Few prominent Democrats are waking up to the truth parents have known for years: When it comes to education, their party is on a path to nowhere.
Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, sounded the alarm this month, warning that Democrats are a “noob” in schools and losing ground with voters.
And don’t think the Republicans haven’t noticed yet.
In recent years, Duncan’s group has seen a 20-point gain in academic decline.
Between 2020 and 2024, parents of school children moved seven points to the right.
To anyone with an ear in the K-12 education arena, it was clear that parents of all political stripes had reached their limits regarding the ideological and non-academic focus of their children’s schools.
Anyone who didn’t see it was simply ignoring the red warning signs.
Enrollment declines, a nationwide phenomenon, have been most acute in large, urban, green-managed programs.
Parents with school-aged children are moving out of greener states, families are fleeing big cities — and since the COVID-19 pandemic, homeschooling and private schools have been on the rise.
Teacher unions, which give more than 99% of their political donations to Democrats, make the status quo even harder to defend.
Last month, for example, the Chicago Teachers Union forced to cancel school altogether on May 1 as part of the Socialist May Day protest.
“No school, no work, no shopping,” was the target topic.
The public backlash was so intense that schools remained open – but the union, undeterred, turned the day into a “community” event, encouraging students to attend rallies, protests and marches during school hours.
Many parents saw it for what it was: A clear example of a system that is far more comfortable to mobilize students as political foot soldiers than to teach in the classroom.
In the face of unprecedented absenteeism – 41 percent in Chicago – teacher union leaders have called on children to boycott school.
In stark contrast, red districts show dramatic progress in student achievement in reading and math.
Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Alabama, once dismissed as education hotbeds, now lead the pack, delivering the strongest gains of the past five years — while blue states lag behind.
Democratic education workers Jorge Elorza and Ben Austin joined Duncan this month in calling for a party rebrand.
They yelled at the Democratic Party, “let go of the administration, protect the unions and tell frustrated families to trust a system that has repeatedly failed their children.”
Their column on The74, an education news site, called on state governors to join the Education Freedom Tax Credit, a state school choice program funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
This is an important change: Democrats, including Duncan, Elorza and Austin, have passionately opposed this type of liberal education program for decades.
Like Gov. Kathy Hochul, who – one week after Duncan’s public red flag – partially agreed to allow New York students to enjoy the benefits of the tax credit.
Now that their group is immersed in education, they have changed.
Why? Because they know that support for more school choice is strong among parents in both parties, except among white progressives.
They know they need to start advocating for the basic things parents of all kinds want in their schools: academic rigor, order and physical safety.
But in order for Democrats to restore trust in education, they would be wise to stop blaming disaffected parents. see they are responsible for fueling the culture wars in America’s schools.
Race-based school assemblies, sex-inappropriate school library books and lessons that teach 2nd graders who may have been born with the wrong body did not appear in campaign ads or in the party’s media.
It is left-wing lifestyle trends that have taken hold in institutions – our schools – that once commanded broad approval.
Ordinary parents who were called “white supremacists” because they said schools should be open during the COVID are not fueling the culture war.
Parents who oppose men competing with their daughters in athletics are not haters.
Parents who express concern when schools force their biracial children to participate in race-related groups are not extremists.
If Democrats really want to fix their education crisis, they need to fully acknowledge the damage they and their supporters have done to our schools – and promise to stop breaking the law until it stops.
If not, expect Republicans to press their new advantage in the upcoming midterms.
Erika Sanzi is the communications director at Defending Education.
