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Dear John,

It is week 278 in our new reality and we are thinking about politics and public schools.

“Do American public schools promote a biased political perspective—or even indoctrinate students in a certain belief system?” ask Brookings Institution scholars J. Cameron Anglum and Anita Manion in a new report ([link removed]) for the think tank. “To learn more about what Americans—and, specifically, U.S. students and adults—believe about politics in schools, we went and asked them.”

Here is what they found: Republicans think schools lean liberal, Democrats think schools are neutral, and almost no one thinks they lean conservative.
This enormous gulf in perceptions between Democrats and Republicans is the driving force behind many of our current education debates.

“Historically, one could argue that education garnered more bipartisan agreement than most other policy areas,” Anglum and Manion observe. “Today, however, schools are a political battleground for a polarized electorate.” One consequence of this strong perception of a liberal bias in America’s public schools among Republican voters has been the growing energy among Republican leaders to provide parents with a greater number of school options. The fiercest opponents of this surge of support for school choice are the nation’s two largest teachers unions: the NEA and the AFT.

Yet, the teachers union leaders may not be the best spokespeople to combat the perception of liberal bias in public education because in recent years they have adopted an explicitly liberal political strategy that embeds them within a left-leaning coalition at the heart of the Democratic Party (collectively known as “The Groups ([link removed]) ”). To make this coalition work, each special interest group supports the goals of the other, even at the risk of significant mission creep. So, for example, the NEA has come out in favor of reparations ([link removed]) and the AFT endorsed the Green New Deal ([link removed]) , while the NAACP called for a moratorium on charter schools
([link removed]) and Greenpeace and the Sunrise Movement partnered ([link removed]) with the AFT on a PK-12 education curriculum.

Where does this leave the future of advocacy for public education?

It's clear that in the short run, momentum for providing more school options will continue to be strong among Republican leaders. There are also no signs that the AFT and NEA are rethinking their explicitly liberal coalition strategy. Meanwhile, there is an opening for new advocacy groups to emerge that aim to put student learning, not partisan coalition strategies, at the heart of an education agenda.
Best,

Marc Porter Magee, PhD
50CAN Founder and CEO

@marcportermagee ([link removed])

Heed JerseyCAN’s call to reverse college enrollment trends
For the past half-century, college has been an essential step on the path to a career, and enrollment numbers have swelled as a result. Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, sounds the early alarm in a new piece ([link removed]) at The 74, that America needs to brace for a very different future. “With college enrollment still below pre-pandemic levels, and universities bracing for an additional 15% drop by 2039 — a demographic cliff brought on by declining birth rates since the Great Recession — the time for action is now,” Paula writes.

That 15% drop by 2039 represents over 650,000 fewer college freshmen, and while the developing problem will touch every state across the country, it will be more severe in many. In Nathan Grawe’s 2018 comprehensive state-by-state analysis, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education ([link removed]) , he charted how the problem will touch each state.
“I wasn’t aware of this national analysis until I read Paula’s piece, but this was a eureka moment for me,” David Miyashiro, Executive Director of HawaiiKidsCAN tells us. “For the past five years, we’ve been hearing from community partners, the State Board of Education and college administrators that they’re very concerned about the potential for lagging college matriculation across the islands–and those concerns were primary motivators behind our work to reverse ([link removed]) the slide in FAFSA-completion. This is another confirmation of the urgency of this issue, no state’s higher education system is more at risk than Hawaii’s and if the problem isn't resolved, it will have real effects on the ability of Hawaii's youth to afford to stay on the islands.”

Paula suggests that state legislatures, high school administrators and colleges all have a role to play in solving this problem before more institutions become insolvent. One of the most promising ideas is to work with state legislatures and state education agencies to establish a number of pathways to accumulating college credit, from dual enrollment and AP exams to the College Level Examination Program (CLEP), and the last one has Paula particularly excited.

“Candidly, the lowest-hanging fruit for advocates and elected officials here is expanding the role of the CLEP exam to get high school students started on college credit accumulation earlier, which not only boosts college attendance but also college graduation,” Paula argues. “Unlike other programs, CLEP is not constrained by class enrollment caps, and there are open-source study materials available to democratize access to course content for students whose K-12 settings come up short on rigor. At JerseyCAN, we’re amplifying this college credit pathway over the next year. We’ll be sure to share lessons learned with the field as we move forward.”

* The task this week is to get smart on the looming college enrollment cliff in your state and explore creative new ways to get students the learning opportunities they deserve.

Take note of what Republican primary voters want

Earlier this year, we shared ([link removed]) polling of Virginia voters that showed widespread demand and support for the core policies of Believe in Better ([link removed]) . Now six months later, Tennesseans for Putting Students First is out with new polling showing the breadth and depth of support among the state’s Republican Primary voters for the elements of this policy agenda.

Conducted via phone with a sample size of 500 voters, the survey found:

66% of Republican primary voters support expanding the Education Freedom Scholarship Program to allow more students to participate.

84% of Republican primary voters support a program that ensures that every school district is providing high dosage tutoring in literacy and math for students that are below grade level.

83% of Republican primary voters support evaluations from Kindergarten to third grade of a student’s foundational math skills that provide teachers with real time on student performance.

“When policy priorities match what we’re hearing from parents, there is going to be immense support,” Chelsea Crawford, Executive Director of Tennesseans for Putting Students First tells us. “These poll results make clear that, five years after the pandemic, voters are hungry for improved performance in schools and new education options for their children.”

For more, read the Tenneesse Star’s write-up ([link removed]) , the Tennessee Firefly’s story ([link removed]) or tune-in to hear ([link removed]) Chelsea on NPR.

* The task this week is to learn more ([link removed]) about the Tennessee poll numbers and reflect on which aspects of Believe in Better are most demanded by voters in your own state.


HawaiiKidsCAN’s David Miyashiro appeared ([link removed]) on Hawaii News Now with Mele Kānealiʻi, HawaiiKidsCAN’s student fellow, where he talked about why promoting student leadership is important to him and how that led to the creation of a youth fellowship and the HawaiiKidsCAN-Cooperation Ireland global youth advocacy partnership. The team is also working on sparking public interest in fixing

50CAN President Derrell Bradford and the Harvard Kennedy School released ([link removed]) “Markets and Monopolies: The Faces of School Choice in 2025,” Derrell’s contemporary overview of school choice in America.
Executive Director Amanda Aragon and the NewMexicoKidsCAN team are spending the summer working with elected officials and the media to spark public outrage over the school system’s continued poor performance with a message that progress is possible.

Linda Jacobson at The 74 reports ([link removed]) that 34 percent of families with at least one homeschooled child also have a sibling in a district school, and another 9 percent mix homeschooling with charter enrollment, evidence of a growing “mix-and-match” approach.

In Fordham’s Flypaper, Caitlin Peartree and David Winston analyze ([link removed]) why Democrats still hold a 14-point confidence edge on education, while polls framing the question around trust show Republicans slightly ahead.

Echelon Insights released ([link removed]) their June 2025 analysis mapping Americans’ political philosophy into four quadrants – the number of American conservatives continues to decline, while the number of American populists continues to increase.

A new study published by Ed Working Papers finds ([link removed]) that college professors are overwhelmingly titled to the left but “substantial variation exists in partisanship by department of affiliation, with lower rates of Democratic affiliation observed for those working in the bench sciences.”


After learning about Sunrise Day Camp, a New York summer camp that serves over 150 children with cancer, the students of Staten Island’s St. Peter’s Boys High School knew ([link removed]) they wanted to support the efforts. The high schoolers raised $12,000, enough funding to send two children and their siblings to the camp this summer free of charge.

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ABOUT 50CAN

50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now is a nonprofit organization that works at the local level to advocate for a high-quality education for all kids, regardless of their address.

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