Democrats Should Focus on Education Issues that Matter to Voters

(William Sherman/Getty Images)

Why are Democrats fumbling the issue of education, which they have dominated for many years? There are multiple reasons: they mishandled the Covid-related school closures, they are letting the culture wars distract from the core mission of schools, and they are downplaying the importance of merit and academic achievement. Before I discuss how the Dems could effect a turnaround, let’s dig deeper into these missteps and unfortunate trends.

The school closures went on way too long. Democrats, far more than Republicans, worked to keep public schools closed during the Covid pandemic—longer than in other advanced countries and far longer than was justified by emerging scientific understanding of the virus and its effects. Pushed by their allies in the teachers unions, Democrats ignored the justified warnings that extended school closures would severely harm student learning and social development, especially for poorer children. The returns are now in, and it is clear that the warnings Democrats ignored were, if anything, too mild.

This was no minor error made by Democratic officials in the fog of pandemic confusion but a profound tragedy for millions of children that could have been avoided or at least substantially mitigated. To add to the shameful episode, parents in many communities around the country who wanted the schools reopened faster were frequently demonized by progressives as heartless, anti-science right-wingers who didn’t care about public health. The wounds from this still fester today.

Privileging politics over pedagogy. The culture wars rage on in the schools. Democrats argue that it is all the fault of the Right, who they say wishes to “ban books,” prevent children from learning about slavery, and subject gay and transgender-identifying children to bullying and worse. Progressive educators and school systems, on the other hand, simply stand for a modern, inclusive education that no decent, unprejudiced person should oppose.

This is disingenuous in the extreme. Over the last decade, and especially after the George Floyd summer of 2020, there has been a concerted effort by many school systems and educators to promote “anti-racist” education that goes way beyond benign pedagogical practices such as teaching about slavery, Jim Crow, the Tulsa Race Massacre, redlining, and so on. Instead, pedagogy itself is to be infused, from top to bottom and in every subject, with concepts drawn from the anti-racist playbook. As noted by sociologist Ilana Redstone, these concepts include the assertion that “[a]n unwillingness to recognize the full force of systemic racism as determining disparities between groups is a denial of the reality of racism today (and evidence of ignorance at best and racism at worst).” An army of diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants have stood at the ready to assist school systems in training their staff and teachers to implement this creed and incorporate it into their curricula.

This is politics, not pedagogy as traditionally and properly understood. It has little to do with what most parents want schools to do: develop their children’s academic skills and knowledge base so they can succeed in the world. Democrats have been hurt by their increasing identification with this ideological project rather than the traditional goals of public education.

Downgrading merit and educational achievement. Consistent with this ongoing politicization of educational practices, there has been a concomitant downgrading of academic merit and standard measures of educational achievement, especially standardized tests. In the name of fairness and “equity,” school systems in Democratic-controlled states and counties have taken steps to de-emphasize such measures as a means of evaluating students and controlling admissions to advanced courses, programs, and elite schools.

It hasn’t quite reached the “all shall have prizes” stage, but the message to aspiring students and parents who see educational achievement as their route to upward mobility and success in life is clear: students can no longer rely on hard work and objectively good academic performance to attain their goals (see “Your Neighborhood School Is a National Security Risk,” features, Winter 2024). Other priorities of the school system may take precedence, reducing the payoff from their performance. This does not sit well with most parents, who see it as public schools’ responsibility to encourage and reward their children’s talent and hard work. Democrats have been hurt by their diminishing association with what parents care about the most.

Getting Their Groove Back

In light of all this, is it possible for Democrats to regain their mojo on education during the 2024 election cycle? I think it is, though it will require changing their approach considerably from current practices. And it’s worth doing so. Even if education is not a central issue in the presidential contest, it is sure to loom large in many congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative races.

Here’s how Democrats can decisively change their current image on education and rebuild their advantage on the issue.

Get ideology, whether from the Left or Right, out of schools. Voters are sick of the culture wars around schools. Overwhelmingly, they just want children to get a good education based on standard academic competencies, not instruction in a politically inflected worldview. Democrats must assure voters that the former is their number-one priority. Just as they oppose attempts from the Right to inject their ideology into schools by restricting critical discussion of American history and society, so they must also oppose efforts by those on the Left to impose their views on curricula and analysis of social issues. Neither is appropriate. The job of schools is to give students the tools to make informed judgments, not tell them what those judgments should be.

Articulating this point would signal to voters that Democratic politicians understand what the real priorities of schools should be. But they shouldn’t leave it at that. They should advocate the addition of something positive to schools—that is, to “teach kids what it means to be an American,” in the words of Albert Shanker, the pathbreaking president of the American Federation of Teachers in the late 20th century.

By doing so, Democrats could dissociate themselves from the jaundiced and divisive attitudes of many progressive activists and embrace instead an approach emphasizing what students have in common as Americans. As education scholar Richard Kahlenberg writes, civics instruction in public schools should embrace (or get back to) teaching

the core of the American Creed: the veneration of liberty and equality promised by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution…The Declaration and Constitution provide, as the Fordham Institute notes, “a common framework for resolving our differences even as we respect them.”… In emphasizing America’s distinctive system of governance, students can appreciate a shared American identity focused on shared values that counters both right-wing white identity politics that sees only white Christians as “real Americans” and left-wing race essentialism that sees a person’s race, ethnicity, gender, and religion as far more important than what citizens have in common as Americans.

Maintain high achievement standards for all groups, even while seeking to close racial disparities. The Democrats have a merit problem, and that has infected their approach to schools and schooling. The traditional Democratic theory of the case ran like this: discrimination should be opposed and dismantled and resources provided to the disadvantaged so that everyone can fairly compete and achieve. Those who were meritorious would be rewarded; those who weren’t would not be.

Democrats have lost interest in the last part of their case, and that abandonment undermines their whole theory. Merit and objective measures of achievement are now viewed with suspicion as the outcomes of a hopelessly corrupt system, so rewards should instead be allocated on the basis of various criteria allegedly related to social justice. Instead of dismantling discrimination and providing assistance so that more people have the opportunity to acquire merit, the real solution is to worry less about merit and more about equal outcomes—“equity” in the parlance of our times.

But here’s what ordinary voters believe: “Racial achievement gaps are bad and we should seek to close them. However, they are not due just to racism, and standards of high achievement should be maintained for people of all races.” This statement was tested in a nationwide poll of more than 18,000 registered voters by RMG Research and elicited 74 percent agreement versus a mere 16 percent disagreement. In Wisconsin, the statement generated agreement by 91 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats.

Democratic politicians should fearlessly endorse this statement and assure voters that they are all about high standards, high achievement, and how they go together in successful schooling. Democrats should forthrightly oppose the watering down of academic standards in the name of equity and defend elite programs based on academic merit and rigorous tests. The latter is particularly important for reaching Asian voters and stopping the ongoing decline in their support for Democrats.

Provide more choice within the public school system. Public schools have been losing students lately to private schools and homeschooling, as misplaced priorities and academic failures in many public schools have some parents heading for the exits. That typically means they aren’t happy with the public school their child is assigned to. An obvious way to mitigate this problem is simply to give parents more choice of where they can send their child to school, through both more options within the local school system and a wider array of charter schools.

More choice is especially important for low-income parents whose children generally do not fare well when attending schools that lack a middle-class presence. This calls for a concerted effort to widen public school choice so that all low-income children have access to theme-based non-selective magnet schools, diverse-by-design charter schools, and other high-quality options that attract students across economic levels.

Democrats ignore parents’ interest in choice to their peril. Polling by Education Next shows support for choice options such as charter schools, universal vouchers, and vouchers for low-income families going up in recent years (see “Partisan Rifts Widen, Perceptions of School Quality Decline,” features, Winter 2023). This support is particularly strong among Hispanics, low-income households, and especially Blacks, who are the demographic group most interested in vouchers. If Democrats wish to counter GOP appeals to their most loyal constituency, they must convince these voters that their strong interest in more choice can be met within a reformed public school system.

Promote affirmative action by class, not race. In the wake of the June 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down race-conscious college admissions, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison declared, “This is a devastating blow for racial justice and equality…We condemn the Supreme Court’s decision to end these affirmative action policies and make it even more difficult for Americans to access higher education. While this decision is a setback…it is not the final word.”

This is exactly the wrong approach for Democrats to take. Rather than implicitly or explicitly pledging to resist the law of the land, they would be far wiser to use the decision as an opportunity to rebrand themselves as the party of America’s working class—the entire working class.

Start with the brutal fact that racial preferences are very unpopular. For instance, the spring 2023 SCOTUSPoll, sponsored by Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Texas, found 69 percent of the public agreeing that private colleges and universities should not be able to use race as a factor in admissions, compared to 31 percent who favored the practice. The same question about public colleges and universities elicited at 74–26 split. Pretty definitive.

Why is this? It’s very simple. Most voters, especially working-class voters, think racial preferences are not fair, and fairness is a fundamental part of their world outlook. They actually believe in Martin Luther King Jr.’s credo that people should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” In a recent University of California Dornsife survey, this classic statement of colorblind equality was posed to respondents: “Our goal as a society should be to treat all people the same without regard to the color of their skin.” The sentiment elicited sky-high (92 percent) agreement from the public, despite the assaults on this idea from critical race theoryand the likes of Ibram X. Kendi and large segments of the Democratic Left.

The way for Democrats to get back in touch with voters on this issue is clear: advocate replacing race-based affirmative action with class-based affirmative action, instead of overtly or covertly trying to preserve the former. Class-based affirmative action would boost proportionately more Black and Hispanic students than white ones, thereby making up at least part of the losses in Black and Hispanic representation that follow from eliminating race-based consideration.

But it would also boost some disadvantaged white students, and that would be a good thing, both substantively and politically. As President Barack Obama memorably put it in 2008: “I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged…I think that we should take into account [in admissions] white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty.” In other words, a Black kid who grew up in a poor neighborhood in Baltimore and a white kid who grew up in a shattered working class neighborhood in Ohio are both more deserving of a boost than upper-middle-class kids of whatever race.

That would strike most working-class voters as eminently fair. It is especially fair in light of the breathtaking lack of economic diversity at elite schools. That’s why it’s important to think of class-based affirmative action as not just a substitute for a race-based system that would accomplish some of the same goals. It would be in and of itself a step toward pushing back against the incredible class bias of elite education. As David Leonhardt put it in his New York Times column:

Economic diversity matters for its own sake: The dearth of lower-income students at many elite colleges is a sign that educational opportunity has been constrained for Americans of all races. To put it another way, economic factors such as household wealth are not valuable merely because they are a potential proxy for race; they are also a telling measure of disadvantage in their own right.

This approach could turn affirmative action from an issue that divides the working class into one that potentially unites it. Given how Democrats have been hemorrhaging working-class voters, this change of focus seems like a wise course of action.

Restoring Strength

Taken together, the four steps outlined here could decisively change the current Democratic brand on education, which is steadily losing altitude, into one that would restore their historic strength on the issue. To be sure, taking these steps would require some political courage, risking the wrath of the progressive activists who have helped power their success in recent low turnout, off-year elections. But 2024 will be a far different electoral environment where the views of activists will be less important and those of ordinary voters more so. Democrats would be wise to place their bets on the latter by taking these steps and charting a new course.

[Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Education Next.]