With just one day until we cast our ballots for the DFERs we support in elections across the country, my heart is pounding like a phone book in a dryer. Between Amendment 66 in CO that will ensure the school finance overhaul will continue to advance the state’s impressive reform agenda, John Connolly’s thrilling race for Mayor of Boston, and two more mayoral races we wanted to get on your radar, this is a big week.
So, for this month’s Reformer of the Month, we decided to throw our support behind two impassioned mayoral candidates hell-bent on improving the education received by thousands of kids in their cities and across the nation. Lovely Warren, candidate for Mayor of Rochester, NY and Don Samuels, running for Mayor of Minneapolis, are just what their respective cities need to improve two struggling education systems.
Warren is a champion reformer with an education platform centering on charting a path to success for all of Rochester’s kids and battling the current “dropout crisis.” She believes in expanding high-quality pre-K programs for all of Rochester’s kids, recruiting high performing public charter school operators to the state, and numerous other common sense reforms. Samuels has made education a cornerstone of his campaign by focusing on the need for principal empowerment and increased funding for public charter schools and failing traditional public schools. He was even the founder of the Hope Collaborative, which brought in the highest performing principals in the country to share best practices with the Minneapolis school district to help improve school leadership.
Both of these cities are at a critical turning point in education, and if these candidates are elected, have the potential to see significant reform at the level we’ve seen in cities like Denver, Newark, and New Orleans. But, Lovely and Don can’t make it to the finish line without your financial support. So, CONTRIBUTE NOW to Lovely and Don‘s campaigns and support these true DFERs before it’s too late!
– Joe