An article in the Daily Beast asks the question that is the title of this post.
Another question: Where was President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker stripped away collective bargaining, and union members encircled the State Capitol in protest? Answer: absent.
They did, however, find time in March 2011 to fly to Miami to join Jeb Bush in celebrating a “turnaround school” whose staff had been replaced. (A month later, the same high school was listed by the state as a “failing school” slated for closure, but the national media had moved on.)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Democratic Party has no reason to support teachers, or public education, or unions.
In Ohio, the party literature NEVER asks if education is a concern…even though we have corrupt chartering and especially corrupt on-line learning.
“The Democratic Party has no reason to support teachers, or public education, or unions.”
Correct, because the teachers unions will endorse the Establishment candidate without polling the members and without any up-front demands no matter how neoliberal said candidate is. All for thirty pieces of silver … er, I mean “a seat at the table”.
I really believe Joe Schiavoni is the real deal. I agree with you both that the Dems have not gone out of their way to help us. There are a few exceptions: Rep. Theresa Fedor stands out as does Schiavoni. Both have met with OhioBATS on numerous occasions. Schiavoni has been fighting WITH us since SB5. His battle for the nomination is a rough one since Cordray does in fact seem to be pre-ordained by many.
Is Richard Cordray anti-public school and pro-privatization?
My fear would be Kucinich. Joe Schiavoni seems great. But even if Cordray is not as good, is there something inherently bad about him?
Cordray would be better than DeWine/Husted who were big ECOT enablers. Schiavoni is the BEST ed candidate. Biggest Cordray red flag for me is is “A” rating from the NRA.
I certainly hope Ohio voters force Cordray to go on record about his feelings about gun control. He should have to do so. It’s possible he has changed his mind since being an elected politician.
A huge component of the drive to privatize our centuries-old public school system is to drive a wedge and ultimately sever the bond between the Democratic party and teacher and other school staff unions, leaving them totally isolated, and eventually “small and weak enough to drown in a bathtub,” to quote Grover Norquist.
Major figures within the supposed party of the middle class and working class have chosen to go against the one force — the organized labor movement — the created the middle class, and that has always provided economic and other support to the working class. Now, labor unions, according to them, are the dreaded “status quo” standing in the way of “reform” and progress.
Huh?
During the 2014 election for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California — a close election were Tom Torlakson barely beat arch privatizer Marshall Tuck, but Tuck’s running again this year — Politico wrote an article about this:
https://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/union-power-california-superintendent-112279
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
POLITICO:
“(Tuck) also says flatly that the state Democratic Party is too beholden to the CTA, which has seven lobbyists in Sacramento and has spent about $170 million on political campaigns in California since 2000, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
” ‘The status quo does need to fundamentally change,’ Tuck said between bites of a turkey sandwich as his campaign van bounced through the rutted streets of Los Angeles.
“Tuck’s election would force that shift, pundits said.
” ‘If you’re a Democratic candidate in California, you don’t want to cross the teachers union,’ said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a public policy professor at the University of Southern California. ‘The message of a loss by Torlakson would be: Well, maybe you can.’
“The unions would still have allies, of course, as well as plenty of money and manpower. But they’d clearly be weakened, Jeffe said — and ‘in politics, perception is reality.’ A loss in California ‘could very well translate into a decrease in the influence of teachers unions in Democratic politics’ nationally,’ she said.
“Ben Austin, a longtime Democratic operative who now runs an education reform group and backs Tuck, served up a more colorful metaphor.
” ‘A lot of thinking (currently still pro-union) Democrats will wake up the morning after this election,’ he said, ‘and recognize that the emperor has no clothes.’
“Crossing the teachers unions
“Across the country, many Democrats have already made a declaration of independence from teachers unions.
“The list of powerful Democrats who have crossed the teachers unions is long and getting longer daily — and it starts at the top, with President Barack Obama; his secretary of education, Arne Duncan; and his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago. All have promoted policies that infuriate the unions, such as expanding the private management of public schools and insisting that teachers be evaluated in part by their students’ test scores.
“Those policies have now become so mainstream within the Democratic Party, especially within the younger generation of politicians, that teachers unions have found themselves with few options in many races. Union leaders can either sit on their hands — as they are largely doing in New York, unable to bring themselves to back Gov. Andrew Cuomo — or they can grit their teeth and work for Democratic candidates who espouse education policies they find profoundly wrongheaded.
“In New Jersey, for instance, the big teachers union recently endorsed Sen. Cory Booker for reelection, though he is one of the most ardent education reformers in the Democratic Party. Unlike most of his fellow Democrats, Booker even backs vouchers — public subsidies to help parents pay tuition at private and religious schools.
“Teachers unions have won a couple of big victories of late, most notably in New York City, where they helped boost old-style liberal Bill de Blasio to victory in a crowded Democratic mayoral primary. And national labor leaders such as Weingarten believe they’re steadily building public support for an agenda of more school funding, less standardized testing and more autonomy for teachers.
“But unions are also contending with declining membership, falling revenue and internal divisions. ‘You’re seeing a gradual erosion of union power,’ Latterman said.”
Some reporter should look into the following wikipedia claim because it sounds too good to be true and as we saw with Michelle Rhee, the too good to be true claims were actually bogus.
“In 2007, Tuck became the founding CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a groundbreaking collaboration between the Los Angeles Mayor’s office and the Los Angeles Unified School District to operate 17 struggling elementary, middle, and high schools serving about 15,000 students.[5] Under Tuck’s leadership, these schools raised four-year graduation rates by more than 60% and had the highest academic improvement among California’s school systems with more than 10,000 students.
No surprise. This is what I’ve been saying about the Democrats for years now. I believe it was 2012, Obama told Education Nation that collective bargaining for public workers like teachers is “problematic”.
Anyway, the article indicates that teachers may not go along with ending the strike again because it appears to be paid for by cuts in general services and Medicaid. I know it’s already gotten rough, but I’d like to see the teachers hold out for even better.
The Dimocraps are just as bought off as the Rethuglicans.
👏👏👏👏👏
How did you do that?
iPhone has emojis built into the keyboard.
Presidents nor secretary of Education cannot do anything related to this issue, it’s our responsibility to make the union stronger.
Absolutely. In Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren has been pretty supportive, but the Governor, the mayor of Boston, and Speaker of the House have all come out in favor of charter schools. The governor is a Republican; no shock there, but the other two are Democrats. The Democratic Party betrayed teachers long ago.I support those who support me.
Elizabeth Warren supports schoool choice. She’s no better.
We got her a bit turned around during Question 2, which would have eliminated the cap on charters. She came out against lifting the cap. Unfortunately, like many members of Congress, TFA pays for one of her staffers, who advises on education.
Some of them were too busy voting to gut Dodd Frank.
The Democrats are only the lesser of two evils. To paraphrase, It’s the donors stupid.
They’re for collective bargaining until anyone makes any demands. Then they’re against it.
Their support for collective bargaining is wholly theoretical. In an abstract way, as a CONCEPT…
I don’t know- does it matter? They’re almost completely irrelevant to teachers in West Virginia anyway. They’re well on their way to being completely irrelevant to public school families nationwide.
West Virginia is more the rule than the exception. They lost the entire Great Lakes region in 2010 and again in 2016 and they don’t seem to care. They seem to have written off most of the country. I’m not sure they even noticed.
The DNC is a sad, narcissistic joke of an organization. The GOP are diabolical.
Wrong they’re both diabolical. The Union decertification bill that just past in Florida was decided by one vote. The deciding vote was a Democrat who voted in favor of the bill giving the ammendmant the sole vote it needed to pass. Another Democrat didnt even bother to show up and vote. The biggest surprise was that four Republicans voted against the Union busting bill.
“A pox on both their houses” is not a political strategy.
Missing in action. Actually MIA since at least 1976. We can thank the Democratic Party, as much as Trump, for the Supreme Court we have which is about to turn the entire nation into Wisconsin. Always grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. Probably better for the teachers that the NDC stayed away from West Virginia.
Maybe it’s better for public schools to break with political parties. Public schools and public school teachers are much more popular than politicians.
Just make your case straight to the public. None of these politicians use public schools anyway and they’re lousy advocates for public schools even when they do show up.
Because there are no other parties than a party of elephant and a party of donkey.
There certainly are. One doesn’t have to vote for the lesser of two evils.
Interesting footnote, someone aptly called Democratic President Andrew Jackson a “jackass”, and he liked it, so he made it the symbol of the Democratic Party. (Jackson was the Trump of the 1830’s.) As the modern Democratic Party abandons unions and the entire working class to “triangulate” for wealthy donors, the donkey is revived as an appropriate symbol. (Republicans abandoned the working class long before the Democrats joined them in such greedy, selfish malfeasance.) Meanwhile, Fox News has been covering West Virginia in Faux News depth.
We agree to disagree again, Duane (I still love no matter what they say about you). As one who, as a college student, worked his butt off for John Anderson, I’ve slowly come to understand what the framers intended and American history has verified. When you distill our conundrum into “the lesser of two evils”, I think you confuse a parliamentary system, which we don’t have, with a binary system, which we do. Your argument holds with the former, not with the latter.
When the framers designed an electoral system that gave the candidate who could garner 50% plus 1 vote to represent all of a constituency, they specifically rejected the idea that political coalition building take place at the governing level. They had intimate knowledge of the British parliamentary system and build their rules of government to specifically reject that idea.
Under our system, the fight of small factions is supposed to take place within the party system, which is designed to aggregate disparate opinions into political parties or, more precisely, large factions. In our system, the fight for political positions takes place within parties AND between parties. While we are all aware of the failures of the Democratic Party with respect to education policy, we should also recognize that the only place to fight and make a change is WITHIN the party. That fight will never take place in the Republican Party.
If we, as some commentators on this blog do, insist on ideological purity, it mirrors Ninotchka’s famous, funny line about the Stalin purges: “The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.” It leads to a frustration that sounds good but will never be reformed or change.
I was ready to vote for Jill Stein last August until I took some time read the debates on the Constitution and Henry Adams’s histories. I realized I had forgotten the lessons they taught. That’s why I have committed to pointing out to my Democratic friends, local party leaders, and my U.S. Senator where I believe they are wrong and will continue to work to change their minds and see the light.
We can choose to change that actual world, or we can complain and try to fight a fight under rules that don’t exist in our system. Rather than “the lesser of two evils” we need to change one of those sides to reject their evils and, in the title of one of my favorite movies, Do the Right Thing.
GregB: what you say here ought to be taught in every high school.
The system is only binary because the thinking is. Instant run off (aka ranked-choice) voting would completely change that.
It’s relatively easy for states to change their voting method. Maine already did it. No reason the rest of us can’t. I suspect most people would prefer it if they knew about it, if for no other reason than it avoids putting people in the position of deciding between two candidates that they despise.
Of course the partisan hacks controlling the major parties will oppose it (just as they oppose third party candidates participation in the debates) but they are in a small minority (even though some of them are too stupid to realize it)
SDP, as much as I agree with you virtually all issues, I do have to take issue with many of the things you wrote here. First, the binary system does not exist because of how people think about it. It is a matter of pragmatic fact because that is how the system is set up.
Nothing is “relatively easy” when it comes to changing election law nor does the Maine system of ranked-choice voting. Under their system, the primary process remains intact. Therefore, in a general election the choice will be between nominees of the major parties plus an independents who qualify under their rules. It would not, for example, allow voters to vote a candidate who finished second or worse in a party primary. Their names could, however, be written in, which is not much different than the status quo.
The solution is to be engaged and risk frustration rather than sit back, wait for others to act in your name, and ensure frustration.
It’s only binary because of the voting method. The binary nature is actually NOT “baked in” as you imply.
The voting method can be changed. Maine is proof of that.
And the choice of voting method is very much due to current “binary thinking” — resignation to the status quo.
I would say that it is probably easier to change how each State votes than changing the major parties from within because more voters are already “unaffiliated” than registered Democrat or Republican and the unaffiliated are the ones most likely to support a change in the way voting happens.
If one is actually for “change”, one is willing to consider all possibilities, not just those that preserve the two party stranglehold.
I realize we are talking past each other and will close my side here.
The essential feature that makes the system “baked in”, as you call it, is the 50% +1 rule to win elections. Yes, one can win with a plurality, but the winner is still absolute. How would you change this given the systemic rules we have? The Maine example is interesting, but it is in a small, not very diverse state. And it has its own problems with reality.
For example, you do not address my comment about how the primary process sifts out choices one might prefer in a general election. And your assumption that an independent outside the two party system who might win is necessarily better assumes a whole lot. It could also elect an independent who is more extreme, like a neo Nazi. You assume that none of the other voters would vote that person as a 2nd choice. That is not an automatic assumption.
Maine is an interesting example. They elected an Independent senator, yet he, as in the case with Sanders, caucuses with the Democrats because he understands the 50% +1 rule. Another example of the difficulty in the “baked in” system.
I very much agree with your concluding paragraph, only we disagree on tactics. A few minutes ago I got off the phone with the campaign manager for my U.S. Senator to express my waning enthusiasm for the party because of their negligence to stand up for public education, how “stars” like Cory Booker undermine core party principles, and their inability to distinguish positions in abandoning Al Franken. He assured me he would let the senator know of my views. My question to you is: what are you doing to build coalitions to expand the possibilities of “consider[ing] all possibilities, not just those that preserve the two party stranglehold.”? I don’t mean that in an argumentative way, for I am sincerely interested in seeing something like that happen. If it does, I’ll be there. In the meantime, I’m focusing on reforming the Democratic Party with whatever my capabilities allow.
Both Parties better start worrying if Oklahoma teachers strike. Good Lord. Oklahoma is hardly a labor stronghold. They must be absolutely desperate.
What do people have to do to get these clowns to pay attention to public schools?
DRAG them, kicking and screaming, and INSIST they do their jobs.
DeVos looks at an exhibit at #SXSWEDU
They could close every public school in the country and these people would still be happily attending public education conferences, completely oblivious to actual public schools.
Irrelevant.
“the national media had moved on” – the corporate media had moved on. Fixed it for you.
Great question.
As I know I will get me head cut off by New ork City Public School Parent, I say this:
The DNC is NOWHERE to be found. Strikes are too plebian, too working class, and too pro-labor. The DNC is NOT interested as most demorcats in power are not. Thet are too busy in bed with Wall Street.
Get used to it!
Form other parties, support Bernie, and move on . . . Support heavily leftist candidates.
NYCPSP, please don’t attack Diane. She’s a our venerable host and generous. Save all your rants for me . . . .
https://giphy.com/gifs/batman-comics-oOK9AZGnf9b0c
Don’t get it . . .
Must be an American sensibility.
Don’t sweat too much to explain.
Neither do I Norwegian Filmmaker.
You can be such a FLERP sometimes, FLERP.
Norwegian Filmmaker,
While I am hesitant to interrupt the enlightening back and forth you and FLERP! are having, I want to say this:
There ARE Democrats in bed with Wall Street. Just get me started on Andrew Cuomo and you’ll see that I am not a knee-jerk defender of anyone with a D next to their name. On the other hand, it did make it ill to see Bernie Sanders sitting next to Cuomo and praising him when Cuomo came up with his “free college tuition”* (*note: many restrictions apply) plan. Really, Bernie? Why not just tweet support like you did with the WV teachers instead of showing up at what was a photo op to burnish Cuomo as being something other than in the pocket of hedge funders?
On the other hand, I find that you apply an “ideological purity” test only to some progressives and not others. For example, Bernie endorsed Tom Perriello for Governor of Virginia, who ran against the “state Democratic Party” endorsed candidate Ralph Northam.
But Perriello had been a huge DFER supporter and he got big money from the education reformers. Northam promised to continue the pro-public education policies of those “mainstream, sell-out” Democrats Tim Kaine and McAuliffe. Virginia is one of the few states left where support for privatization of public schools is weak, and the education reformers wanted to change that with their candidate Perriello.
So while you like to throw slogans, what the Democrats really need are people willing to talk honestly and thoughtfully about different trade offs because in politics, you never get 100% of what you want unless you are a dictator.
And when a progressive Democrat comes along — like Bill de Blasio — he is NOT going to be perfect. He (or she) is going to make mistakes. The right propaganda machine will spend millions to turn every mistake into a reason for voters to defeat the progressive candidate even if it means a right winger wins instead.
And the progressive left can help the right by bashing the ENTIRE Democratic party and convincing voters that any compromise by a candidate who is basically progressive means that person should be defeated because this compromise is simply more evidence that the entire Democratic party is just waiting to sell out workers and is corrupt and terrible.
Or the progressive left can offer smart and targeted criticism of the politicians who sell out while also supporting OTHER Democrats who do not and pointing out to voters that if they just elect MORE of the other kind of Democrats, like Russ Feingold, there might be some change.
Or you can just keep bashing the entire Democratic Party, making no distinctions between progressives, moderates and right wing sell-outs. But it is dishonest and simply adds to voter apathy and certainty that every Democrat should be defeated, even if a right winger takes their place.
NYCPSP,
I have always said that most of both people on both sides of the aisle are no good. I don’t subscribe to the idea that 100% of either party is bad, but if there is enough rot in the apple, there’s little point in eating any of the apple.
You have a LOT of time on your hands. Yes, I already know that no one gets 100% of anything in politics. That’s politics 101. But the question in my mind is how far left are the Democrats and Americans willing to go in order to get equity and dignity restored to the country? We can start with free higher education, nationalized healthcare that includes everything and mental health and dental services, housing laws that make rents affordable enough, and far more vacation time paid for workers, not to mention maternity leave, child care, and excellent, integrated public affordable transportation.
You get what you pay for, and what you’re willing to fight for.
Stop paying so much attention to me and start paying attention to your activism. Don’t you have some brownies to bake or a carburetor to repair?
Norwegian Filmmaker,
Your reply is incredibly revealing in so many ways:
“We can start with free higher education, nationalized healthcare that includes everything and mental health and dental services, housing laws that make rents affordable enough, and far more vacation time paid for workers, not to mention maternity leave, child care, and excellent, integrated public affordable transportation.”
We can START there??? Are you kidding me? I support all of that but I’m not a dictator and I’m not a 14 year old who thinks you just wave a wand and get what you want.
We should FIGHT for those. I notice you left out exactly how you fight. Apparently you think if you destroy the Democratic Party and elect more people like Trump we’ll get there. Wrong. You fight for it by CONVINCING people that it is worth fighting for. You do that by running candidates that convince people to vote for them.
You probably think Bernie Sanders still lost because of some deep state conspiracy. Wrong. He lost because he could not convince enough people to vote for him. There is nothing stopping Bernie or another candidate — maybe that DFER guy who Bernie loves — from running next time and convincing people to vote for him. That’s exactly what Barack Obama did and when he started, no one — including me — thought it was anything but a quixotic quest. Bernie COULD have done that but do you know what — he just didn’t have the support. Especially in the African-American communities that actually vote in primaries. So he lost, fair and square. And we had a pretty decent alternative who you treated as if she had spent her life doing nothing but lying to the American people because she didn’t care about anything but getting richer and more powerful. Actually, THAT describes the candidate who won.
So instead of making sexist remarks like “don’t you have some brownies to bake” or “don’t you have a carburetor to repair”, why don’t you go out and get some good progressive candidates to run.
And THEN — actually try to convince people to vote for them. Because in a democracy — which is what this country is — achieving
“free higher education, nationalized healthcare that includes everything and mental health and dental services, housing laws that make rents affordable enough, and far more vacation time paid for workers, not to mention maternity leave, child care, and excellent, integrated public affordable transportation” means convincing regular voters that is a good idea. We aren’t Russia. Electing Bernie would have done absolutely nothing without having enough Congressmen and Senators who wanted what he wanted.
Just like neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama got what they wanted. And in fact, their attempts just elected a lot of Republicans who ran on how “liberal” they were.
It is not the “what”. It is the HOW. And HOW you get all those things is where people start to turn away. Do you know who achieved this in US history? Lyndon Baines Johnson. Not charismatic. Not full of Bernie slogans. Just a truly flawed guy who got things done because he BELIEVED that this country should provide them to its citizens. And his reward was to be remembered as the great bomber who didn’t care how many innocent children he killed or how many Americans died.
Ignored. . . . .Hand is directly to the face. . . . mine to yours. Talk to the hand.
Until you stop telling people how they think, what they think, and what characterizes their motivations in their thoguht, I will not listen.
Grow up . . . .
I’ll still take you as my ally, however. You’re worth it. You got spunk.
NF,
lol! The way to ignore someone is not to reply! Otherwise, it defeats the purpose since you are obviously not ignoring me.
Yawn . . . .
Norwegian Filmmaker,
I agree with you. Thank you.
Thank YOU!
NF, I do hope you have taken notice of some facts. Bernie is an independent senator from Vermont because the state has a history of supporting independent candidates. That is largely due to the fact that it is a small state with a relatively homogenous population that supports retail, person-to-person politics.
I also hope you have taken notice of the fact that Bernie caucuses with the Democratic Party and ran for the nomination of that party, not as an independent or of some third party. Should he run again, he will run for the Democratic nomination. And I hope you realize that all elected “heavily leftist candidates” at the local, state, and federal levels are members of the Democratic Party. Yes, they may be in the minority of their own party, but in the party they are.
That’s how the U.S. system works. Take a look at the Republican Party. It was once filled with diverse voices across the spectrum. It has been taken over by an extremist fringe. No matter how disappointed many of us may be about the Democratic Party, it has not veered collectively to the ledge as has the Republican Party.
The American system is not parliamentary where 10% might get you into a governing coalition. Instead it takes hard work to change a party. Giving up and looking for saviors and others to do the work will not change our system.
GregB,
Thank you! Your replies were spot on and in my opinion, Norwegian Filmmaker and his non-stop posts attacking the ENTIRE Democratic party are exactly what helps the right wing defeat every single progressive candidate.
Was Bernie Sanders on the picket line? Or did he give the same tweet of support that dozens of Democrat politicians did?
Well-said!!
I left the Democrats years ago when I saw the evidence that they were the OTHER Wall St./War St./Corporate Party, especially since Bill Clinton and the “New [neoliberal] Democrats took over the party. They greedily take so much $$$ from their corporate donors that they cannot, and will not, stand up for workers. THIS is why Hillary lost, NOT due to “Russian meddling”. As the DNC continues to purge progressives, it’s time we progressives started a Progressive Peoples’ Party. Who needs Republicans when the Democrats are so corrupt?
Ed, could it be both?
Mmmmmm, could be!
It could be both, but that would require credible evidence, which has yet to be provided.
“Why Democrats Lost”
To Wall Street they were rushin’
Which made them lose to Trump
And not because some Russian
Had given him a bump
SDP, it is not an either-or proposition.
Based on the evidence I have seen so far (troll farm ads) i would not assign much weight to “Russian meddling”.
Might evidence of more significant Russian meddling be forthcoming?
Sure, at which point I will edit my poem appropriately to reflect that
And also cuz some Russian
Had given him a bump
Diane – I recommend Weapons of Math Destruction – it does talk about how micro targeting of political ads (and also teacher evaluations) are badly designed algorithms that are highly effective at what they are designed to do – but because of perversions that are necessary to make the coding work end up damaging society. Example: if most voters are irrelevant people who won’t change their vote, all politics will focus on targeting the minority that might change cheapest – and thus we lose a collective voice to this small micro targeted minority.
Bingo Ed!
Please list the “progressives” that have been purged by the Democratic party. I’d like to know.
I remember when there were a bunch of progressives in office who were handily defeated in various elections in which the Republicans convinced voters all the Dems were terrible. How many got voted out in 1980? In 1996? In 2010?
This is another example where the lawyers who are legislators and their wealthy patrons make all the decisions about “school reform” without ever consulting with any of the real professionals who work in the public school classrooms, i.e. THE TEACHERS! Obama was a law professor, Duncan never spent a day in a classroom. Came into education being appointed director of the Ariel Education Institute, a “school reform” organization that tried to reform one of the worst performing schools in the Chicago Public Schools. After it failed he and a partner opened a charter school to replace it. He later became Deputy Chief of Staff to the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools.
Neither had any experience in the actual work of teaching kids!
What makes these politicians think that they and their friends can fix the mess they have made of public education? We should allow them to “reform” public education only after they use their lawyer to perform surgery on themselves or their child.
The problem with all the ideas to “reform public education is that they are made by amateurs! It is time we turn the reformation and operation of our schools to the educational professionals, our teachers! No one should be an administrator or a school reformer who hasn’t had at least 15 years experience in the public school classrooms!
Politicians and billionaires are arrogant. They believe they can “reform” education without talking to the people that are actually doing it every day. They’ve made a gigantic mess!
Many if not most beliefs are based in arrogance.
Take the belief in standardized testing as a means to improve schools.
There has NEVER been evidence that that is the case.
It’s bogus and it always has been.
And Campbell’s law has been known about in one guise or another for a very long time.
This idea that some people are just now “discovering” (scientifically) what a mess they made of schools with testing and all the rest is just laughable. Their approach is anti-scientific.
I find it absolutely unconscionable that Governor Andrew Cuomo has appointed Merryl Tisch as vice chair of the State University of New York Board of Trustees. Tisch was absolutely despicable as chancellor of the Board of Regents, serving as chief cheerleader for the Endless Testing Regime, against parents opting out, for the terrible APPR rules/law, anti-public school teacher all the way and as pro-charter schools as anyone could possibly be.
Once again Governor Cuomo showed his true colors. The man is no friend of public education. Yet, Democrats still support this bum.
Andrew Cuomo follows where the money leads. He has blocked progressive legislation and uses the “Independent Democrats” in the State Senate–who are allied with reactionary Republicans–to make sure that no progressive legislation makes it to his desk.
A nation of teachers on strike might make ALL the politicians sit up and take notice.
Where were the national Democrats during the West Virginia teachers strike?
Oh, they were busy planning their summer fund raisers in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, where they and their constituents spend the summers.
It kooks to me like Democratic party officials have misunderestimated teachers.
Not surprising.
Some of the dumbest people on the planet are Democratic party officials.
Yes, them, along with highly-credentialed, “best and brightest,” so-called reformers who might have once had a cup of coffee in the classroom, yet insist on telling career teachers how to do their job.
Dumb, impervious to reason and honest debate, and vicious behind their fake smiles, jargon and cliches.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who joined striking federal contract workers at the end of 2017, asked labor leaders about potentially going to West Virginia, a source with direct knowledge told The Daily Beast.
But he was told to put off a trip until later.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I share everybody’s frustration with the Democratic party which has always been a dysfunctional party on Labor Issues . We tend to forget that the party of Northern Immigrant labor and Unions was also the party of Southern segregationist and RTW laws .
The over-ride of Truman’s veto of Taft Hartley had most Southern Democrats on board and these States rapidly adopted RTW laws.
The Republican Party is refreshing you know exactly where they stand . Take your worst nightmare go back to sleep, wake up again and it’s still there. The Democrats on the other hand are still dysfunctional . Now the split is along other lines ,best described by Thomas Frank in “Listen Liberal” .
But with all that said . Sanders is your pro labor populist anti corporate Democrat. It would not have served the interest of those workers to turn it into a tribal battle between Democrats and Republicans. There is a big difference between West Virginia and Wisconsin . In Wisconsin those workers never picked up their weapons .
In West Virginia with its long history of labor war . These workers came to do battle . I suspect withholding their labor was just the first round.
Exactly! Thank you Joel for adding some real facts to this.
Bernie Sanders didn’t stay away because the head of the Democratic Party ordered him to. He stayed away because the West Virginia teachers had successfully made this into a fight that was not about party and politics. I have no doubt many of those teachers are very proud Republicans still.
Can you imagine anything worse for the teachers than what Norwegian Filmmaker wants — Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer showing up on the picket lines so that THEY become the story.
Here is my real question: What West Virginia politicians were at the picket lines? What FUTURE West Virginia politicians were at the picket lines. Were any local West Virginia Dems out there — even the dogcatcher — to support the teachers? That’s how you build a party. With the Democrats who live there – not Dems who fly in for a photo op.
Instead of bashing the Democratic Party, we need to fight so that the Democrats who are progressive win primaries. In fact, they HAVE won primaries, but the left has so successfully helped the far right turn “Democrat” into a synonym for “corrupt” that those progressives lose.
And case study #1 is Russ Feingold being defeated by one of the most right wing anti-labor Senators, Ron Johnson.
And that was ALL about the success of the left in helping the right in their characterization of EVERY Democratic — whether progressive or not — as a corrupt politician who was planning to sell out their interests to Wall Street billionaires as soon as he got to DC. Just look at this propaganda. More fodder for the voters in Wisconsin so that next time whatever progressive Dem runs, people like Norwegian Filmmaker can remind them that the Dems abandoned labor in West Virginia because they all hate unions and are just faking support to get their vote. Defeat Feingold! He’s a fake who will sell you out because he has a D. next to his name. Just look how the democrats didn’t support teachers and look at how that proves that they are all sell outs, from Russ Feingold to your local guy running for city council. THAT is the kind of propaganda Norwegian Filmmaker is promoting. He doesn’t post criticism of a single Democrat without a sweeping attack on the entire Democratic Party as selling out. And that is not just wrong, but exactly what the right wing wants. When he posts non-stop bashing the entire Democratic party to get people to hate everyone with a D next to their name regardless of how progressive they are, I almost believe he is a good Russia troll. But probably he just helps them for free.
I will go with your notion that one should fight for the truly progressive democrats to be voted in and those who are not to be flushed down the toilet.
But be careful about how you choose to define “progressive”. Yes, I know, I know, nothing is perfect. But everything is a matter of degree and magnitude.
NYCPSP,
I never said or implied that the Chuck and Nancy show should have made it to the strikes in WV. In fact, I said the opposite, if you’re literate: To not expect the DNC to show up for things like this because it’s against their corporate interests and sponsors.
Please consider stating facts about what other people say and not making up some childish rant that revolves around your fantasies. Fantasies are perfectly fine as long as you keep them to yourself and perhaps to a psychoanalyst.
Listen, you can keep your Democrats, but, as you said, it’s critical to switch out the old establishment and pump in some new blood. Good thinking on your behalf. I’m impressed!
“In fact, I said the opposite, if you’re literate: To not expect the DNC to show up for things like this because it’s against their corporate interests and sponsors.”
So if NYCPSP writes:
“I don’t expect Bernie Sanders to show up for things like helping West Virginia teachers because it is against his DFER and pro-charter interests and sponsors.”
That statement will never be criticized by you because “I never said or implied that the Bernie Sanders show should have made it to the strikes in WV.”
Did I get that right? You think it’s fine to make sweeping attacks on another candidate and then claim that I wasn’t saying what I was obviously saying?
You wrote a sentence in which you very clearly implied that the DNC did not support the WV teachers because their corporate interests and sponsors did not allow them to do so. I wrote a sentence in which I clearly implied that Bernie Sanders did not support the WV teachers because his DFER and pro-charter supporters did not allow him to do so. And both of those statements are worthy of criticism. Both those statements are the kind of hyperbole attacks that are worthy of a Russian troll and that no one who REALLY wanted to make this country more progressive would write unless his main objective was destroying the entire Democratic Party and that was far more important to him than actually achieving any progressive goals.
And that’s what I think of your posts. Given a choice of helping to elect more progressive Dems, or convincing Americans that the Dems are all evil and terrible, you always choose the second. Are you sure you aren’t a troll?
This exactly exposes why the old guard needs to be replaced. They completely tried to be like the Republican party and courted big money, “buying in” to all the nonsense in order to land large contributions. All it cost was the devastation of unions, the middle class way of life and a horrible effect on the education and futures of multiple generations of our children. Here’s to the hope that millenials will vote and help lead us to a fairer and better future.
The question we need to ask is not whether the Democratic Party cares about working teachers, but whether the leadership of NEA and AFT at the national, state and local level care about working teachers. The WV strike was organized by teachers who had to ignore labor ‘leaders’ calls to settle for even less money.