CURMUDGUCATION: The Dem Platform, Randi, and Charters

CURMUDGUCATION: The Dem Platform, Randi, and Charters:

The Dem Platform, Randi, and Charters



The Democratic platform committee has been working away all weekend, reportedly till well past midnight. We've been fortunate to have some public education advocates there as part of the education committee, including Chuck Pascal and Troy LaRiviere.

Twitter had a little bit of a eruption today over what was finally submitted to the main platform committee regarding charter schools. The whole business is pretty brief and can be found on this gigantic slice of C-Span at about the 31:00 mark. But I've watched it, and if you don't want to, you don't have to.

Chuck Pascal (from Pittsburgh, just up the road from me, so woo-hoo) went to committee armed with many amendments, and this was one of them. He's listed as the sponsor.

First-- here's the original draft language, with additions in blue:

Democrats are also committed to providing parents with high-quality public school options and expanding these options for low-income youth. We support democratically-governed great neighborhood public schools and high-quality public charter schools, and we will help them disseminate best practices to other school leaders and educators. Democrats oppose for-profit charter schools focused on making a profit off of public resources. We believe that high-quality public charter schools should provide options for parents, but should not replace or destabilize traditional public schools. Charter schools must reflect their communities, and thus must accept and retain proportionate numbers of students of color, students with disabilities and English Language Learners in relation to their neighborhood public schools. We instead support increased transparency and accountability for all charter schools.

(Let's just set aside for a moment the issue of the omitted Oxford comma in the amendment.)

Next, Randi Weingarten steps up to speak in CURMUDGUCATION: The Dem Platform, Randi, and Charters: