Jan Resseger points out the contrast between the two major parties’s treatment of public schools. Trump treats them as a babysitting service. Joe Biden’s wife Jill gave her Convention speech from a high school where she was a teacher. Trump and DeVos pledge to defund them. Biden and Harris pledge a massive infusion of funding. Trump pledges four more years of massive neglect. Biden and Harris pledge respect.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Biden, Funding, Supporting public schools, Trump, Vouchers

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retired teacher says:

August 21, 2020 at 1:38 pm

When I saw Dr. Jill Biden’s speech, I thought that she was sending message to our country’s public school families. Unlike previous administrations, Biden will support public education and reign in the lax oversight and wasteful spending in the charter sector. Biden’s education platform is the most progressive of any nominee of either party in many years. Public school teachers and parents must show up to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket. We must also work to flip the House and Senate so Biden will have the money to fund his bold plan.

If Biden’s lives up to his promises, it may be a new day for public schools. “As Education Week’s Andrew Ujifusa reports, the Democratic Platform supports tripling federal aid to disadvantaged students to close funding gaps between nonwhite students and their white peers, ‘more stringent guardrails’ for charter schools, and the idea that education is a public good and not a commodity… pledges to use federal programs to promote school integration through magnet schools and transportation initiatives… calls for a more-diverse teaching workforce… (pledges) to keep K-12 schools free from immigration enforcement… (and) promises to provide universal prekindergarten programs for all 3- and 4-year-olds….” The platform pushes back against for-profit charter school management corporations and says Democrats will encourage states to move away from high-stakes tests.” Anyone that cares about public schools cannot afford to sit on the sidelines this year. We must not let our public schools down. This is the best chance we have had to make fundamental, positive change in public education in at least the past twenty years.

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- retired teacher says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 2:03 pm
  
  cx: If Biden lives up to his promises…
  
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  - ciedie aech says:
    
    August 22, 2020 at 2:23 pm
    
    YES
NYC public school parent says:

August 21, 2020 at 2:31 pm

I agree! It’s been barely more than a year since Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both saw the light — they were like Biden, supporting public schools but also seemingly unaware of the dangers of the privatization movement that was masquerading as something offering “choice” for the most vulnerable students. I have no doubt that the democrats as a party are moving in the right direction.

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- Robert Rendo, Educator says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 7:06 pm
  
  Yes, let’s certainly hope so.
  
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drweinerlo says:

August 21, 2020 at 2:46 pm

Yes, acknowledge how the Dems are better than the GOP and also note the policies both parties still agree on: support for education’s marketization with remote learning, especially through worker retraining in community colleges: data mining and surveillance in “personalized learning”; and social impact bonds that reward companies for denying students services. Think Kamala Harris and Biden will advocate removing cops from schools? Are you satisfied with a return to the inequitable “old normal”? That’s their direction.

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- Roy Turrentine says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 3:45 pm
  
  Since neither party has expressed interest in Public Education since Bob Dole spoke out against Public Ed in his 1996 acceptance speech when he was nominated, I would say the mention of public School teachers in a positive light seems a refreshing change.
  
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- NYC public school parent says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 3:51 pm
  
  No one here is “satisfied”, nor has anyone posted that they were satisfied. Jan Resseger is pointing out a return to respect which is the beginning of a much better policy. But I am positive everyone here will be putting pressure on the Democrats from day 1.
  
  Don’t forget that having Republicans with any power hurts the ability to make even small changes. Do you remember how hard it was for Obama’s DOE to even get any regulations to stop for-profit colleges from having students take out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans to pay for their horrible educations that cost almost nothing? I’m not sure they even managed to do that because the rhetoric and propaganda directed at them (they were evil, taking opportunities away from veterans, etc.) was impossible to counter.
  
  I hoped Bernie Sanders would win the primary and the general elections, but I was under no illusion that he was going to be able to immediately get anything done unless the Republicans in Congress and the Supreme Court stopped thwarting every progressive policy.
  
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NYC public school parent says:

August 21, 2020 at 3:33 pm

Diane, this is a bit off topic, but too good not to post for those interested in education:

The Boston Globe Magazine just published a magazine-length article about an amazing young mathematician, Lisa Piccirillo, who — working by herself in her spare time for a few days (!!!) — figured out a solution to a “knot” problem that everyone else in mathematics — including those with the most prestigious credentials — had believed was “unsolvable” for the last 40 years!!

Her mom taught middle school math, she was never viewed as a “math prodigy” (although she liked math, along with theater and another of other subjects).

She seemed to have amazing professors at Boston College and U. Texas.

What is so great about this story is imagining her sitting in a conference where she hears about a problem that the most highly educated mathematicians are presenting as “unsolvable” and instead of doing what all the other mathematicians were doing and accepting that, she immediately thought “that doesn’t seem unsolvable to me, I think I’ll try this way of solving it” and a few days later does!

I can’t post links, but if you google her name and Boston Globe I’m sure it will come up.

(Apologies if this story has been posted before).

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 11:49 pm
  
  NYC PSP,
  
  This is the article about the grad student who solved a math problem that baffled mathematicians for 50 years.
  https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/20/magazine/math-problem-stumped-experts-50-years-this-grad-student-maine-solved-it-days/?s_campaign=breakingnews:newsletter
  I can’t post it because it is behind a paywall and it would make no sense to post an excerpt.
  I had trouble understanding the problem, let alone the solution.
  
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  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    August 22, 2020 at 2:30 am
    
    Thank you – I couldn’t understand the problem or solution either, or even much of the article.
    
    But it was such a feel good story about how math can be more about thinking creatively and not about being a prodigy trained from a young age to learn more and more math as early as possible.
Yvonne says:

August 21, 2020 at 4:21 pm

I am pleased it has finally becoming “UNFASHIONABLE” to bash public school teachers and public schools.

I love being a public school teacher and still consider myself to be one…can’t help it.
I love working with other teachers. I love public schools.

And…
I especially love PUBLIC SCHOOL teachers…literally my father’s salvation. Public school teachers saved my father from an absolute abusive foster home situation. My father was in primary school. My father’s public school teacher(s) got social services involved, fed my father, clothed him, and loved him. After this abusive foster care situation, my father was taken in by the Salvation Army Orphanage. He left this orphanage at the age of 16, because that’s the way it was.

My father loved his public school teachers and as a testimony to them and for himself, he went back to high school (night classes) and graduated from high school the same year I did.

One never spoke badly about our public schools and our public school teachers around my deceased father, my deceased mother, and my 3 younger brothers.

I am so proud of Jill Biden. What a woman. Good for Joe Biden, who had the good sense to ask for her hand in marriage.

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Yvonne says:

August 21, 2020 at 4:42 pm

Dumpster, Jr. just came out with a book that bashes Joe Biden. Wow, that was fast.

This book is most likely ghost written. Donnie, Jr. just ain’t bright enough to write a cohesive sentence.

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- Bob Shepherd says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 8:20 pm
  
  I would believe pigs flying before I would believe that Don, Jr., actually wrote it. LOL. He’s as stupid as his father is.
  
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NYSTEACHER says:

August 21, 2020 at 7:04 pm

Biden/Harris have my vote of course. They don’t have my enthusiasm. Things like this are empty. Biden has just as many connections to privatizers as he does people who “support” public schools. I am 100% skeptical that Biden/Harris will somehow be saviors to public education. I expect a wide open door for charters, privatizers, and Ed. Tech. Eighth now all of the political rhetoric is about getting everyone under the same tent and then to vote accordingly, which is appropriate. Let’s not mistake that for actual policy that will emerge once he potentially wins the election. I am mentally prepared for the fact that my support of Biden/Harris will likely accelerate the forces aligned against public education…..and my career. Republicans tell you they are going to do it, usually in the most crass ways possible, then work to do it. Democrats tell you they support public education at the very instant they are letting the wolves into the hen house.
Let’s not fall for all the campaign rhetoric please. Just be skeptical and stop trying to think your vote needs to come with a bunch of optimism and enthusiasm. Vote for Biden: save the republic. Be ok with just that.

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- Robert Rendo, Educator says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 7:11 pm
  
  While I definitely empathize and understand where you are coming from (even agree in many ways), please also realize that OUR job does not stop after we vote, but continues on in a robust and permanent fight to push the Democrats further to the left, to add more progressives to the party, and to form citizens’ watch groups that communicate constantly to officials’
  offices and hold them accountable.
  
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  - NYSTEACHER says:
    
    August 21, 2020 at 7:35 pm
    
    Of course, and I’m sorry to sound so pessimistic. I just don’t have a ton of faith in that process. What matters once whichever party is in power are the lobbyists and donors and their interests. That power is so lopsided and so overwhelming that it’s almost naive to think that strong citizen-grounded action can do too much. Beyond that, I think so much has become normalized over the past many years, and even recently: charters are a normalized part of the discussion surrounding education policy. Technology in the classroom likewise. The problem there is that those things needed to be rhetorically destroyed at the very beginning to stop them from becoming mainstream ideas. Now we live with their steady and incremental growth. It’s like cancer. Ed tech is that precisely. Think about how this pandemic is normalizing so many things. Districts here in NY are actively pursuing course structures where 1 teacher teaches the class on camera to all sections of a particular subject. Think about that for a second and the implications it has for teacher staffing and what it’s normalizing! You won’t be able to get those ideas out of administrators, legislators, governors, and policy makers heads! I promise you that! Once your say that teaching via a screen is even roughly equivalent to an actual classroom, you’ve begun the process of selling out the shop.
    I don’t know. I hope I’m sooo wrong, but everywhere I look I don’t see cause for optimism.
- LeftCoastTeacher says:
  
  August 21, 2020 at 9:34 pm
  
  I hate distance learning. I’m thankful to be one of the fortunate few “essential” workers who gets to stay safe at home, but that doesn’t make online teaching anywhere close to as fulfilling as in person teaching. It’s empty. I’m 100% skeptical about where distance learning is going. But I do it, and I crisis teach online with the same outward enthusiasm and hopefulness that I give my students in person. I just put on my teacher hat and do it. I know you do too. The Democratic Party needs our hopefulness and enthusiasm right now. Joe Biden needs to be the 46th president. We just need to put on our Party hats and do it. That’s what this time clearly calls for, historically widespread energy to elect a president.
  
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