The Assault on Teachers’ Unions
By Richard D. Kahlenberg
Teachers’ unions are under unprecedented bipartisan attack. The
drumbeat is relentless, from governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to the film
directors of Waiting for “Superman” and The Lottery; from new lobbying groups
like Michelle
Rhee’s StudentsFirst and Wall Street’s Democrats for Education Reform to
political columnists such as Jonathan Alter and George Will; from new books
like political scientist Terry Moe’s Special Interest and entrepreneurial
writer Steven Brill’s Class Warfare to even, at times, members of the Obama
administration. The consistent message is that teachers’ unions are the central impediment to educational
progress in the United States. Part of the assault is unsurprising given its
partisan origins. Republicans have long been critical, going back to at least
1996, when presidential candidate Bob Dole scolded teachers’ unions: “If
education were a war, you would be losing it. If it were a business, you would
be driving it into bankruptcy. If it were a patient, it would be dying.” If
you’re a Republican who wants to win elections, going after teachers’ unions
makes parochial sense.
According to Terry Moe, the National Education
Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) gave 95 percent
of their contributions to Democrats in federal elections between 1989 and 2010.1 The nakedly partisan nature of
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attack on public sector collective bargaining
was exposed when he exempted from his legislation two unions that supported him
politically: one representing police officers and the other
representing firefighters. What’s new and particularly disturbing is that
partisan Republicans are now joined by many liberals and Democrats in attacking
teachers’ unions.
Read the
entire piece at: http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter1112/Kahlenberg.pdf
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