Obama must stick to his guns on education
- Navarrette: Obama is engaging in election-year wooing of distraught teachers unions
- He says unions who backed Obama are put off by reforms that target teacher performance
- Obama pouring money into education funding, but some balky unions turn away
- Navarrette: Obama must stay focused, not compromise on reform to win midterm support
Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist, an NPR commentator and a regular contributor to CNN.com. Watch CNN's "Fix Our Schools" coverage all this week for concrete, unique solutions to the U.S. education crisis.
San Diego (CNN) -- It's back-to-school time, which means some in the media have gone back to asking: "What's wrong with our schools? And how can we fix it?"
But it's also an election year. That has President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan -- both of whom have shown themselves to be deeply informed about what's wrong with our schools and how to fix it -- trying to make peace with a powerful Democratic ally. Unfortunately, this ally also happens to be one of the things that's wrong with our schools: some of the teachers unions.
Here's the background: