If you live in Virginia and care about your public schools, please vote for Terry McAuliffe for Governor!
The Network for Public Education Action has endorsed Terry McAuliffe for a second term as the Governor of Virginia. McAuliffe previously held the office from 2014-2018. In 2017, NPE Action named then Governor McAuliffe a Champion of Public Education for vetoing a group of bills that would have advanced privatization in Virginia. The bills he vetoed not only would have expanded charter schools and virtual schools, one would have established Education Savings Accounts (ESA), the worst of the voucher programs. McAuliffe’s 2021 opponent, Republican Glen Youngkin, has proposed spending $100 million to increase the number of charter schools in the state. McAuliffe’s opposition to school choice measures has remained unchanged. His plan to improve public education in the state is to increase funding to $2 billion per year. He intends to use that funding to raise teacher pay above the national average for the first time in Virginia’s history and to expand access to pre-K for 3-4 year olds. In stark contrast to his opponent, who is creating unrest in the state by inflaming parents to rail against the supposed teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, McAuliffe has a plan to create an Equity Commission that will be charged with identifying the racial and socioeconomic gaps students face in the state. We strongly encourage our supporters in Virginia to vote for Terry McAuliffe in the general election on Tuesday, November 2nd. Please take a moment to share our endorsement in this critical election. https://npeaction.org/terry-mcauliffe-for-virginia-governor/ |
Speaking of Governors, loved to see Stacey Abrams standing in support of our GA efforts to save tenure protections from political attacks! Unfortunately, too late – https://www.instagram.com/p/CU-mWQiLJVe/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Good Reading For All Elections!
“This Is a Sprawling and Dangerous Assault on Public Education in America
Masks, Critical Race Theory, school-board meetings, tenure at public universities—it’s all part of one thing.”
Charles Pierce 10/13/2021 ESQUIRE.COM
Charles Pierce is one of my favorite writers!
The moderate Democratic Governors (the type too often dismissed as being too “business-friendly”) who have governed Virginia for the last decade or so have been notably pro-public school. That is why Virginia – under moderate Democratic Governors like McAuliffe and Kaine and and Northam – is one of the last states standing against the privatizers.
In fact, the most “progressive” candidate who ran for Virginia Governor in the last democratic primary election was, unfortunately, also a huge supporter of charter schools and would have turned Virginia into just another pro-charter California or Connecticut.
Hope Virginia progressives, moderates and all who care about public schools realize what is at stake in this election and come out to vote for McAuliffe. But just goes to show how complicated the support of public schools is these days, with progressives and moderate Democrats falling on both sides of the issue. But thankfully with most supporting public schools.
Democrats are sending out Pres. Obama, Stacey Abrams and Dr. Jill Biden to speak in support of Terry McAuliffe. They have to work extra hard to energize this election. McAuliffe can only win if voters show up.
On Wednesday, a Glenn Youngkin rally was held in Richmond, organized by Trump’s former Virginia state campaign manager. Steve Bannon, who will receive a criminal citation next week for his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the Congressional committee investigating the January 6th Trump-incited insurrection, was the headliner. Trump called into the rally and endorsed – again – Glenn Youngkin. Trump said this:
“We won in 2020 — the most corrupt election in the history of our country, probably one of the most corrupt anywhere.”
Bannon repeated the lies. On his podcast on January 5, the day before the Capitol riot to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, Bannon said this:
“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow . . . It’s all converging, and now we’re on the point of attack tomorrow . . . And all I can say is: Strap in. You have made this happen, and tomorrow it’s game day.”
At the Youngkin-Trump rally, as reported by The Washington Post, “The event kicked off with the Pledge of Allegiance — to a flag that was present ‘at the peaceful rally with Donald J. Trump on Jan. 6,’ according to Martha Boneta, the Republican emcee of the event. Bannon whipped up the crowd of several hundred by repeating Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election and predicting Trump’s return…”
Well, what about Glenn Youngkin? One of his main television ads is about “trusting” parents when it comes to what is taught in public schools. The “parents” he refers to are actually Republican activists who want to control public school curricula and who are tied tightly to “Parents Defending Education,” a right-wing, Koch-backed group that is linked to ALEC and the State Policy Network, and Trump.
Youngkin says that he will “save” Virginia — which has a $2 billion revenue SURPLUS – by slashing the state income tax, which makes up about 50 percent of all state spending, by suppressing voting, and by letting right-wing “Christian” evangelicals and radical-right school privatization activists control what gets taught in public schools. That all sounds pretty crazy. And it is. But this is the Republican platform, rounded out by Republican Attorney General candidate Jason Miyares’ pledges to hunt for illegal immigrants behind every tree and – essentially – let the cops do whatever they please.
And guess what? The Virginia Police Benevolent Association has ENDORSED ALL of this. Couldn’t happen in American? In Virginia, the home state to many of the Framers, the founders of the Constitution? It’s happening right in front of us.
Here’s what writer and historian and former Republican Max Boot said just the other day in The Post:
“I’m a single-issue voter. My issue is the fate of democracy in the United States. Simply put, I have no faith that we will remain a democracy if Republicans win power. Thus, although I’m not a Democrat, I will continue to vote exclusively for Democrats — as I have done in every election since 2016 — until the GOP ceases to pose an existential threat to our freedom…It is mind-boggling that [Trump] won’t accept the election outcome — the sine qua non of democracy. That has never happened in U.S. history. What is even more alarming is that more than 60 percent of Republicans agree with his preposterous assertion that the election was stolen and want him to remain as the party’s leader.”
Couldn’t be clearer. Or truer.
We live among a whole host of traitors.