By Thomas Ultican 9/30/2026
This weekend, an NPE conference was held at the Hyatt Hotel in Conroe, Texas a suburb of Houston. It was a bit isolated but with the high temperatures outside there was not a strong inclination to leave the air-conditioned hotel to go explore the local scene. The venue with its spacious meeting spaces and smaller breakout rooms was perfect. In his conference opening remarks Jep Cappo, President of the American Federation of Teachers Texas said education had become the top political issue here and in her opening remarks, Diane Ravitch commented that if this election goes well, Gina Hinojosa might be able to end the new Texas voucher program.
Breakfast in the Main Conference Room
The conference was officially scheduled for Saturday and Sunday but those of us who arrived before 7 PM on Friday were able to see a new 90-minute film about the attack on public education in Texas. A longtime Houston lawyer, Chris Tritico, financed a small team creating the film. The main creator told us she just loaded it from her computer that morning and this was the first time it had been shown anywhere. What we saw will be edited more but it was a powerful indictment of Governor Abbott and the billionaire enemies of public schools.
The Conference
By the time Saturday was over, we were all extremely tired. At 8 AM, breakfast was served along with speeches by Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Zep Cappo, the Texas AFT leader and the President of the Network for Public Education (NPE), Diane Ravitch. Randi was her usual audience pumping self, Zep was a very engaging former middle school science teacher and Diane was her inspirational self.
This was followed by two one-hour long breakout sessions. One difficulty at NPE conferences is having to choose among six very engaging subjects each with 3 to 5 expert presenters. In session 2, “A View from the Trenches: What Universal Vouchers Are Doing to Public Schools in Florida and Arizona” I learned that the voucher movement in Florida started when Jeb Bush ran for governor in 1994. He lost but his proposal for school vouchers remained in play. Since Arizona and Florida have implemented Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA vouchers), their spending on vouchers graphs like a hockey stick with Arizona zooming to $1.2 billion and Florida going to more than $5 billion.
After the morning sessions it was time for lunch and an address by Raymond Pierce, President and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation. Raymond is a long-time presence in education including serving the Department of Education with the Clinton administration.
After lunch, came session-3 followed by a skill builder workshop. I attended the “How to Follow the Money” workshop presented by Maurice Cunningham, Mercedes Schneider and David Armiak. David is the research director at the Center for Media and Democracy. I learned from him that the IRS site has an exempt-organization master list which he downloads from time to time and compares to the previous list to find new exempt filings.
At 5:30 PM, Diane Ravitch introduced everyone to the new President of the National Education Association (NEA), Princess Moss. Her remarks were inspiring and I came away convinced that the NEA has a bold new leader protecting public education. She stated that she did not want to just protect public schools against attacks but wanted to expand their reach. At the mixer that followed, I was able to take a picture with Ms. Moss.
After this, it was time for a mixer and we were more than ready for a break.
Sunday started with an 8 AM session. I attended “How Nontraditional Public School Advocates Support Public Education” I was drawn to this Session because Charles Foster Johnson was a presenter. This Baptist preacher has been tremendous and effective supporter of public education for decades.
After the session, we had brunch and a keynote address by Katherine Stewart. As impressive as all of the speakers had been, she stole the show. Katherine has written three magnificent books about the Christian Nationalist attack on public schools and democracy; The Good News Club, The Power Worshipers and Money Lies and God. To research for these books, she has invaded the lion’s den and met Christian Nationalist advocates and supporters at their events. This courageous woman is known and disliked at these gatherings but she still goes.
Two points Katherine made in her talk were Christian Nationalism undermines not just public education but all democratic institutions. And the other point that caught my attention was the person you agree with 80% of the time is your 80% friend not your 20% enemy.
The next session I attended was named “Religious Nationalism, Education, and Democracy: A Conversation with Katherine Stewart.” In this session, the two salient points Katherine made that caught my attention were authoritarianism is not only marked by corruption; it is marked by incompetence and the attack on knowledge is an attack on Democracy. In an answer to my question about how can anyone think that opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) resonates as a politically astute move? She responded that the right rejects DEI because it rejects pluralism.
The conference wrapped up with an address by Leslie Fenwick, Dean Emerita and Professor Howard University School of Education. Early on she stated, “I am tired of the finger being waged at educators.” These finger waging people know nothing about education. Fenwick took graduate students to The Smithsonian National Museum for African American History and Culture. After touring the many exhibits, the students became angered. These were top students with many accolades including some who had been accepted as Rhodes Scholars. They were angered because they never learned much of this material in school.
Conclusion
This was my 8th NPE conference. It seems as if each conference tops the previous one. Quite naturally this conference was focused on the public education destruction going on in Texas and to some extent around the U.S.
My Every Conference Photo with Diane Ravitch
In the past, I have come home beyond exhausted because I was not wise enough to get in bed as early as possible while at the event. This time, I actually controlled myself and only came home tired but ready to roll the next day. I hope everyone who reads this post is inspired to go to the next NPE event.
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