Some education highlights from Tuesday's election

 We're entering THE CONFERENCE ZONE at work, so I haven't had time to take a breath, but I don't want to miss some amazing things that happened Tuesday. This HuffPost post on victories you haven't heard of is also a good start. Several of these are of the "you might remember this headline" type; I'll add more as I find them!

• You might remember West Ada School District in Idaho, where a teacher was ordered to remove an "Everyone is welcome here" poster which had multiracial hands from the walls of her classroom. Of the two seats that were up for election on Tuesday, challenger Meghan Brown beat incumbent Angie Redford with more than 61% of the vote; Brown is a teacher. The board chair Lori Frasure did win re-election over challenger Dara Ezzell-Pebworth, a social worker, but with only 54% of those voting. The challengers ran on an explicitly inclusive platform that also opposed private school tax credits. 
  
  
• As Peter Greene covers well in Forbes, Central Bucks County School Board, which got all sorts of national attention several years ago and had flipped majorities in 2023, further moved to a 9-0 Democratically-held majority on Tuesday.
  This was part of a larger blue wave across suburban Philadelphia.
  
  
• Denver, which had been a hotbed of charter expansion and other things called 'ed reform' saw a pushback on that in the past six years, with this election a test of if that majority pushing back would hold on. They did, with those candidates taking the four of the seats open.
  
  
• In Cy-Fair Independent School District outside of Houston, Tuesday saw a backlash to the conservative policies that district's board had implemented, as three members lost their seats to non-partisan newcomers, including the board chair and vice-chair. Cy-Fair is the third largest school district in Texas, educating over 100,000 students. 

• School bonds did pretty well Tuesday as well, with Des Moines voters favoring theirs; a majority of them carrying in Michigan; 18 of 43 passing in Iowa.
  
  
• And don't miss that in Colorado, voters passed two measures that tax the wealthy to fund free universal school lunch!

No on 2: not the story you were told

I want to talk a little about this tweet from Bruce Baker today (and the ensuing exchange)

@TracyNovick @EduShyster if 2 passed in Wellesly& the Vinyard but not in cities, how was #NoOn2 abt suburban moms? https://t.co/6qBmRiOuya

— Bruce Baker (@SchlFinance101) November 9, 2016

You'll recall that this was the ongoing story told in the national (and sometimes local) press: that this was going to be suburban moms deciding on those poor, urban children of color.
Here's how that worked out:

So to @SchlFinance101'a point, here's the Question 2 map (No=brown/Yes=green; excuse the photo of my screen) #MAEdu@EduShyster @wburEDify pic.twitter.com/mdUZJfJZuH

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) November 9, 2016

 Now we could talk about where the suburbs and the cities are, but the point here is: it didn't matter. Question 2 lost EVERYWHERE! It lost in all of the cities: Boston (61%), Worcester (61%), Springfield (58%), and on down through. It lost in the rural areas. And it lost in the suburbs.
With a few exceptions:

@TracyNovick Weston, Dover, Sherborn & Wellesley https://t.co/cdZQSquyxh 4 of top 6 in income(in a high income state!)

— Bruce Baker (@SchlFinance101) November 9, 2016

Some of our wealthiest communities.

Now I suspect it's going to be tempting for some to say that wealthy people saw a way to make money on this, but I don't think that the whole town of Weston went in together on some sort of an investment opportunity. I do, though, want to call your attention back to something Professor Cunningham said at lunch on Friday: the "very wealthy do care about education, but they do not care to spend for it, as that would mean taxes."

And that was my point (thank you for reading) Monday night: Either we support everyone's education--which yes, we pay for with taxes--or we don't. But if we don't, we don't actually support democracy.

And democracy is going to need us.

Thank you for voting no on question 2.

At the State House

I'm at the State House in Boston today, testifying before the Joint Committee on Education regarding H3883, which is the Stand for Children ballot measure, only as a bill.
I took notes right up until I left at one, and I'll post those and my own testimony just as soon as I get my netbook back to a power outlet!