A Party Divided: Why Education Is A Wedge Issue For Democrats
California’s two candidates for state superintendent this past November didn’t agree on much when it came to education. Tom Torlakson, a former teacher, wanted to make school funding more equitable and support teachers. Marshall Tuck, a former charter school executive, wanted to increase the number of charter schools and tie teacher evaluations to test scores. Torlakson’s campaign was primarily bankrolled by teachers unions. Tuck’s was funded by out-of-state benefactors like Michael Bloomberg and Alice Walton, the daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. These outside parties spent a combined $25 million—three times the amount spent on California’s gubernatorial race—filling the airwaves with attack ads. The race had all the hallmarks of the divisive, partisan competitions that were so common in the 2014 midterms. Except for one thing: Torlakson and Tuck are both Democrats.
The California state superintendent election exemplified a nascent divide among Democrats over education that is poised to play a significant role in the Democratic outlook in 2016 and beyond. Although much has been made of the heated debate between left-wing populists and moderate centrists in the party over economic policy, this educational divide, which pits the Obama administration against grassroots Democratic advocates and self-proclaimed education “reformers” against teachers unions, has been largely overlooked. With Congress set to rewriteNo Child Left Behind, President George W. Bush’s signature education initiative, the increasingly urgent debate over how to address the racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps in schools is becoming a wedge issue for Democrats.
President Obama’s appointment of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proved divisive within the Democratic Party.
Origins of the Divide
The divisions in the Democratic Party over education policy can be traced back to the late 1980s, when Polly Williams, a black Democrat representing urban Milwaukee in the Wisconsin State Assembly, sponsored legislation creating a school voucher program that allowed low-income Milwaukee students to use state funding to attend private schools. Williams’s embrace of what was originally a conservative idea prompted many other Democrats, concerned with the state of urban public schools, to follow suit.
This was significant, according to Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, because it created a rift between two key Democratic constituencies: urban blacks, who wanted better public schools, and teachers unions, who opposed charter schools and school vouchers. “African-Americans, of course, are a very important constituency in the Democratic Party, and yet so are teachers unions,” Loveless told the HPR. “In that particular case, those two important constituencies were diametrically opposed.”
The true emergence of education as a wedge issue for Democrats came in the 2000s, with the entrance of Wall Street and Silicon Valley billionaires into the education policy debate. Many of them saw education as a business in need of innovation and competition, and they began giving large sums of money to organizations and Democratic candidates that supported charter schools. Some of these donors, like Bill Gates and Eli Broad, had historically given to Democrats, but many were much more conservative, according to Robin Hiller, the executive director of The Network for Public Education, an education advocacy organization.
Hiller explained to the HPR that some of the policies the reform candidates support, like closing schools in low-income areas, may even seem to go against to Democratic principles. “The only thing that makes sense is that there are people giving to candidates in the Democratic Party … that support privatization, that support union-busting, and the attacks on teachers. And so, if you’re getting all your money from those people, you have to go along with what they say.” Loveless disagreed, arguing that the Democratic reformers aren’t beholden to whims of their donors, but are “acting out of moral outrage, and out of what are traditional impulses in the Democratic party, so they don’t see themselves as privatizers.” However, even if these candidates are acting on principle, they still depend on wealthy donors who expect them to pursue specific policies in return for their support.
Loveless said the emergence of these hedge fund billionaires from both sides of the aisle in educational policy prompted a backlash from teachers, who felt “blamed for the failures of urban education.” Left-wing education activists were outraged that wealthy donors who were newcomers to education policy were pushing ideas that were anathema to their policy priorities. Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Susan Johnson told the HPR, “The union reformers, who actually have been at work doing a lot of educational change in some places in very far-reaching ways for the last 15 or 20 years, were very angry that people who had really very little experience in education and few credentials and little training were starting to say, ‘Here are the answers for education.’”
President Versus Party
The Obama administration has used federal funding as an incentive for states to adopt policies, such as encouraging the growth of charter schools and tying teacher evaluations to test scores, that are championed by the new reformers but opposed by public education activists. In urban centers like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Newark, strong grassroots movements, consisting primarily of Democratic constituencies, have emerged to oppose these policies, according to Jeff Bryant, a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal advocacy group. “These A Party Divided: Why Education Is A Wedge Issue For Democrats » Harvard Political Review:
