New York, N.Y. – Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) National President Shavar Jeffries released the following statement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which will prevent nearly 800,000 DREAMers—many of whom are students—from deportation:

“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a step in the right direction toward ensuring DACA’s protections remain permanent for thousands of students and their families.

As a nation, we are at a pivotal moment in which we must assess the values we wish to stand for and decide whether we truly seek to embrace liberty and justice for all Americans—which includes hundreds of thousands of DREAMers who have never known any other home. The Supreme Court’s ruling today is just one example of the victories that will be necessary to cement the importance and worth of every life in this country. Nearly half of DACA recipients are students, while another 9,000 are K-12 teachers; their talents, perspectives, and ingenuity enrich our classrooms and contribute irreplaceable threads to the unique cloth that is America.

While the Trump Administration seeks to sow fear and distrust, we embrace a different dream for our future, one where our differences and diversity make us stronger. I encourage Congress to join us—and all DREAMers—in this vision and find a lasting, bipartisan approach to ensure that DACA recipients no longer live in fear of deportation, and can instead continue to live their fullest lives.”

##

NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 2, 2020)— Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) National President Shavar Jeffries released the following statement in response to the murder of George Floyd and the imperative of racial justice:

“The banality of George Floyd’s murder signals the long road ahead for this country to overcome its history of racial oppression. His murder was ordinary: he was unarmed, he was Black, and the murder of Black people in these circumstances, sadly, is not uncommon. George Floyd now joins the litany of blameless Black men and women killed by the state for no discernible reason other than their race.

The racism that killed Floyd and so many others is the same racism that denies equity to Black people in virtually every domain of American life, from economic opportunity to healthcare access to the cause to which I’ve devoted most of my professional life: educational equity. The racism that infects policing and criminal-punishment is the same racism that causes too many educators to doubt the capacity of talented Black children, too many principals to doubt the capacity of talented Black teachers, too many superintendents to doubt the capacity of talented Black principals and too many mayors and school boards to doubt the capacity of talented Black superintendents.

It is true, at the same time, that this nation has made progress on racial matters. Slavery was one of the great scourges on the record of humanity. It has ended. Jim Crow regulated the movements of Black people in virtually every aspect of public life. Those laws have come down. So while we still have so much work to do—and it is plain that racial oppression has modernized and is embedded systematically in institutional authority throughout our country—we also should acknowledge that we’re not where we used to be.

That gives me hope that our country will reject the forces of division and unite around the common humanity in us all. At DFER, we fight tirelessly to eradicate the stain of racism in our public-education system. One of the first tactics used by slaveholders to maintain racial oppression was to make it a crime to teach Black people how to read. Racists have long recognized the inextricable link between ignorance and oppression. We lobby policymakers and engage in electoral politics with the clear purpose of ensuring that Black students—as well as other students facing educational inequity—have access to the quality schools that will support them in enacting their own liberation.

We are clear about the ongoing practice of white supremacy and so we are not surprised by the murder of George Floyd. But we are also clear about our mission, and we are more determined than ever to do all that we can to reverse the educational inequities that too many Black children face in this country. ”

##

By Crisanta Duran, New York State Director

So many of us have been left reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, but while all our communities have felt the effects, immigrant families have been particularly vulnerable.

In New York City alone, our immigrant population comprises nearly half of the workforce, keeping our city running in the darkest of times. From restaurant and grocery store workers providing food for American tables to sanitation teams cleaning and disinfecting hospitals for sick patients, they’ve jeopardized their health and safety for a paycheck.

Despite the crucial role they play, their needs are also frequently overlooked and unmet. Our immigrant workers are not only more likely to be exposed to the novel coronavirus, but they’re less likely to have health insurance and access to high quality health care. That holds true for their children, as well—despite the fact that universal healthcare coverage is available for all children under New York State law.

Like their parents, these children are more likely to be living in poverty and more likely to be living in some of the hardest hit areas impacted by the virus. In fact, our immigrant children are also more likely to experience the trauma of losing a loved one at the hands of this deadly virus.

While we cannot change healthcare, housing, or the employment status for our immigrant families overnight, there are real changes we can and must make during this pandemic to ensure that the 1.5 million immigrant children living in New York are able to receive an education that will help them access a better quality of life.

With schools across the state closed for the remainder of the academic year, too many of our immigrant children do not have the resources  at home to continue their education.

Through federal, state and local legislation, we can better target resources and protections to support their needs. For starters, there should be more professional development for educators on how to support English Learners through distance learning—right now, New York has has yet to issue specific guidance for distance learning for English learners.

Technology access and support must include accommodations for all English learners, kids with disabilities, and all families regardless of home language, income, or immigration status of students or parents, including translated materials and coursework. Until there is equitable access to the Internet, laptops and tablets, and bilingual support to help with homework, we’re all but guaranteeing that our immigrant children will fall dangerously behind their peers.

As New York begins to disseminate additional federal funding provided through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, it’s imperative that we increase funding to support migrant children, English language learners, disabled children, and their families to offset the disproportionate impact of missing school on graduation rates.

Additionally, translated mental health supports for children and their families must also be made available to provide counseling for those struggling with trauma and loss.

I also encourage the Department of Education to share how COVID-19-related education funding is being spent at the state, district, and school levels in order to ensure that all students are being served and supported at this critical time.

Even before COVID-19, only 3 in 10 immigrant children were graduating from high school in New York. Instead of exacerbating the divide, let’s use this crisis as a means of bringing new funding and new ideas to our public education system to create a stronger, more equitable New York.

##

By Charles Barone

For the past three years, those opposed to public school choice in general, and public charter schools in particular, have tried to tie Democrats who support public school options to President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The theory goes that public charter schools are part of a far-right agenda to privatize education. That theory was, at best, flawed from the get-go. Recent events have rendered it demonstrably and unequivocally false.

At last week’s State of the Union, President Trump announced the awarding of a private school scholarship to a Philadelphia elementary school student, opining that “[f]or too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools.” It later came out that it was not Trump, but his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos who had put up the scholarship money. Over the following days, the real story became even weirder and more telling.

As it turns out, the student “beneficiary” of Betsy DeVos’ “award,” Janiyah Davis, is enrolled in a high-performing public charter school in West Philadelphia, the Math, Science and Technology Community Charter School (MaST). Janiyah and her mother, Stephanie, accepted Trump’s invitation to attend his SOTU address without knowing the purpose for which they were being brought there. While she hasn’t yet decided what to do with the scholarship offer, Janiyah’s mom said “I don’t view MaST as a school you want to get out of at all. I view it as a great opportunity.” In fact, MaST was awarded a “Blue Ribbon School” award for high performance by the U.S. Department of Education in 2017, Trump and DeVos’ first year in office.

The kicker came this week when Trump announced his plan to repeal the federal Charter School Program (CSP) as part of an overhaul of the U.S. Department of Education contained his FY 2021 budget plan that would cut $5 billion in federal education spending. The primary beneficiary of these cuts? A roughly equal amount for private school scholarships. As Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, concluded: “From this budget proposal, it’s clear that for them it’s really about private school choice rather than public school choice.”

Truth be told, the evidence for Trump and DeVos’ interest in private over public school choice is vast and longstanding. In her role as a philanthropist and activist, DeVos was a key player in bringing a charter school sector to Detroit based on private, for-profit, fly-by-night operators that was an out-and-out disaster for Motor City students and parents and bore little resemblance to the high-performing, non-profit public charter school sectors in places like Boston, Newark, Washington, D.C., and Denver. These differences were cited by an under-recognized group of Democratic Senators during the fight over DeVos’ nomination.

DeVos further solidified her preference of private over public education during her term. The most notable instance came at a Brookings Center event that named Denver as the top school-choice district in the nation. To the surprise of her hosts, DeVos dinged Denver, despite its high performance, for not offering private schools among its menu of choices. In response, then-Denver Superintended Tom Boasberg fired back that, “We believe that public dollars should be used for public schools that are open to all kids, whether they are district-run or charter. A core principle in Denver and one of the main reasons we rank No. 1 nationally in school choice is that we ensure equitable systems of enrollment among district-run and charter schools, where all schools play by the same enrollment rules and all schools are subject to the same rigorous accountability system. We do not support choice without accountability.”

At my organization, Education Reform Now (ERN), we support public school choice options that are free to families, have strong accountability, and have proven to increase equitable outcomes for students. We do not support the for-profit privatization espoused in the Trump agenda.

It’s not lost on us, or others, that Trump and DeVos have suddenly aligned with public charter naysayers on the far left like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in calling for eliminating CSP—limiting public school options that disproportionately benefit low-income students and students of color.

At ERN, we hope recent events make clear to objective observers that Trump and DeVos are not, and really never were, public charter school champions and that public school choice that includes public charter schools have nothing to do with a far-right agenda to privatize education.

Help protect CSP—take 60 seconds to ask your Representative to stand up to Trump and protect a parent’s right to choose a high-quality public education for their child. Email your Representative here.
Charles Barone is the Chief Policy Officer at Education Reform Now.

Yesterday, the National Charter Collaborative shared a powerful letter from nearly 400 charter school leaders of color urging candidates ‘to adopt a more fact-based and nuanced view’ of public charter schools. The letter speaks to the heart of why public charter schools exist, and why communities of color continue to support expanding public school choice options. It’s a true must read; we’ve included the full text of the letter below, with permission.

We are not politicians nor activists. We are educators—educators of color, in particular. We became educators because for too long children of color have been denied equal educational opportunity. 
At the founding of our country, it was a crime in much of the nation to teach Black children how to read. In the Jim Crow era, the law specifically relegated Black and Brown children to segregated, under-resourced schools and the broad societal norm was that children of color were fit not for the vanguard of the nation’s political, economic, and cultural leadership, but for the margins of our society.
The post-Jim Crow era has been characterized by fits and starts concerning racial integration, equitable funding, whole-school reform and innovation, and yet our public schools continue to fail too many Black and Latinx children.
Throughout this history, educators of color have been at the forefront of providing educational opportunity for Black and Brown children, sending generations of children to the nation’s best colleges—minority-serving institutions and otherwise—and putting the lie to racist assumptions about the intellectual competencies of children of color. 
It is in this context that we, the undersigned, opened public-charter schools in our communities—for most of us, the very communities in which we were raised. We opened our schools not to engage in political fights about governance, nor to wage war with various political interests—whether the teachers’ unions or alleged union-busting corporatists—but for the same reason African American and Latinx educators have worked tirelessly for Black and Brown children for centuries: we know our children best, we know they are not being educated as they should, and we seek to fill the breach.
We opened public charter schools because they gave us the autonomy that honored our professional skill as educators. Our schools provide greater opportunities to expand the curriculum, introduce innovative instructional methods, diversify our teaching force, and respond individually and in real-time to the particular needs of our children. 
Charter leaders have used this autonomy to produce a sector that, in our urban areas in particular, have provided strong options alongside our traditional public schools. Not only do students attending high quality public charter schools receive the equivalent of three to five months of additional learning time, they’re also more likely to graduate from high school, attend and persist in college, and have higher future earnings than their peers who attend traditional public schools.
Unsurprisingly, then, overwhelming majorities of Black and Latinx parents support their right to choose the best school for their child. Nationally, 86% of African American voters and 67% of Latino voters support a variety of public school options, including public charter schools.
Alongside the clear polling data, our experience on the ground bears this out—like public-charter schools generally, we have long waiting lists of families clamoring for seats in our schools. It should be self-evident that empowering communities of color means honoring their choices, not seeking paternalistically to make decisions for them, particularly when the data show their choices generally lead to better outcomes for their children.
We agree that public charter schools should operate with transparency and accountability. Our schools face closure generally in any three-to-five year period in which we cannot show positive outcomes for our students. We embrace that kind of accountability and wish our traditional-district counterparts faced the same reckoning if they are not consistently able to show they’re making a difference for children of color.
We write now because we felt we could no longer be silent. It seems to be vogue now for politicians to beat up on charter schools and castigate them categorically and unfairly as part of some sort of corporate takeover of public education.
Our experience is the diametric opposite. We operate public charter schools because we see their promise to empower talented educators of color to serve communities that for generations have received too little and, in so doing, provide children of color the educational opportunities they so richly deserve.
Those who broadly oppose charter schools oppose us, and the families, communities, and missions we serve, and we implore our nation’s leaders to adopt a more fact-based and nuanced view on this issue that honors not only the actual results of public charters in educating young people of color, but the way in which public-school choice empowers communities of color with the right to decide for themselves the kind of education that best meets their children’s needs.

You can find the original letter here.

This week, the qualifying Democratic Candidates will converge for a night of debate as they work to differentiate themselves among a crowded primary pool. While there will be many important issues discussed, one way the candidates can stand out is through strong education policy that will help move educational equity forward across our country. Below are the top 5 questions we’re asking to see who is serious about improving outcomes for students.

1. Who will offer a solution to school finance inequity, which is arguably the biggest civil rights issue in education outside of school desegregation? 

There are significant within-district inequities in per-pupil spending, driven in large part by seniority-centered teacher pay and placement policies. These discrepancies are exacerbated by direct federal grant aid formulas that discriminate against low-income children in the South, West, and rural areas. And federal tax expenditures in support of K-12 education, that are larger than direct federal aid, are sharply regressive by income.

2. Who isn’t just talking about increasing teacher pay, but who is looking to improve teacher preparation?

Several of the 2020 candidates have discussed increasing teacher pay. Boosting teacher salaries across the board is a strong start, but candidates’ plans should include a pay differential to attract and retain high-quality teachers in our highest-need subjects (e.g., ESL, special education, STEM) and under-resourced schools. Thus far, candidate proposals have also neglected to address how to better support teachers in the classroom. A study released last year found that 68 percent of teachers thought their preparation programs placed too much emphasis on theory and not enough on classroom-ready skills.

3. Will any candidate go beyond the applause line of free college or student loan forgiveness to matters of equity and quality in higher education?

When it comes to higher ed, the three words to listen for are cheaper, fairer, and better. Almost all 2020 college affordability proposals are directed at the price families pay during and after enrollment, rather than the cost of education to families and taxpayers. Candidates haven’t yet weighed into how they would hold colleges and universities accountable for admitting, and graduating, their fair share of low-income and minority students—an area where our nation’s elite universities have failed miserably. And few have paid attention to the near 50 percent college dropout rate, never mind the knowledge and skill levels of those who do graduate.

4. Which candidates are above politicizing education and are serious about investing resources to help all public-school students receive the highest quality education?

Public charter schools provide choice to low-income communities—particularly communities of color—who have too long been denied the opportunity to choose which public school will best serve their child. Our best urban public charter schools provide students with the equivalent of three to five months of additional learning time in math and reading as compared to what they would have received otherwise. Candidates—like Sen. Sanders whose state of Vermont doesn’t have a single public charter school—don’t understand the critical role public charter schools fill in communities across our country.

5. Who will introduce bold and innovative ideas to improve student outcomes?

Over the past few years, states have written and began to implement new accountability plans based upon the unique needs of their communities. While we’re still in the early days of implementing these plans, listen for bold and innovative ideas for how the federal government could incentivize continued improvements.

We’ll be listening, and following along with our Education Reform BINGO cards. Join us!