A new narrative for public education

by | Nov 13, 2015 | 2016 Elections, Editor's Blog, Education | 7 comments

North Carolina Democrats seem poised to make education the centerpiece of the 2016 campaign. And why not? Per pupil spending is among the lowest in the nation, teachers are leaving for other professions or other states, and teacher pay has slipped far below the national average. Besides, Democrats have always been the party of education and North Carolina has a long history of making public schools, community colleges, and universities a priority.

However, a poll shows that, nationally, Democrats are losing their edge. According to the poll by Global Strategies Group and commissioned by Third Way last year, Democrats are seen as the party “pouring money into a broken system” and “blaming poverty for problems with public education.” The party has seen their advantage on education shift from around 20% to about 8% over the Republicans.

If Kentucky is any indication, Republicans smell blood. During the gubernatorial contest this fall, Americans for Prosperity ran ads targeting African-American voters and accusing Democratic candidate Jack Conway of keeping children in failing schools. Whether it worked or not will take a deeper dive into the election returns, but AFP wouldn’t have paid for the ad unless they had some data to show that it might work.

North Carolina is not Kentucky, or the broader United States, for that matter. Republicans have cut funding for public schools and universities in a state that prides itself on its commitment to education. However, the poll indicates that Democrats need a broader narrative than just criticizing the GOP or promising to return funding and raising teacher pay. They need to offer new ideas about to improve public education and counter the GOP plans to shift public funds into private schools.

Republicans are banking on their “school choice” programs to capture the imagination of families who live in areas where schools are failing and also to pay off their religious base. For people who live in areas where schools have been struggling for generations, the choice idea is attractive. Democrats need to come up with an alternative. Raising teacher pay to the national average and increasing per pupil spending should certainly part of the equation, but Democrats need to offer real solutions to improve chronically failing schools, not just point out that economic disparity causes the problems.

7 Comments

  1. mary jones

    There is so much documentation from other states on vouchers, charters, virtual schools, etc.that have been trying this for years and have proven to be disastrous. Can’t we use this to debunk the myths that these are the solutions particularly for minority students? None of it will matter if we don’t have money for ads. Americans for Prosperity seems to have a bottomless pit for funding and these ads that are playing now all day, every day touting the wonders of N.C. conservatives and the Carolina Comeback must be countered. If that’s the only message people hear between their television shows, that’s what they will believe.

  2. A.D. Reed

    First, using Kentucky as an example of a Republican edge in education is ridiculous. There are clear signs that the GOP deliberately, and literally, stole the election by rigging the voting machines, causing Democratic votes for governor to flip to the Teathuglican–while every other race other than governor stayed precisely in line with all the polls up through election day. Those polls–unanimously–showed the Democratic candidate with a 3-5 point lead, along with most Democratic candidates for other state races; on election day, the polls were correct–except that the Teaparty joke “won” by 9 points — a 14-point shift in 12 hours.
    Second, for the past 30 years the right-wing “think” tanks have promoted the idea that public education is A) succeeding at indoctrinating children with liberal ideas; B) spending too much money with no results; C) failing altogether. Their solution is to A) cut funding for public schools at all levels; B) take money from public schools and put it into charters that perform no better (often worse) and have no regulations imposed, are exempt from numerous requirements (like transportation and subsidized meals and special ed programs); C) point out how even “public” charter schools aren’t doing well and therefore moving money into FOR-PROFIT charter school corporations whose executives take $600,000 or more per year to “run” them, while actual educators — principals and the like — are lucky to get a tenth of that amount, with no opportunity to charge the system for providing books, supplies, cleaning services, etc., that often go to the CEO’s cronies.
    Third, if the Democrats would stand up and call out the Republicans every day, at every opportunity, with a consistent message, and NOT spend DNC or NCDP party on conservadems who vote with the republicans, and preach and teach instead of pandering to the middle, they’d start winning — as they do in Buncombe County.

  3. Christopher Lizak

    Let’s also mention that Democrats surrendered a big part of their perceived advantage on the education issue when they refused to do anything about the Leandro decision.

    Who can really blame people in poor school systems for seeking an alternative, when even their supposed allies have essentially abandoned them to their well-documented fate?

    We failed to divert the necessary resources away from the affluent systems to solve the problems of the poor ones, in open defiance of a court decision that ruled our system to be discriminatory.

    We do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing the Republican education strategy – at least they’re actually trying to do something about the problem (even if it is just window-dressing for re-segregation), while we just defend the old Prussian military model of education.

    Of course, if we pay teachers more, then they will have more to spend every month, which will improve the economy. So I am all for that – but it won’t do a thing to help the failing school systems.

  4. Apply Liberally

    Easy to say, but there are no alternatives in public education in NC (with its growing student population) that will require LESS total fiscal investment.

    The GOP wants more charters schools and expanded private school vouchering; that will still cost money, of course. But the GOP has essentially identified a source of money for charters and private vouchers, i.e., taking funds that could have been invested in the traditional public ed system.

    I believe that the best thing the Dems can do is to be loud and consistent, pounding home, non-stop, from now til Nov 2016, the following message:

    “If some public schools are judged to be failing, there’s a reason. Since 2011, the NCGOP has not kept pace in funding our public schools for an expanding population. They’ve limited state funding of public schools too severely, and have diverted funds instead to schools that are private, exclusionary, and less accountable in the use of your tax dollars. And they’ve failed to increase salaries for the state’s most experienced teachers, creating an exodus of some of our very best educators. All of these GOP actions have made it much more difficult for our public schools to give kids the quality education they need and have a right to. That needs to end. The future of NC’s next generation demands that it end.”

  5. larry

    Really Mr Mills, quoting anything from the Third Way ? The Third Way certainly has no agenda now do they. I have to say I am disappointed. Mr Wynn post I have long consider a good laugh but the Third Way? That crowd and the chestnut they have tried to sell has long been proven to be wrong. Barack Obama two term presidency is living proof. You have in your post advocated moderation etc as a panacea to retake the General Assembly et al in North Carolina for some time. I assume you are not expecting us to find us another Easley or ask poor Bev Perdue to have another go. How bout Wicker? Marshall or Dalton? Seems to me that the Republican who now have complete hegemony in North Carolina would prove that wistful thinking wrong as well. I am not saying that a hard left candidates would win in this NC any more than I believe the Third way crowd would pass the smell test of the Democratic base. And like it or not without the base your Third Way moderates will never win no matter how much the GOP stinks. Not sure one would exchange one smell for another. Surely we can toss something else on the wall to see if it sticks. I do think Cooper is a good guy and if he is willing to go Bel Edwards on the Republicans he will prevail. If not its Daltonsville.

    • Progressive Way

      Do tell how a “Barack Obama two-term presidency is living proof” that melding fiscally prudent and socially progressive policies (as advocated by the centrist Third Way) has been “proven wrong.” I’m all ears……

      • Christopher Lizak

        The Third Way, as usual, has it bass ackwards.

        The key to long-term societal success is progressive fiscal policies to deal with inequality and the inherent contradictions that exist within our capitalist system, coupled with prudent social policies that will maintain social order while the power of the rich is being cut down to size.

        The Third Way prefers to use Identity Politics as a distraction from what is actually happening in real, transactional politics. They tell us we must support Hillary because she is a woman, and anybody who opposes her is part of the “War on Women” – never mind the fact that she is ALSO a warmongering, Wall Street worshipping neo-con. The only thing that is important, we are told by our Third Way friends, is that she is a woman, and she will get women more rights. It doesn’t matter that only rich women really get to exercise those rights in a meaningful way. Poor women don’t get anywhere near the glass ceiling, and they have to take jobs that don’t pay a living wage whether Hillary wins or not, whether the “gender pay gap” is closed or not.

        Fiscally progressive and socially prudent – that is the way forward. With a heavy, heavy emphasis on fiscally progressive.

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