Greene wisely notes that DFER is trying to encourage Democrats not to walk away from charter schools, which have become radioactive as the stories of charter scandals proliferate.
Step back and what you see is a context in which the Teachers strikes have brought attention to the damage charters inflict on public schools.
More and more, the public is beginning to ask why it makes sense to run two systems that get public money, one of which is free to kick out students it doesn’t want.
Betsy DeVos loves charters. Charters are more segregated than public schools. Billionaires and Wall Street love charters. The public is beginning to see through the facade, the hoax.
Why starve the public schools that enroll 85% of students so that 6% of kids can choose charters (the other 9% are in private and religious schools)? Why ruin public schools to make DeVos, the Waltons, and DFER happy?
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ed reform Democrats really could have had it both ways. All they had to do was advocate on behalf of public schools and charter schools. But they didn’t. Instead, what happened was they either ignored or actively bashed public schools, in order to promote charters.
Their problem really isn’t that they promote charter schools. Their problem is their lousy record on the OTHER 90% of students. Eventually people noticed.
I don’t think it’s a mystery that the first real opposition to ed reform came about in response to excessive standardized testing. It’s the only part of ed reform that was relevant to public school students. It’s the only thing they ever offered public school students and families.
They say this themselves. The two pillars of ed reform are “choice” and “accountability”. Only one of those applies to public schools – tests. They don’t even attempt to offer something positive to public school families. It’s all this grim litany of tests, threats, and using public schools solely as a comparison point to promote the schools they prefer. I get it as a political strategy if your goal is to promote charters and vouchers. I don’t think it makes much sense in a country where 90% of families use public schools, though.
If I say to you “I’m going to impose ‘accountability’!” and then offer NOTHING else, you should object to that! That’s a lousy deal. No one in their right mind would take it.
This isn’t what they sold the public. They sold the public that they would “improve” public schools. Twenty years later they’re still promoting charters and vouchers, and they haven’t contributed anything of value to existing public schools.
How can anyone trust any information from vulture capitalists? Hedge fund managers are some of the worst people on the planet. These are the companies that buy debt, load a company up with more debt until in collapses. Then, they sell off the parts of the company. They also put people out of work, destroy their pensions and abandon them. Why would anyone believe anything they produce? Their faux study is from the Benenson Strategy Group. They are spin doctors, not academics. If Democrats are smart, they will distance themselves from these financial thugs. It is the association of the DNC with hedge funds that is alienating a lot of voters who know that hedge funds are untrustworthy.
The US Department of Education has been promoting private school vouchers since January.
This week, they turn to promoting charter schools:
“U.S. Department of Education
A health condition made Trevor’s attendance at school difficult. Thankfully, he found a charter school that balanced flexibility with accountability and tailored his work to his individual needs and interests. ”
Odd that they can never seem to find a single successful public school student or school. Ninety percent of US students are either completely ignored or depicted as violent, low performing bullies.
This isn’t an accurate portrayal of our students or our schools. Is this what we’re paying these people for? I don’t think so.
Activists are drilling down on the state university professors and administrators who took oligarch money for “scholarly” work product that robs middle class and poor students. Those “professionals” picking up a paycheck from a state government of the people and, who expect nothing more of themselves than to be academic prostitutes may find their opportunities limited to whorehouse legacy think tanks with students.
How much would it cost to commission a poll in which Democratic voters are asked the following question:
Which kind of “school choice” do you prefer?
Option 1 — Giving American students a choice of different magnet public schools that are all part of a single public school system overseen by the local board of education and where all students have the same legal protections and can choose among the magnet schools.
Option 2 — Giving American students a public school and taking taxpayer dollars from that public school budget and giving that money to private charter schools that operate under their own rules with no local oversight and can kick out your child at any point that they want. Students do not have any legal protections if they attend private charters that take taxpayer dollars out of public schools, and if parents complain about any wrongdoing done to their child by the privately operated charter, the privately operated charter school that taxpayer dollars fund is free to publicly release all the nasty things that the teachers that have been mistreating that child want to say about him to make him look really bad, and that will be the punishment given to any parent who dares to complain — their child will be publicly trashed.
Which one will Democratic voters vote for?
A lot of people at the beginning of the so-called choice believed that charter money was “pennies from heaven,” or free money. A lot of the public was in the dark about the impact that choice would have on public schools. Now the public has caught on to how the charter scheme damages public education, the vast majority of voters do not want to do that. While “choice” has been sold as a better opportunity, many people have discovered that this is a lie. It is interesting while so many politicians have been pushing “choice,” they have been working hard to ensure that the issue of “choice” is a back room deal made by legislators or governors implemented as top down decision. If “choice” is so wonderful, why do they rarely put it up to a public vote and suppress democratic input at every opportunity?
The Dream DFERed (with apologies o Langston Hughes)
What happens to a dream DFERed?
Does it disrupt
Like a test in a school?
Or fester like a Common Core–
Or techy tool?
Does it stink like stale pee?
Or rust and fade away-
like Michelle Rhee?
Maybe it just doubles down
like a billionaire
Or does it drown?
Does DFER dry up like a sour grape in the sun,
Or does it implode?