Before I drove to Pittsburgh on Saturday for the Public Education Forum 2020—where all of the leading Democrats running for President would explain live on MSNBC their plans for supporting public education—I considered what I hoped would happen at this day-long event. After all, not once in any of the televised Democratic candidate debates so far has even one question been asked about public education.

I went to Pittsburgh as an invited member of the audience, but before I left home, I wrote down the question that I would have posed to each candidate if I could have asked a question: “Please explain how, as President, you will change the narrative about closing or taking over or privatizing so-called ‘failing’ public schools and how you will build the public will for adequate investment to overcome the challenges for public schools in America’s poorest communities.”

What encouraged me all day…