Dive Brief:
- Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss breaks down nuances in the "education reform" movement, noting a trend among some Democrats to distance themselves from the "reformer" title.
- To evidence this, Strauss explains the creation of the new organization, Democrats for Public Education — a counter to Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), which supports the Obama administration's "education reform" efforts.
- Strauss also saw the opposition movement growing at the 2014 Netroots Nation convention. Education Opportunity Network Director Jeff Bryant was at the gathering of progressive leaders and wrote about the experience on his blog, which Strauss cited as evidence of the changing tides in Democratic stances on education.
Dive Insight:
Bryant has been attending Netroots Nation since 2009 and says support for the Obama administration's education reform agenda was there in the beginning. He even quotes a 2010 blog post on the event where another attendee's only comments on Michelle Rhee's firing of 241 D.C. teachers were, "There are so many bad teachers and they're never made accountable of anything." According to Bryant, there have since been mild shifts in the way attendees are viewing education, the role of teachers, and the ways in which "reform" can happen, and this year's conference appeared to have more solidified pushback.
"Six panels on education topics – ranging from curriculum standards, to student suspensions, to student loan debt, to reclaiming the promise of public schools – presented a unified front against current “reform” policies and for a vision of equity and excellence in public education," he wrote.