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Friday, May 24, 2019

White Democrats Oppose Charter Schools; Minority Dems Support

New data shows likely fault line in 2020 primary

While Democrats are often thought of as opponents of school choice, new data show the story is not so simple: an examination of trends from 2016 through 2018 revealed that while white Democrats have grown staunchly opposed, their Black and Hispanic peers remain in favor of charter schools.

In an already hot 2020 campaign, charters have become targets for left-leaning candidates. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in a speech Saturday called for an end to federal funding of for-profit charter schools, and a prohibition on funding of new charter schools, including not-for-profits. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) sided with Sanders, calling for-profit charters in particular "a real problem right now."

Sanders and Warren are, broadly speaking, in line with the majority view of their party. Education Next, a pro-reform journal, has polled Americans on their views on charter schools since 2013, providing detailed data on party breakdown since 2015. Their polls indicate that charters are consistently more popular with Republicans than with Democrats, and that the schools have slipped to being net unfavorable with the latter group in recent years.

Opposition to charters may have already cost Democrats not only votes, but at least one major election. Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R.) narrow victory over Andrew Gillum (D.) in Florida's 2018 gubernatorial election was partially thanks to a surprisingly high number of votes from Black women: 18 percent gave him their support, double the backing Sen. Rick Scott (R.) received.

The reason for this, William Mattox of the Marshall Center for Educational Options argued in the Wall Street Journal, was DeSantis's support for school choice.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These young folks are going to graduate and then realize how worthless their education really was. Next they will get hit with paying back the crappy loans for the worthless education. They will wish that they skipped the indoctrination and learned a trade. Hope they get "woke" on what the liberals are really trying to do !

Anonymous said...

white democrats and their gate keepers black politicians have historically kept blacks and other minorities in chains. in the mind of white democrats ONLY they should have the option of sending their children to better schools. blacks are still slaves to white democrats who do everything in their power to keep blacks chained up and nothing but lowly slaves. getting a good education breaks the chains and this is not something the democrat party wants. they want blacks herded up and corralled for the rest of their lives in the ghettos of the inner cities where children can't even play outside because of crime. blacks are not human to democrats only votes and the problem is most blacks cant see this.