The Democratic Party and Education: A Case Study of Alienating the Base

[yurbud]

It's tough to cut this down to just four paragraphs.

Teachers are a core constituency of the Democratic Party, but the party has largely gone along with the Wall Street agenda of bashing teachers unions and trying to privatize public education.

If you want people to enthusiastically fight for your party, you have to respect and fight for them, not throw them to the Wall Street wolves when they snap their fingers.

I teach college and my wife teaches elementary school. Democrats are more generous with money, but they do nothing to obstruct and most often support the privatization movement. We are stuck because Republicans won't even spend the money.

But do you donate money and pound the pavement to support candidates who are actively destroying your profession and even the quality of public education because they throw a few more bucks your way?

Or do you vote for their candidates but feel like a fucking idiot because you don't know what else to do.

The Democrats probably have about two years to get their house in order. Before all but the wealthiest bolt. They better get started now.

And this issue would be a good place to do it.

Back in 1983, the Reagan Administration published A Nation at Risk, a poorly written report condemning public education. It was the opening salvo in the relentless attack on public education and on the teaching profession.

The administration of Bush the First commissioned Sandia laboratories to gather statistical data which they believed would support the conclusions of A Nation at Risk. Contrary to the expectations of the administration, the Sandia Report actually found that public education was performing quite well.

What was the Democratic response? Did the Democrats come to the defense of educators and point out that A Nation at Risk was pure propaganda? Did they use the Sandia Report counter the attacks on public education? These of course are rhetorical questions. You know the answer. The Democrats basically accepted the Reagan/Bush premise that American education was failing and joined in the trashing of teachers.

***

The teacher unions backed Barack Obama in both the 2008 and 2012 general elections. In return we got Race to the Top and Arne Duncan. Duncan’s policies were not successful when he led the Chicago school system, but that didn’t prevent President Obama from hiring him as Secretary of Education. One would think that the President would have learned from Bush’s appointment of Rod Paige and would have been wary of alleged education “miracles”. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Duncan, of course, gained further notoriety when he stated that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans”. Disaster capitalism at its finest.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/27/1603786/-The-Democratic-Party-and-Education-A-Case-Study-of-Alienating-the-Base

[northoftheborder]

1. Have long been unhappy with Dem. attitudes toward teachers and professional educators

Public education was not discussed in the past election, other than the issue of higher education costs.

Arne Duncan was just Bush's policy continued----and even worse.

[TomCADem]

3. Well, Will See if Trump Does Better, But He Seems To Really Like Private Education...

...perhaps education and teachers will improve under Trump, and if he is successful in improving educational outcomes, then maybe this is not a bad thing.

I have my doubts, since Trump's education pick has been hostile toward public education, but like you mentioned, perhaps educators are supportive of his "reform" efforts.

[yurbud]

4. It is very unlikely Trump or Republicans will do anything positive. My purpose in posting this...

was so the DEMOCRATIC party would get their shit together and serve the people who vote for them, and not just in ways and to degrees that Wall Street approves of and profits from.

[yurbud]

5. is it possible to criticize the Democratic Party & NOT be accused of backing Trump?

While I disagree with no criticizing Dems during general election campaign rule, it is at least understandable then.

If DU stays in that mode the rest of the time, this is going to become a very quiet place.

[TomCADem]

8. I Read Your Post As Explaining Why Some Teachers Chose Trump...

...over Clinton, since elections are ultimately a choice between alternatives. So, if teachers are choosing to vote for Trump over Clinton based on education policies, I do not see how this cannot be seen as a determination that Trump's policies would be better.

[yurbud]

9. is it possible that a greater difference between education policies like Dems OPPOSING privatization

of public education instead of supporting it might make the choice clearer?

or might overwhelm disagreement with our candidate on some other issue?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. This country is so controlled by big money interests.

Even many Democrats go along with it because it takes money to win elections. The system is indeed "rigged" in that sense.

Rich people can send their kids to private schools, so many of them don't care if the public ones decline.

I can't find the link now, but there was a study a few years ago (either at Stanford or Princeton) that examined the voting records of representatives and compared them to the beliefs of people of different economic groups. The sad part is that even the Democratic reps were more aligned with the desires of the wealthy (and middle class) over the poor. It actually showed a "negative correlation" between the poor and how Democratic representatives voted. Republicans were even worse that way, as expected, so at least Democrats tended to be favorable on a comparative basis.

I think there's a large number of poor people in this country who don't even bother voting anymore. I've met some of them.

[yurbud]

7. there have been a couple of studies like that. Maybe the success of Bernie and perversely,

the success of Trump will change that correlation.