PPI - Radically Pragmatic
  • Donate
Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Locations
    • Careers
  • People
  • Projects
  • Our Work
  • Events
  • Donate

Our Work

Op-Ed: Biden would be nowhere without black voters. Will he accommodate black charter school parents?

  • March 17, 2020
  • Tressa Pankovits
The National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, endorsed Joe Biden for president over the weekend. Earlier the smaller American Federation of Teachers (AFT) hedged its bets by encouraging its members and affiliates to support and help Biden as well as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The NEA’s endorsement comes on the heels of last week’s “Big Tuesday” primaries in Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota and Washington. For Biden, those felt like the grand finale to his Super Tuesday smash hit with African American voters, even outside the South. According to exit polls, 66 percent of black voters in all-important Michigan turned out for Biden. It confirms the intense loyalty to the Democratic Party that was on display the previous week, when more than 50 percent of black Democrats chose Biden in every southern state — and close to 40 percent did so in California and Massachusetts.

Collectively, black voters saved the Democrats from what previously seemed inevitable: Bernie Sanders’s nomination and a potential November blowout, not only against Trump but also down ballot.

It is high time, then, for Democrats to stop disrespecting millions of black voters on an issue important to them: Charter schools.

Read the full piece here.

Related Work

In the News  |  May 20, 2026

The Learning Curve: Progressive Policy Institute’s Rachel Canter on Mississippi’s Academic Gains

  • Rachel Canter
In the News  |  May 19, 2026

Canter in Forbes: School Districts With Fast-Rising Test Scores Have 5 Things In Common

  • Rachel Canter
Op-Ed  |  May 15, 2026

Manno for Datia K12: The Education Scorecard shows that K-12 learning recovery is a civic project

  • Bruno Manno
In the News  |  May 15, 2026

Kahlenberg in Washington Post: DOJ says Yale medical school discriminated against Asian, White applicants

  • Richard D. Kahlenberg
Op-Ed  |  May 13, 2026

Manno for Flypaper: The small federal charter school program that helped grow public school choice

  • Bruno Manno
In the News  |  May 13, 2026

Canter in The Heartlander: Mississippi’s educational turnaround was a marathon, not a miracle, experts say

  • Rachel Canter
  • Never miss an update:

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
PPI Logo
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Donate
  • Careers
  • © 2026 Progressive Policy Institute. All Rights Reserved.
  • |
  • Privacy Policy
  • |
  • Privacy Settings