Teachers unions' alliance with Democratic Party frays
Public efforts toward school reform have some Democrats questioning the party's support of guarantees that school districts have made to teachers for decades.
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 Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, says parent-trigger laws actually gave power to for-profit organizations, not parents and teachers. (Ben Gabbe / Getty Images/ September 3, 2012) |
By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Teachers unions have been the Democratic Party's foot soldiers for more than half a century, providing not only generous financial backing but an army of volunteers in return for support of their entrenched power in the nation's public schools.
But this relationship is fraying, and the deterioration was evident Monday as Democrats gathered here for their national convention.
A handful of teachers and parents, carrying large inflated pencils, picketed a screening of "Won't Back Down," a movie to be released this month starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as mothers, one a teacher, who try to take over a failing inner-city school.
The plot is ripped from the headlines: California has the first "parent trigger" law in the nation, which allows parents to petition for sweeping changes to improve low-performing
