Giving Compass' Take:

• Urban Institute discusses how now might be a good time for bipartisan public education reform, with equity, equality, and inclusion at the forefront.

• What can funders do outside the realm of policymaking to support the work of public education advocates? How can we take a spirit of cooperation into 2019?

• Beyond political compromise, here's why we also need data to achieve equity in education.

Right now, between election night and inauguration day, hundreds of new legislators and dozens of new governors and state officials are preparing to transform campaign promises into legislative action. This shift is always easier said than done. Candidates spend months — even years — sharpening rhetorical points, fortifying positions with simple two-sentence solutions, and bombarding opponents with attacks over the airwaves. How much safer it seems to sit in our own trenches and wait for the other side to surrender rather than to enter the space between and negotiate an end to the stalemate. How much easier it is to shout into the void than to build a bridge across it.

Building bridges is central to the nonpartisan identity of the Aspen Institute — connecting our mission, values, practice, and purpose. We create the conditions for individuals to cross safely the frontiers of their own ideologies so they can encounter, understand, and appreciate new ideas. While it has become common to see politics and policy as zero-sum games, our experience and data tells us this isn’t true. Defeat is not death and rarely are our opponents actually our enemies.

Nowhere is this work more important, true, and urgent than in public education. Regardless of who we are — parents or students, rich or poor, young or experienced, private entrepreneur or public servant — public education matters. If our young people are our greatest natural resource, then public education is our greatest national investment. It represents our national ideals of equity and opportunity.

Read the full article about why nonpartisan progress is possible in public education by Dan Porterfield at The Aspen Institute.