When we fight for public schools, we fight for democracy

This article When we fight for public schools, we fight for democracy was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Embed from Getty Images

Every morning, across the nation, in red states and blue states, in urban and rural communities, we watch children walk through the doors of our neighborhood public schools, backpacks slung over one shoulder, lunch bags in hand. These are ordinary moments that contain an extraordinary promise: that education belongs to every child. But that promise — simple, powerful and profoundly democratic — is now under attack in ways we haven’t seen in generations. 

Asked what percentage of children she imagines should be in public schools going forward,  Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice — now with Project 2025 architect, the Heritage Foundation — told ProPublica: “I hope zero. I hope to get to zero.” 

Public schools, like so many pieces of our social fabric, have emerged from the last year battered. The Trump administration, in close partnership with state and local allies, and billionaire co-conspirators, is enacting, play by play, Project 2025’s education provisions and broader authoritarian agenda under the three pillars: vouchers, patriotism and prayer. And schools across the country — in blue states and red states alike — are facing existential threats we have never seen before.

These attacks on public schools are attacks on democracy itself. The classroom is where kids learn to listen to different perspectives, to collaborate, to understand that rules apply to everyone. These aren’t abstract lessons — they’re the daily work of becoming people who can sustain a democratic society. 

Schools are also perhaps the strongest example of public policy and public dollars being deployed to build our shared commitment to one another, regardless of wealth or creed. They’re the core of a social compact in which we each have a stake in the success of families and communities everywhere.

That’s why education and democracy advocates like myself have launched a mass base-building campaign with the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools in order to unite people across political party and geographical lines in defense of public education. Called “Free the Future,” the campaign is organizing parents, educators and other community members to explicitly refuse consent to policies that undermine our children’s education and our democratic values. The key idea: Create channels for people to speak out, attend trainings and then flow into escalating resistance, starting with a simple statement of refusal and building toward coordinated public action.

Building the appetite for “no”

The entry point to the Free the Future campaign is simple but powerful: a non-permission slip.

We’re all familiar with permission slips — those forms schools send home asking us to consent to field trips or activities. This is the opposite. It’s a public declaration that we do NOT grant permission for our children to be educated in ways that betray the promise of public schools. 

The non-permission slip, an online fillable form, is a low-bar, low-risk first step — something any parent or community member can do: Read, click through, sign your name and hit submit. But it opens doors to deeper engagement. People who sign are invited to share the non-permission slip with their networks and to attend a leadership training. Over the last few months, thousands of participants — parents and grandparents, young people and educators — have joined our trainings. Some attended action calls to learn about the dangerous and chaotic maneuvering of the Trump administration and its congressional allies, and find out how to take steps to voice their opposition, both online and offline. Others joined workshops about the links between authoritarianism, billionaires and the current attacks on schools, or took a four-week module on understanding power and basic organizing skills. 

The leaders being recruited are everyday people: parents, educators, public school alumni and concerned community members. Participants can also receive one-on-one coaching from experienced organizers and support for escalating actions in their local communities — learning how to recruit other families, push elected officials to fight for public schools, and use fun and humor to resist attacks on schools and protect families from government repression.

Initial small refusals — signing a non-permission slip, meeting with your superintendent, posting dissent on social media and in online forums, organizing rallies with fellow parents or visiting a representative’s office — create the foundation for larger ones like participation in mass mobilizations, civil disobedience and even general strikes. When people see their neighbors taking action, it becomes easier to join. When isolated frustration transforms into organized resistance, it becomes harder for politicians to ignore us.

We are also pushing local officials — superintendents, school board members and other elected officials — to make public their nonpartisan opposition to the administration’s attacks on public schools and act on it. We’re asking them to adopt policies to keep students safe from ICE, share the impact of federal grant losses and budget cuts, and urge their states to reject federal vouchers. When courageous people in positions of power defect from the authoritarian agenda — and do so publicly, and make clear the source of the harm — it makes it easier for others to do the same and harder for the administration to carry out its policies. 

The goal for our campaign is ambitious, but achievable: train thousands of leaders, draw out vocal support from officials and public figures who champion public education, and propel them to take public action in national mobilization events, including the upcoming No Kings Day marches on March 28, May Day Strong and Labor Day. We intend to cultivate what history shows is essential to resisting authoritarianism: the public’s appetite and courage for saying “NO.”

A movement building in classroom corners and sidewalks

Across the country, parents are already resisting — often in creative, unexpected ways that reveal how deeply people care about their schools, young people and the future of the nation.

In Idaho last year, in solidarity with a teacher who stood firm when administrators told her to take down an “Everyone is Welcome Here” sign, parents staged a “Chalk the Walk” event, painting the sidewalks outside schools with more welcoming words. 

In Long Island, New York, community members held a $1,000-a-cup lemonade stand to draw attention to the Trump regime’s proposed $12 billion budget cut to public schools. 

In Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Diego, Minneapolis and Chicago, parents and community members have organized “walking school buses” and neighborhood patrols to protect students and their families from ICE operations. 

In a school district in Minnesota, parents, students and educators banded together to fight a book ban policy organized by right wing extremist groups — and won. 

In Oldham County, Kentucky, the school board unanimously rejected efforts to create off-campus Bible classes during the school day for elementary school kids. 

And parents in Oklahoma re-purposed the law allowing parents to opt out of so-called “woke” curriculum to instead opt their children out of the new requirements for Bible lessons in social studies class.

These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re sparks of something larger and represent how parents and concerned communities are organically resisting in this political moment. 

That shared commitment creates potential to fracture the billionaire-fueled anti-democratic coalition currently threatening our institutions. When parents in conservative communities see their rural schools devastated by federal cuts, when they watch special education services disappear while the obscenely wealthy get tax credits for private schools, the contradictions become impossible to ignore.

Public education is one of the few issues that can unite people across the deep divisions of our current moment. Polling shows that parents across the political and geographic spectrum want their children to have well-resourced classrooms, trained teachers, safe buildings and real opportunities to learn and grow. That the $12 billion in proposed federal cuts to public education, initially passed in the House in 2025, was restored through a bicameral and bipartisan negotiation earlier this year, is proof that education transcends partisan fractures and that grassroots organizing can still have significant impact on federal policy.

Right now, wealthy interests and authoritarian politicians are hell bent on defunding, privatizing and ultimately destroying public schools. They’re betting that if they can divide parents over curriculum debates or convince us that “parental choice” means abandoning the public system, they can dismantle an institution that’s been central to American democracy for two centuries.

We can’t let that happen. And individual acts of resistance, as inspiring as they are, won’t be enough.

Support Us

Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

Donate

History teaches us that authoritarian movements succeed when people comply in isolation and fail when communities organize collective refusal. Education resistance has shown it can challenge authoritarianism and fascism. Norwegian teachers prevented Nazi curriculum takeovers in 1942, Argentine educators undermined and subverted mandatory lesson plans under Juan Domingo Perón, Chilean teachers mobilized against Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, and most recently, Hungary’s Tanítanék movement has opposed Viktor Orbán’s attacks on schools.

The dismantling of democratic institutions requires public acquiescence — the quiet acceptance that “this is just how things are now.” Resistance requires the opposite: visible, coordinated action that says, “We do not consent.”

The truth is that the nature and scale of our current strategies aren’t sufficient to stop what’s coming. We need channels for public school parents and supporters to flow into sustained resistance. We need to move from individual frustration to organized collective action. We need to cultivate the courage for public refusal.

That’s what Free the Future is building: a movement that opens doors for every parent, educator, student and community member to take escalating action to refuse consent, join with others and defend an institution that, while imperfect, still holds democracy’s promise. 

This article When we fight for public schools, we fight for democracy was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

People-powered news and analysis