This is a stunning analysis of the relationship between labor unions and the Democratic Party.
It is a must-read.
Many in education have been baffled by the bipartisan consensus around Republican ideology. Micah Uetricht is not baffled. He says without hedging that “Democrats have swallowed the Right’s free market orthodoxy whole. Much of the party appears to have given up on education as a public project.”
Teachers unions, he writes, have been unable to articulate a coherent response to their abandonment.
That is, until last September, when the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike. He writes:
“The union has been unafraid to identify the education reform agenda pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his party nationally as an attempt to exacerbate inequalities within the education system, strip teachers of power and erode their standards of living, and chip away at public education as an institution, and to call such Democrats enemies. Rather than continuing an insider strategy that has netted so little for the rest of labor over the years, the CTU has entered into open opposition with the neoliberal wing of the party.”
This is an important development. And this is an essay you must read.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have, for years, wondered why it was that teachers unions continued to give in to the demands of Neoliberal Republicans and to continue to support Democrats as they insidiously slid toward the Neoliberal educational agenda. Its is inspiring that the CTU stood up and defined the fight on its own terms. I take solace in that.
However, the public policy debate around education is only one sphere of a larger social devolution to the right, precipitated in part by the Milton Freidman Chicago School of Economics, the rise of Ayn Rand’s “philosophy,” based on her rabid anti-socialist phobias, and the demonization of the left by a government controlled largely by wealthy corporate interests.
Reversing this trend may not be possible without the emergence of a powerful alternative to the two entrenched political parties, or the threat of wide civil unrest. After all, that was what drove Roosevelt to advocate for social welfare programs. It was the fear of a growing left, political necessity, not altruism.
In the meantime, isolated push-back by teachers’ unions offer inspiration, but it may not bring about true “reform.”
I agree that we need a “powerful alternative to the two entrenched political parties” … but I think that alternative may lie within the democratic party itself. I think it is time for unions to back only progressive democrats and if there ISN’T one running in a given district they should pour money into those districts where a true progressive IS running. I think that erosion of support for democrats AND republicans who back school privatization is a sign that many voters are catching on to what both parties are up to. The Progressive’s “Back to Work” budget isn’t a pale alternative to the Ryan budget: it assertively backs the kinds of initiatives we need to reduce poverty and provide more equal opportunities for all.
Wgersen, you have more faith in the Democratic party than I do, but I agree that we may be able to force some improvements for education in the ways you suggest. That said, its the structure of American capitalism, and the political structures that enable it, that has to change for things to improve substantially, in education and elsewhere.
Democrats have no motivation to change until and unless one or more viable third parties get power. Then either the Democrats will have to come back to the left, or phase out altogether. So long as we’re not willing to walk away from them, they have no reason to listen to us.
If it is at all possible to still work with the Democratic party, it would probably be through the Progressive Caucus. However, they have been oddly silent on education matters. I searched their website and could find nothing on education at all: http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/
That said, there are individual members of the caucus worth approaching to discuss concerns over education, privatization etc., such as WI Rep. Mark Pocan (who infiltrated ALEC and brought attention to their agenda to privatize public ed, when in he was a member of the WI state assembly), IL Rep. (former teacher) Jan Schakowsky and VT Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Question here about commomn core. I was just reading on the Illinois State Board of Ed. and this is an answer I found in the FAQs:What are the Common Core Standards?
The Common Core State Standards Initiative… This has been a state-led and driven initiative from the beginning….<—(this part is just funny) The Standards are (1) research and evidence based, (2) aligned with college and work expectations, (3)
rigorous, and (4) internationally benchmarked.
Is #1 true? What does number 4 mean exactly?
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”
Jim,
The Common Core is not evidence-based. It is faith-based. Read here: http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2010/07/common-core-school-standards-roll-without-supporting-evidence
It was not developed by the states. Most states adopted it with no idea what CC is.
“Internationally benchmarked” is in the eye of the beholder. It is meant to give credibility via rhetoric instead of field testing.
kind of what I thought…thank you for confirming. I have two battles to fight; Wisconsin where my 6 year old goes to Kindergarten and IL where I am employed.
I think we are far more likely to see “civil unrest” (as mentioned in the first comment) than a viable 3rd option or even a push back left in the Democratic Party. The Dems have absolutely no motivation to move back left at this time. The money and victories are coming from them moving right.
It’s long overdue for the major teacher unions to become more aggressive. Recall the MTA workers strike in NYC a few years ago. The city (Bloomberg) retracted virtually all of the give-backs and offered a decent raise to boot! Unfortunately the workers voted the offer down because a dissident group vying for control of the union convinced the workers to reject the proposal, effectively turning a victory into a loss for the union. Point is the strike forced Bloomberg to offer a better deal. The infuriating part to all of this was the image of Randi Weingarten standing on the dais supporting the striking workers and then claiming later on that the strike failed as evidence against using similar tactics by the UFT. She never acknowledged that the strike would’ve accomplished its goal if the dissident members vying for control hadn’t convinced the workers to reject the offer.
Michael, I am in complete agreement with you. Our national teachers’ unions have been an embarrassment to their membership. If they don’t become more aggressive, more confrontational, if they can’t offer a counterpoint to corporate “reform” they will become irrelevant. From the position of this NEA member, they better “get with the program,” or they will have no value to me.
I couldn’t have said it better Tom! I am appalled at the propaganda being published by NEA in support of the Common Core. APPALLED!
One still wonders WHY in education the current administration is working so assiduously against the interests of its traditional Democrat, union supporters. I assume that the “Chicago Way” is based on personal corruption, on political power leading to personal wealth, but I can’t seem to identify the paymasters for whom Obama and Duncan are dancing puppets nor how the money will be laundered and delivered to the President, his wife, and his secretary of Education. Perhaps stock in education companies.
The CTU certainly has the right vision for public schools, but progressive taxation to fund that vision is quite unlikely to be forthcoming. Perhaps the privatization process is designed solely to permit state Democrat administrations to avoid proposing more taxes, particularly when Obamacare will soon be taking more and more money out of the pockets of working people.
It will never happen that the teachers unions will join with the TEA party people, which is their natural home from the point of view of local control and individual responsibility, because Democrats generally reject the notion that virtue=prosperity. They reject the individual component of free will and free choice in the poverty of their natural constituency, the dependent and the low wage worker. The union mentality is screw the rich, when doing so won’t get them an improved economy, more jobs, and, as a by product, better education.
In spite of the luminous declaration of the CFT of their vision for education, I have to remain pleased by the continuing destruction of public education by the Democrats, because, as I have said before, it is the only way to destroy the power of the public sector unions, which in addition to being philosophically confused and self-contradictory, are illegitimate in essence, and are still 100% in favor of the expansion of government, whereas I believe in the essential necessity of cutting federal government immediately. That’s the true unity of interest between the current socialist administration, the Democrats in general, and teachers unions—increasing the areas of life in which government is involved. Rather, I support Rand Paul’s libertarianism more than I do anything on the Democrats agenda. Pity it has to come to that though.
“Power never takes a back step— only in the face of more power.”
Malcolm X
I was raised a Republican, so when I realized in many instances my socially moderate tendencies fit better with a Democratic agenda than a Republican, I was slow to see the shift to the right of the Democratic party. Now both parties seem to have sold their souls to the corporate god-head. They have done a masterful job of convincing the little guy that unions are the great Satan. People seem to have forgotten that unions played a defining role in obtaining decent wages for everyone, not just union workers. Destroying the unions will only depress everyone’s salaries and benefits even more. Sad.