The past two decades have been rough times for the two big teachers’ unions. Republicans have demonized them. The Obama administration courted their support but did little to help them as they were attacked by the right in Republican state houses and the Courts. Duncan gleefully promoted the misguided use of test scores to evaluate teachers, despite repeated warnings by eminent researchers that the methodology was flawed. In fact, eligibility for states to compete to get more than $4 billion in Race to the Top funding was contingent on states enacting laws to do exactly that. “Value-added measurement” flopped; it was not only a costly failure but it was enormously demoralizing to teachers. When the Los Angeles Times and the New York Post published the VAM scores of teachers, Duncan applauded them.
As a candidate, Joe Biden made clear that he’s not only pro-teacher, he’s a union man. Whether or not either will be chosen, the names of the leaders of the NEA and AFT have been floated as possible choices for Secretary of Education. This would have been unthinkable at any time in the past 20 years.
Politico suggests that the Biden administration heralds a new day for the unions. Certainly they worked hard for his election. He is listening to the unions in a way that Obama never did. The pro-charter Democrats for Education Reform is not happy with this development.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/18/biden-obama-teachers-union-447957
The president-elect benefits from witnessing the union blowback against Obama, who enraged educators when he publicly supported the firing of teachers at an underperforming Rhode Island school in 2010. The National Education Association — Jill Biden’s union — even called on Obama’s first Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign amid fights over academic standards, public charter schools and testing, though tension faded when Obama in 2015 signed bipartisan legislation to overhaul No Child Left Behind.
By contrast, Biden is starting off with a plan that his wife, while pointing to herself, likes to say is “teacher-approved.” He has pledged to nominate a former teacher as his education secretary and told union members, “You will never find in American history a president who is more teacher-centric and more supportive of teachers than me.”
But within the Democratic party, the spectrum of ideology on education issues is far more complex than “pro-teacher.”
Biden will need the support of teachers and Congress as he tries to meet his goal of safely reopening most schools in the first days of his administration. But he will also need to navigate sharp divisions that remain within theDemocratic party on charter schools and student assessments — both flashpoints during the Obama administration as well.
The president-elect has been critical of charter schools. And the Democratic Party platform — written with input from teachers unions — argues against education reforms that hinge on standardized test scores, stating that high-stakes testing doesn’t improve outcomes enough and can lead to discrimination.
But it’s an open and pressing question whether Biden’s education secretary will waive federal standardized testing requirements this spring for K-12 schools for a second year or to carry on, despite the pandemic. Teachers unions say it isn’t the time, but a host of education and civil rights groups say statewide testing will be important to gauge how much students have fallen behind during the pandemic…
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, said she does not expect the Biden administration to recycle the education policies of the Obama years.
Biden has called for tripling federal spending on low-income school districts, boosting funding for special education, increasing teacher salaries, helping states establish universal preschool and modernizing school buildings. His education plan also calls for creating more community schools, with expanded “wraparound” support for students — a big priority for unions.
“The Biden administration is going to support public schools, which means not only turning away from the policies of Betsy DeVos — that’s a given — but also turning away from Race to the Top,” she told POLITICO before the election.“It’s going to be very different.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dum spiro, spero.
“But he will also need to navigate sharp divisions that remain within the Democratic party on charter schools and student assessments — both flashpoints during the Obama administration as well.”
“Charter schools and student assessments”
Add “vouchers” and Politico is correct- that’s the entirety of “ed reform”.
So ed reformers offer ONLY this to public schools and public school students- assessments. Why would that be attractive to public school students, families or supporters? Why isn’t there any effort to offer anything positive to students and families in public schools?
Should we have a US Department of Education that offers nothing but testing to the 90% of students who attend public schools? Because that’s what we’ll get if we hire an ed reformer.
I hope they get away from the competitive grant programs. Public school students are always the designated losers in these grant competitions because ed reform has an ideological bias towards private contractors.
It’s not fair to students in public schools to allow ed reformers preference for charters and vouchers to drive funding.
an ongoing — and painfully growing — reality: “ed reform has an ideological bias towards private contractors.”
We’ll see if Biden allows anyone from outside the ed reform echo chamber inside the room. It would be nice to have a President who supports public school students, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Twenty years of lockstep following of Jeb Bush’s recipe for US education will be hard to dislodge.
The Secretary of Education represents the views of the president, and “symbolic actions” are crucial, for example, giving states the option to waive required standardized testing coupled w/ “suggesting” diagnostic testing and reversing many of the DeVos policies… remember, states set educational policies, Obama aggressively eroded state authority through Race to the Top and using “Dear Colleague” letters to threaten states.
Community Colleges, a focus of “Dr” Jill Biden, may be at the top of the agenda .. “education policy” changes that require $$ require Congressional support, requires skillful negotiations… let’s see who emerges in Congress as Ed committee Chair’s .. don’t expect major changes early.. legislation is an incremental process
Any of the four remaining candidates to lead the DOE would be far better than anything teachers have faced in the past twelve years. They all have a better understanding of public education, and they have worked in public schools. One of them is educational researcher in higher education with public school experience as well.
Biden’s choices to lead the DOE indicate he is interested in change. It remains to be seen whether change is possible, but he is the first president-elect in many years that openly supports unions.
Educators have been saddled with terrible leadership at the Department of Education for 20 years.
Which trickles down to terrible leadership at the local level.
Oh, yes, & I noticed that Wm. Bennett was discussed (unfavorably, as deserved) on an earlier post. I had always thought him the worst Ed. Sec. prior to Arne. (Although DeVIL is extremely bad, I still think Arne was the worst. We expected some love from the Obama Admin., & we got…Arne. {&, unfortunately, he won’t leave our schools & kids alone}.)
I’ll never forget when W.B. came to Chicago, held a press conference at one of the swankiest hotels downtown, pointed at the cameras, & loudly declared, “Chicago has the WORST schools in the nation!”
then walked away. Immediately after his making that statement, I thought, “&, yes, as Sec. of Ed., what are you gonna do about it?”
Nothing, of course. I wondered what we were paying him for, &, later, what he did w/all that time he should have been working as, well, Sec. of Ed. Oh, that’s right…he spent a lot of time in Vegas & lost all his money.
Furthermore, it was esp. galling that he put out a book (“edited” work from Aesop & others–which, to me, means “copped.” I can’t remember if all the authors were long dead, meaning no royalties to be paid, no copyright infringement) to pay off his gambling debts or just to have some loot (although he surely has a swell gov’t. pension, courtesy of us). At school, our colleague, who was running detentions, had actually bought this book (oh, did she hear from the rest of us!!), & she would read it to the kids. Ironically titled, The Book of Virtues, something W.B. knows nothing about.
Democrats for Education Reform is not a group of Democrats. Parent Revolution is not a group of parents. Why does everyone in the press think there is a split in the Democratic Party when there isn’t? These astroturf groups are fake. It’s not teachers unions versus the world. It’s the working community versus Wall Street. The Obama administration chose to flip his middle finger at the 99% in favor of Wall Street. Then he hopped on one of Reed Hastings’ yachts and sailed away. Hopefully, the Biden administration will do the opposite and bring not just teachers and teachers unions in from the cold but everyone else along with us.
Good points. It infuriates me whenever the media presents the two sides as “teachers unions” versus “parents who want good public schools” or “this group of smart people who only care about having good public schools”. Which is pretty much all the time.
It should be “parents and teachers who want well-funded public schools” versus “adults who are funded by billionaires who want to privatize public schools”