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Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Turzai did not have the votes to bring his voucher bill up for a vote.
Your emails, phone calls, and letters made a difference!
Stay alert!
He may bring his zombie bill back in the future.
The Network for Public Education Action Fund will keep watch.
If you live in Pennsylvania, please let your legislators know that you oppose the diversion of public funds to private and religious schools. Stop the DeVos agenda now! Vouchers do not help students or schools or districts! Multiple studies have shown that vouchers divert funding from public schools and reduce services to most students, and that the students who use vouchers actually lose ground compared to their peers who stay in public schools.
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Candidates for Public office endorsed by NPE Action won big.
We didn’t give them money.
We gave them our valued Seal of Approval, demonstrating that they are the real deal, genuine supporters of public schools.
We also celebrate the apparent victory in Kentucky of Andy Bashear and the apparent defeat of Governor Matt Bevin, who mistreated teachers and sought Betsy DeVos’s approval. Kentucky has a charter law but no funding for charters.
And we congratulate the brave Democrats in Virginia, who won control of the legislature.
And salutations to the new school board members who won control of the Denver school board. Aloha to Senator MIchael Bennett and other pseudo reformers.
November 5 was a great day for public schools and teachers!
Help the Network for Public Education stay strong for America’s public school students, teachers, and schools!
Be generous!
We depend on you!
Register today for the Network for Public Education’s National Conference in March 2020 in Philadelphia.
Today is the last day to get early bird discounted rate.
Great speakers, great panels, and a chance to meet the leaders of the Resistance! Including you!
Please register before it is too late!
Don’t be left out! Register now and take advantage of the Early Bird reduced rate to our 6th National Conference: Neighborhood Public Schools: The Heart of Our Communities, which will take place March 28-29 in Philadelphia.
Make sure you reserve your spot soon. We are limited to only 500 registrations this year, and availability will go quickly. Early Bird registration opened September 1 and many tickets have already been sold! Our Early Bird special rate is good only until October 1 for the first 100 registrations only. To get that rate, use this special code: NPEAction2020EB when you register.
After you sign up for the conference, be sure to register for a reduced rate room ($169) at our conference hotel. Our rooms will go fast!
To reserve your hotel room click here;.
Read about his funders here.
In the current campaign, he has the support of 18 billionaires, including Bill Gates.
The Network for Public Education Action is grading the presidential candidates.
If you want to keep track, read here.
“For an explanation of why the candidates received the grades they did, click on their names to the left.”
Ratings may change as candidates express their views.
If you attend a town hall and learn more about a candidate’s views, let us know.
Contact Darcie Cimarusti, Research Associate, NPE Action at darciecimarusti@gmail.com
Rachel M.Cohen wrote in the American Prospect that the Democratic candidates are distancing themselves from the charter school issue, which only a few years ago was deeply embedded in the Obama administration education policy.
This is progress. In 2016, it was nearly impossible to get any candidate to discuss K-12 education. At last they notice that it is not cool for a Democrat to support charters. Most are trying to play the issue cautiously, being against “for profit” charters, but not acknowledging that large numbers of nonprofits are managed by for profits.
This far, Bernie Sanders is the candidate who has taken the strongest stand against charters, endorsing the NAACP call for a moratorium.
Other candidates are hedging their bets.
Hours after Sanders’s education plan was released, Elizabeth Warren told reporters that she agreed for-profit charters are “a real problem.” She has not yet released her own K-12 plan. While the Massachusetts senator has supported charter schools in the past, in 2016 she came out against a high-profile ballot initiative that would have allowed charters to expand much more quickly in her state. The measure ended up failing, with 62 percent of voters siding against it.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg also came out to say he supports Sanders’s proposal to ban for-profit charter schools, though he affirmed a month earlier that charters “have a place” in the education landscape “as “a laboratory for techniques that can be replicated.”
Beto O’Rourke, who opposes a national moratorium on new charters, told the NEA presidential forum that “There is a place for public nonprofit charter schools, but private charter schools and voucher programs—not a single dime in my administration will go to them.” O’Rourke has supported charters in the past, and his wife is a former charter school leader who now sits on the board of a local education reform group that supports expanding charters in El Paso.
A friend in California forwarded an email showing that charter zealot and billionaire Reed Hastings is hosting a gathering for Mayor Pete, which suggests that he would be a strong charter guy. His background at McKinsey points in the same direction.
The Network for Public Education Action will be following and grading the candidates on the issues that concern us. Feel free to let us know what you learn at town halls.
If you meet one of them, ask them if they will pledge to eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program, which currently funnels $440 Million each year to charters, mostly the big corporate chains like KIPP, which do not need a federal subsidy.
This is my favorite cause. Please join and support if you want to be part of the Resistance.
The Network for Public Education began in 2013, founded by Anthony Cody and me. Since its humble beginnings, the Network has grown to 330,000 followers on its mailing lists. NPE led the protest against the appointment of Betsy DeVos, generating over 100,000 emails to the Senate in a matter of days.
Since then, The Network for Public Education (a 501(c)(3)) and the Network for Public Education Action (a 501 (c)(4)) have grown in both support and stature. NPE has issued respected national reports on topics such teacher evaluation and online learning, as well as a 50 state report card on school privatization with the Schott Foundation for Education. The NPE School Privatization Explained toolkit has been downloaded by thousands and its Another Day Another Charter Scandal page has become a valuable resource for advocates and reporters. NPE has a growing Grassroots Network that puts out monthly newsletters and connects activists across the country. Over 100 organizations belong to the Network.
NPE’s most impactful report to date has been its latest report, Asleep at the Wheel, which documents decades of wasteful spending by the U.S Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program. CSP is, in fact, a charter school slush fund of $440 million annually, which Betsy DeVos has used to expand corporate chains like KIPP, IDEA, and Success Academy. That report has been cited by members of Congress and in news stories across the country; it resulted in the House reducing the funding for the CSP program and a letter to Secretary DeVos from 14 House members demanding answers to questions raised by the report.
Meanwhile, the Network for Public Education Action has grown in influence by issuing Action Alerts to promote pro-public education legislation–hundreds of alerts have been generated producing hundreds of thousands of emails to policy makers, with a typical response of 3,000 or more emails for national campaigns. Action’s blockbuster report on how billionaires have influenced elections to promote a corporate reform agenda has been referenced in news stories. Action also informs voters by endorsing candidates who support public education and national, state and local levels.
Our latest project—the Presidential Candidates Project—rates candidates on their position on charter schools, vouchers, testing and their association with corporate education reform. That project has been cited in news stories as well. We want every candidate for President to explain whether they will eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program, whether they will eliminate the federal mandate for annual testing, and whether they will unequivocally support public schools and oppose privatization.
The organizations hold well attended conferences –five to date. In 2020, NPE Action and NPE will hold a joint conference in Philadelphia on March 28 and 29.
Please join and please come to the Philly conference.
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Dear Carol,
Diane Ravitch's blog 