It will take a while to get a full picture of how public education was affected by the election, but Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, sums up some of the highlights (and lowlights) here. we will keep reporting as we gather more information.
Carol writes:
The two foremost issues on voters’ minds this election were the economy and reproductive choice. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’s “parent power” push poll earlier this year and Jeanne Allen’s (Center for Education Reform) claim that privatized school choice was responsible for some candidates’ victories are two thinly veiled attempts to ingratiate their organizations with those elected.
Nevertheless, who won and who lost will influence education policy. Below are some notable outcomes as well as what we are watching that is still underdetermined.
State Legislatures
When it comes to charters and vouchers, the state level is most important. Resistance to both consistently comes from Democrats, at times, with rural Republican support. For example, the wild expansion of vouchers coincided with former Republican sweeps in state legislatures in 2020. There was no red wave through most state houses, which is good news.
Although we still await vote counts in some states, Republicans have not flipped any state legislatures their way so far, and there have been some realized and still possible victories for Democrats that can bode well for public education.
Michigan:
Michigan is the brightest spot of all. Democrats now have control of the governorship and both houses of the legislature in a state where they have not controlled either chamber since 1984. This provides a long-awaited opportunity to pass laws to make that state’s low-quality charter schools, run predominantly by for-profit operators, more transparent and accountable.
NPE Board member Cassandra Ulbrich retired from the Michigan State Board of Education. However, a great long-time friend of NPE, Mitchell Robinson, was elected, which is wonderful news.
And what about that voucher bill that Betsy De Vos attempted to push through a super-majority? Unless the Secretary of State goes through all of those signatures by the end of the year, it will go to the next legislature, which will not push it through. It will then go on the ballot where just as before, it will fail.
Pennsylvania:
Although Josh Shapiro voiced some support for private-school vouchers on the campaign trail, it is doubtful he will follow through, especially since the House will flip to the Democrats when all the votes are counted. In any case, the super-majority that held school funding increases hostage when the former Governor attempted modest charter reforms is now gone. School board members, teachers, and superintendents who have long fought for reforms to the charter funding system will now have a fighting chance.
And the state’s newest Senator, John Fetterman, is not only opposed to vouchers, he strongly supports Governor Wolf’s charter reforms.
Arizona
While the House will likely remain under Republican control, there is an outside chance that the Senate will split and the Governor will be Democrat Katie Hobbs. If that were to happen, there might be a respite from dismantling the public school system in that state by Republicans.
Federal
The House of Representatives:
Rosa De Lauro is one of the strongest friends of public education in the House of Representatives. She has kept the federal Charter Schools Program in check during her tenure as the leader of the House Appropriations Committee. While Rosa easily won re-election, if control shifts again to the Republicans, education budget priorities will likely change. There will be an attempt to overturn the Charter School Program reform regulations of the Education Department.
Senate:
Continued control of the Senate by Democrats means that even if the House flips, there will be some check on Republican attempts. And if Bernie Sanders assumes control of the HELP committee, that will mean good news for public schools.
But if the Republicans prevail, there is a strong possibility that Rand Paul will lead HELP. Libertarian Paul makes his disdain for public education apparent, and his leadership would lead to constant battles over the education budget and the Department of Education itself, which he would like to abolish.
Propositions
Finally, in some states, voters passed propositions for which we should cheer.
For example, California’s Proposition 28 passed with overwhelming support. The state will now put in about one billion dollars a year to support education in music and the arts, ensuring that arts education will not be dependent on where a child lives. And in Colorado, with the passage of Proposition FF,all children will now receive free lunch in schools even as they did during the Pandemic.
If you have more information about your district and state, please send it to me or to Carol, or both.
cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Progressive Democrats that tend to support public schools won reelections in the midterms. “Dozens of progressive members of Congress secured re-election, including embattled incumbents like Angie Craig, whose Minnesota district was considered a toss-up.”
“Some new members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are set to make history as they prepare to join the House. The Florida Democrat Maxwell Frost, who organized with the American Civil Liberties Union and has called for universal healthcare on the campaign trail, will become the first Gen Z member of Congress. Becca Balint, who was endorsed by the progressive senator Bernie Sanders, will be the first woman and the first openly LGBTQ+ politician to represent Vermont in Congress.”
Democrats should take note that they tend to win when they support public schools and other issues like healthcare that impact the working class.
Source: The Guardian
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I just looked at Maxwell Frost’s Issues page. Not a word about education. Many about incarceration reform, but not one linking it to investments in education. Balint has some words and thankfully they seem to be able to be something that can be built upon. But if we have a republican majority in the House, both will be marginalized freshmen members of a minority party that will be ignored and stymied as much as possible.
I think it is safe to assume that their views on public education, especially as to how it impacts the working class, was never once a consideration of their campaigns. They will only have voices that will be heard occasionally if they are in the majority party.
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There’s little difference between Charles Koch and Michael Bloomberg. One difference is Koch went to private schools and Bloomberg went to a public high school. Both are similar in that neither values democracy nor a continuation of the opportunities they had to gain wealth.
Btw- Bloomberg news reported 4 days ago that enrollment in private schools in NYC dropped 2.2% as compared to last year. Unexplainably, the reporting didn’t include parochial schools which the article described as a the largest subset of the private schools.
The financial sector is estimated at a 2% drag on the economy, a drag that workers, educated in public schools, overcome to create GDP for the nation. The public school- educated also unify our democracy and contribute to social stability.
Both Bloomberg and Koch have schemes for school privatization. They don’t make disclaimers about the poor education students receive in private institutions in terms of inculcation of religious xenophobia, the toll of charter school scandals on taxpayers, students and communities and, the consequence of loss of the multiplier effect i.e. increased wealth concentration.
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There’s reason to think that Koch likes the authoritarianism of conservative Christian religious schools so, we can’t label him stupid. Bloomberg, on the other hand, a member of a minority religion, shouldn’t be spared the description.
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All these overly happy assessments about the election will likely make my head explode soon, so these comments may come to an abrupt end if nature takes its course. Perhaps because I once had a life that depended on determining an organizational strategy before a new Congress was convened. There was no time to celebrate victories, no matter how big they were; it was time to plan ahead. And in this case, we have no real victories to celebrate. We have only held close to the status quo with a few big exceptions: a Republican-controlled House that will dictate its agenda through bogus hearings, investigations, and legislation. The goal will not be to accomplish anything, but to create chaos that will be blamed on Democrats.
Some points of argument:
The fact that there was no red wave does not lead to a logical conclusion of good news. It means slightly worse than the status quo and the opposition has time to refine its destructive arguments, something that is much easier to do that create positive policy. I’ll ignore the “it is doubtful, will likely, outside chance, If that were to happen, there might be a respite, strong possibility, which he would like to”, which are not the basis of any political strategy. Nor do I think having a fight chance to fight another day is a victory. It is a call to action, not pats on the back.
Two of the assessments in this report scream to agree with me, no matter how hard the writer tries to suppress them. The first is the pithy dismissal of the consequences of a failed voucher bill in Michigan, that it will lead to a ballot measure that is bound to fail. What is not mentioned is the time, money and energy it will continue to keep up, the platform of ignorance and lies it gives the opposition, and the lack of actual progressive activity. Fighting yesterday’s wars over and over again is a tried and true republican strategy.
But the kicker was this: “While Rosa easily won re-election, if control shifts again to the Republicans, education budget priorities will likely change. There will be an attempt to overturn the Charter School Program reform regulations of the Education Department.” Priorities will likely change? An attempt? Could the reality of the work ahead be minimized any more? There will be open warfare with a focus on each evening news’s headlines. Education will be an even more tattered political football.
This desperation to celebrate what little good news we can contrive only obfuscates the realities of actual policies and acts. And while our side celebrates minor victories, the opposition is still preparing for more offensives. It’s no wonder Democrats can’t message and no one makes education a fundamental national priority.
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Think of this good news, Greg.
Young voters decisively favored Democrats. Generational change favors Democrats. The Republicans will be, are, a shrinking party. There will be a time in the not distant future when demands for gun control, reproductive rights, protection of the climate and the environment will be overwhelming. The Republicans can’t win as the party of tax cuts for the 1% and the party of No.
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I tend to concur. Although I’m happy that the Red Wave did not materialize, I noticed that the Democratic Party did not really push concrete agenda items: raise the minimum wage, provide a public health care option, free college/vocational education (which would effectively shred the resentment card the Republicans play with non-college education voters.)
The Democrats played defense, with the Dobbs decision doing the heavy lifting. I cringed every time President Biden declared so much good economic news, as I was witnessing the pain that is happening in my community.
Perhaps a bigger infusion of cash and a stronger, more empathetic approach acknowledging the economic pain could have pushed Mandela Barnes, Cheri Beasley, and Tim Ryan over the line. This would have been enough to defuse the Manchinema bomb.
However, the Democrats will again be hamstrung by these two corporatists. Anything that might benefit the working classes will die at their hands. That might explain the Democrats’ failure to present a concrete, proactive agenda that most voters could support.
Who knows?
The next two years will be interesting, to say the least.
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Provocative thoughts, Eleanor. Barnes, Beasley and Ryan were better qualified than their opponents. Was it cash? Policy ideas?
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I would posit that they are all to a greater or lesser extent impacted by the Duke Effect. There will always be a small number of committed voters who will act one way outside of the voting booth and vote completely the opposite way. A number of them would never, ever vote for a black candidate unless he’s an obvious tool like Herschel Walker who, as Dave Chappelle noted in his brilliant monologue on SNL last night, is “observably stupid.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m-gO0HSCYk
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Thank you, Carol, Diane, and NPE for your research and for keeping us informed.
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