Superintendents take heed: Even liberal voters—particularly Black and Latino parents—are looking for public education options that offer alternatives to traditional K12 instruction in communities across the country.
Some 80% of Black parents and 71% of Latino parents support expanding and improving public charter schools, according to a survey released this week by Democrats for Education Reform. “Voters of color prefer public options,” the organization’s CEO, Jorge Elorza, points out. “For the past 30 years, public charter schools have delivered exceptional results educating Black, Latino, and low-income kids throughout the country and they’ve shown that a great public school education is not reserved for only the affluent.”
Providing more insight for superintendents, the survey asked voters to list the best ways to improve public education—and increased funding was only considered part of the solution. Respondents also said fresh ideas and new options, and better performance—i.e., via heightened accountability—were essential.
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The good news for superintendents and their teams is that more than two-thirds of Black voters and well more than half of Latino voters said they prefer enrolling their children in public schools to using private school vouchers. Even independent voters favor public education options over private school vouchers by a 28-point margin, the survey found.
Going further into the partisan political realm, more than half of voters would rather see GOP policymakers recommit to improving instruction than continue efforts to censor and ban books. Also, legislation and other proposals to fund public education are twice as popular among Black voters as are “Republican proposals for disinvestment in our public education system,” the survey found.
Elora, the former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, added a note of caution to Democratic leaders and policymakers—and the educators who support them. “If Democrats do not wholeheartedly embrace public school choice as a party, we not only lose an opportunity to better serve students, but we risk losing Black and Latino voters who do not feel heard,” he concluded.
