As a new year begins, and as a new administration prepares to take charge of the U.S. government, our fight to support and improve public education goes on.
The Network for Public Education is and will continue to be the single largest voluntary group advocating on behalf of public schools. We had humble beginnings, starting with a bank account of a couple of thousand dollars and a board of enthusiastic parents and educators. We now have a full-time executive director (Carol Burris) who is helped by three amazing part-time workers.
We are not like the City Fund, which opened its doors in 2018 with $200 million in the bank (thanks to billionaire John Arnold and billionaire Reed Hastings). The City Fund exists to push high-stakes testing and to destroy community-based, democratically-controlled public schools. It has no members; we have about 350,000 who work with us. The “reformers” have tons of money and malevolent intentions.
Last year, we issued two bombshell reports that showed the failure of the federal Charter Schools Program, which doles out $440 million every year, mostly to corporate charter chains. We discovered and documented–using U.S. Department of Education data–that about 35-40 percent of the federally funded charters either never opened or closed not long after opening. They are the day lilies of American education, and they waste money that should go to support under-resourced public schools.
We published a report about the 1,200 or so charters that double-dipped into CARES funds intended to save small businesses. The charters, whose funding from public sources, never ceased, collected from $1-2 Billion from the Paycheck Protection Program. All of the data are available in public sources, but you have to know where to look to see that some very savvy charters and charter lobbyists cleared huge sums of PPP money (some collected $1 million or more) while public schools each collected only about $134,500.
We will continue to support real public schools, the kind that are publicly accountable to public officials. We will push the Biden administration to regulate or eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program and stop funding failure. We will fight against high-stakes testing and the misuse of standardized tests.
We will demand a suspension of federally mandated testing this spring and turn our energies toward removing the federal mandate for annual testing, which has manifestly failed to provide equity or excellence. We will remind the public that tests do not reduce achievement gaps; they are measures, not remedies. Mainly, they measure family income. Why waste hundreds of millions of dollars measuring family income?
Yes, knowledge is power, and we generate the knowledge you need to fight for public schools as the democratic institution that they are.
We welcome your financial support. Whatever you want to give, we are grateful.
Whether you can afford $5, $20, $50, $100 or more, please give.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
the day lilies of American education
What a great phrase!
I also shared on social media so that friends and family can also contribute.
Thank you!
I’ve given a pittance in NPE and my work prevents me from spending the time and effort I’d like to give. For those of you who do have time, as important as funds are, I suggest you resolve to spend a few hours a week learning about your federal and state representatives. Intelligence, footwork and elbow grease, and consistent contact can be more valuable than funds. Public education advocates won’t be successful until policy makers either fear them or believe supporting them will pay political dividends. They do very little of either now. This is not a criticism or gripe, but a statement of objective fact that I hope will change in the future.
Greg-
You’ve made important points.
Thanks to Diane for creating NPE. The organization’s advocacy for the most important common good in the nation is outstanding. NPE is very worthy of support.
For 2020 contributions to “certified” not for profits, under the CARES act for economy stimulus, people that don’t itemize their deductions can take a $300 deduction “above the line” for qualified charitable contributions. It appears that something similar will be in effect for 2021. I won’t try to paste a link to IRS in this post, because whenever I try to paste a link in, then my comment doesn’t post.