Teacher’s Unions in Tension With Democrats in Charlotte | FDL News Desk

Teacher’s Unions in Tension With Democrats in Charlotte | FDL News Desk:

Teacher’s Unions in Tension With Democrats in Charlotte

by David Dayen

Teacher in classroom with students (photo: Temari 09 / flickr)

The Democratic platform on education includes the passage, “We Democrats honor our nation’s teachers, who do a heroic job for their students every day. If we want high-quality education for all our kids, we must listen to the people who are on the front lines.”
However, it’s also perhaps the first education platform plank that tentatively dips its toe in the water of using student evaluation as part of the teacher selection process. It’s worded very gingerly: “We also believe in carefully crafted evaluation systems that give struggling teachers a chance to succeed and protect due process if another teacher has to be put in the classroom.”
This dichotomy makes sense if you understand two things. First, teachers make up a substantial portion of the delegates in Charlotte this week. Second, the Obama Administration is committed to education reforms that really stand in contrast to the goals of most teacher’s unions. They have worked around this tension for four