Platform Watch: Vouchers Edition

I should probably read the new draft Democratic Platform at some point, because every time someone reads a part of it they seem to find something interesting. For example, Sara Mead notes that the new platform has dropped language about opposition to private school vouchers. Not, to be sure, in favor of embracing vouchers but instead the topic is gone. Overall it “has a stronger reform focus than the previous one, emphasizing that we need both reforms and resources to improve our public schools.”

It’s hard to know exactly what’s motivating the changes here, but the fact that the NEA strongly backed Hillary Clinton’s campaign seems like a likely factor to me with regard to these kind of things. The candidates didn’t stake out particularly different education approaches during the campaign, but the difference in underlying coalitions of supporters still probably makes a difference in terms of outcomes.