass any legislation encouraging the states to enact school choice.
This should show anyone, that when it comes to school choice, it really does not matter that much, who the president is.
K-12 public schools are best run by the individual states/municipalities, rather than Washington bureaucrats. The current apocalypse underway in the WashDC public schools, should prove ample testament, to the undesirability of having the federal government involved in K-12 education.
Abolish the federal dept of Education.
Trump has no beliefs or values. He has no religious views.
He has one guiding principle: Greed.
I tend to agree with your appraisal. Except that I feel he has some religious ideas. He possibly thinks he is a God.
The constitution does not have a morality or religious requirement for any political office, including the presidency. In fact, the constitution specifically prohibits any religious test for public office.
Cool idea. Thanks
Make sure people check to see if there are any significant differences among Kamala, Booker, and Klobuchar regarding public education. Maybe each should be asked….”how would you feel about having Bill Gates involved in national public education policies?”
Excellent question.
I was appalled when I found the head of the NIH posted at his blog a page titled Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as if it wasn’t a policy brand. It would be interesting to hijack the brand and see what Gates’ lawyers do to protect it. I bet they’d respond as if it was a trademark violation for a for-profit product.
I am very disappointed that those of you I had appealed to through this blog (& I know you must read it!) chose not to answer any of my requests to write an editorial piece to a Chicago newspaper RE: Paul Vallas’ terrible destruction/attempt at destruction of public education in your cities (unless you actually did send something, & it just wasn’t published, in which case I apologize). Just today, our more liberal Chicago paper stated, “In the campaign, Vallas cast himself as a turnaround specialist who fixed dire financial problems at CPS…”) As if “turnaround” is such a great thing! People have no idea. Hopefully–as there are many undecided (& lots of people voted early–today’s the last day for that, & the weather is clear; tomorrow, it’s supposed to snow {just flurries, but that might be enough to keep people indoors}).
Anyway, if readers live in Chicago or nearby, have friends, relatives, colleagues in Chicago, please urge them to not vote for Vallas. (I was just talking to someone who was going to–thought he was a “good guy” {which he was, at one point, but that was a looong time ago}.) This election is really up for grabs…& so is the welfare of our public schools & who they serve.
Oh, & with respect to my above comment, I wholeheartedly thank the NPE for the 2020
Project–very much needed, will spell everything out & should penetrate the campaigns (i.e., force the issue of public education to the forefront). In prior years, one could not get to the candidates (I’m thinking about Bernie, here, because we tried & tried, & his campaign people were, well…bad about promoting contact, as in, “Oh, that’s a good idea…we’ll take that into consideration.” Also, in ILL-Annoy, the campaign had 3 {might’ve been more} state directors, & what was that all about?)
Not a fan of most people who run these campaigns–lots of egos involved, & this is a time to submerge one’s own pride to really work of the people–they’d better wise up &, if they don’t, we’ll end up w/another 4 years of disaster.
All DFER candidates fail the Democrat test.
So true–ahem–Cory Booker (Steven Colbert made fun of him on his Super Bowl edition of “The Late Show” which is being rerun now (it’s on late, due to Chicago election coverage).
Thank G-d, Paul Vallas came in w/just 5%. However, he still ran off his mouth…his “concession” speech was sooo long that the channel we were watching cut him off! P.V.–your time is up–please stop running for office or working for public universities (one which has been going broke, BTW, but you still squeezed a 6-figure salary out of them before you abruptly decided to leave to run for Chicago mayor).
Now, you’ve lost the gubernatorial election, lost for LT. Gov. & now have lost for mayor.
Do you think you could leave us ILL-Annoysians alone, now? Maybe you could go back to N.O.L.A. & FIX the damage you have done there, offering your expertise gratis.
Naah.
(Ah, I know!…next Arne Duncan will be running for office here.
Wait for it. {If you read his nothingburger book, “How Schools Work,” which he has no clue of, you will find a place there that states that P.V. left in a wave of popularity &, as such, would “naturally” –or words to that effect–run for office.})
Arne, in addition to Paul, believes he left the D.o.Ed. in such a wave.
All of that having been said, the GOOD news is that the next mayor of Chicago will be an African-American woman, one having been a teacher (CPS, & endorsed by the CTU) & the other a strong woman who took on her campaign even before Rahm declared he would not run, got out there, met & actually talked WITH Chicagoans, finding out what is really needed here, & speaking to those issues with solutions.
Between these two candidates, we just might get the public schools (& no testing, please) our children sorely deserve.
(No Daley show here; we’ve seen it all before…)
good news from Chicago!
Oh–& Bernie “people”–set up a meeting for Bernie to talk to Diane pronto this time around.