Next month’s midterm elections are looking good for Democrats. Most election models project they’ll take the House, perhaps the Senate, and likely several governorships. That raises big questions on where Democrats might go on schooling.
Yesterday, the leadership of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) visited AEI to outline their vision for where Democrats should go on K–12 education. DFER’s CEO, Jorge Elorza, was accompanied by DFER President Nicole Pollock, author and veteran Obama hand Ravi Gupta, and former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. They spoke about what the Democrats have gotten wrong on education and where they need to go now.
It’s worth watching the whole thing. But here are five key takeaways.
Elorza and Duncan were adamant that academic achievement should be Democrats’ North Star. Under Elorza, DFER has been known for its outspoken embrace of school choice. But he made clear that what they are most passionate about is promoting education excellence and equity by whatever means are at hand, and argued that Democrats lost the public’s trust on education by failing to address the decline in academic achievement over the past decade. As Duncan pointed out, only one state—deep-red Louisiana—has recovered from the pandemic in both reading and math. The rest of the country, Duncan said, is “devastatingly far behind.”
DFER leadership emphatically supports choice, but primarily as a vehicle for promoting equity. Pollock pointed out that Democratic governors in states with existing scholarship tax credit programs tend to support them as tools to “drive equity in some of their very inequitable urban school systems.” Duncan explained that the FSTC can be used to give low-income kids access to high-dosage tutoring. DFER has always supported charter schools, but Elorza indicated it is now open to vouchers and education savings accounts as ways to drive results—especially for low-income students. Indeed, as Elorza put it, “I think there’s nothing more progressive” than school choice.
Pollock urged Democratic leaders to stop kowtowing to the teachers’ unions, the most influential Democratic constituency on K–12 education. As Gupta pointed out, unions frequently oppose policies like differentiating teacher pay or making it easier for principals to fire bad teachers. This is because teachers’ unions are first and foremost a labor group, said Elorza, whose leaders are intent on representing members’ interests. Pollock argued that Democrats should be willing to do something without immediately thinking, “What’s the union going to think?”
Elorza and Gupta were clear that Democrats lost their way during “Woke 1.0.” By this point it’s almost a cliché to point out, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently did, that “Woke 1.0 was crazy.” When asked about this sentiment, Elorza agreed, saying he saw her statement as “an invitation” to talk about the shape of the left going forward. Similarly, Gupta noted that the identity-driven woke vision of America was toxic, and argued for a more responsible approach to history and civics in schools.
Gupta sees an opening to convert DSA candidates into school reformers. In a surprising turn, Gupta argued that there may be a big opportunity for Democratic reformers to recruit high-flying DSA candidates to their cause. He had plenty of criticism for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose education platform included ceding control of the city’s schools and creating “a more participatory educational system.” But Gupta argued that Mamdani is a model for young Democratic leaders nationally, and is a better bet for school reformers than what he termed the “cynicism” of the Cuomo establishment. In fact, Gupta argued that Mamdani appears to have drunken the “Abundance” Kool-Aid on housing and holds out hope that Mamdani might be similarly persuaded on education.
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Of course, DFER is just one element within the Democratic Party. But they are visible, active, and sound hearteningly reasonable, offering a welcome departure from the Democratic establishment’s foibles and fecklessness.
RICK HESS is an author, scholar, and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
