Passing Notes

Yesterday in Denver, Democrats for Education Reform and the Education Equality Project held an event at the Democratic National Convention titled “Ed Challenge for Change,” marking a watershed turning point for the Democratic party on issues of accountability, choice and a true commitment to addressing our nation’s greatest civil rights injustice: the achievement gap between low-income children of color and their wealthier white peers. The popular Mickey Klaus in the blog Slate provides this coverage of the event:

I went to the Ed Challenge for Change event mainly to schmooze. I almost didn’t stay for the panels, being in no mood for what I expected would, even among these reformers, be an hour of vague EdBlob talk about “change” and “accountability” and “resources” that would tactfully ignore the elephant in the room, namely the teachers’ unions. I was so wrong. One panelist–I think it was Peter Groff, president of the Colorado State Senate, got the ball rolling by complaining that when the children’s agenda meets the adult agenda, the “adult agenda wins too often.” Then Cory Booker of Newark attacked teachers unions specifically–and there was applause. In a room of 500 people at the Democratic convention! “The politics are so vicious,” Booker complained, remembering how he’d been told his political career would be over if he kept pushing school choice, how early on he’d gotten help from Republicans rather than from Democrats. The party would “have to admit as Democrats we have been wrong on education.” Loud applause! Mayor Adrian Fenty of D.C. joined in, describing the AFT’s attempt to block the proposed pathbreaking D.C. teacher contract. Booker denounced “insane work rules,” and Groff talked about doing the bidding of “those folks who are giving money [for campaigns], and you know who I’m talking about.” Yes, they did! As Jon Alter, moderating the next panel, noted, it was hard to imagine this event happening at the previous Democratic conventions. (If it had there would have been maybe 15 people in the room, not 500.) Alter called it a “landmark” future historians should note. Maybe he was right.

Providence Mayor Cicilline was there, too. From his Convention Blog, he writes:

I attended a great education forum entitled “ED Challenge for Change.” My colleagues Mayor Adrian Fenty and Mayor Cory Booker presented and were joined by Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City Schools, Gov. Roy Romer, Michelle Rhee, Chancellor DC Public Schools, John King (Uncommon Schools), Joe Williams, Democrats for Education Reform, and many other educational leaders. There was excellent discussion about the urgency of real change in public education and the opportunity of the new president to take this issue and make it central to his campaign.

An increasing majority of Rhode Island Democratic leaders understand the urgency of this issue — whether from an economic development standpoint for the future of our state’s workforce, or from a civil rights justice standpoint to provide the American dream of a better future to so many families of color living in our largest cities, the Democratic party is poised to get serious about education reform, even if it means “letting go of outdated orthodoxies.” Rhode Island House Majority Leader Gordon Fox was honored in June by Democrats for Education Reform as an education reform “hero” for his inspiring leadership to expand Rhode Island’s charter school movement with “Mayoral Academies.”

Rounding out coverage of the DNC event yesterday, Denver’s Rocky Mountain News reported on the event in today’s edition:

“It is a battle for the heart of the Democratic Party,” said Cory Booker, the 39-year-old rising star mayor of Newark, N.J.

“We have been wrong in education,” Booker said of his party and its alliances with teachers unions that put adults before children. “It’s time to get right.”

Booker was among those who appeared Sunday at the Denver Art Museum to challenge the Democratic Party to reconsider its course on education.

In references sometimes veiled and sometimes blunt, they tackled the party’s often- cozy relationship with the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which typically support - financially and otherwise - Democratic candidates.

“The Democratic Party is supposed to look out for poor and minority kids,” said Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “That’s not the dynamic today,” said Rhee, who is battling her city’s union over a plan to overhaul teacher pay.

The headline of the Denver newspaper story sums it up: “Lesson Plan: Put kids over teachers.”