America’s Second-Largest Teachers Union Is Trying Not to Make 2016’s Mistake
The nation’s second-largest teachers union is getting ready for 2020. On Tuesday evening, the American Federation of Teachers rolled out its candidate endorsement process to approximately 30,000 members in a tele–town hall, its first major foray into the nascent Democratic-primary race. As outlined on a new website, the process for this presidential cycle will differ in some respects to the union’s previous approach. This year’s approach, which is more transparent and emphasizes internal democracy, indicates that the union intends to take its time before endorsing a candidate. That’s a change from 2015, when the AFT endorsed Hillary Clinton nearly a year before the Democratic National Convention officially crowned her the nominee. The move angered many on the left, who viewed it as a premature display of support for a candidate who ran to the right of her challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders. Clinton, for example, has long supported the charter-school movement, which the union says it opposes. Sanders’s views were murkier during his first primary run, but he’s since emerged as a consistently vocal supporter of the teachers’ walkout wave, which was spurred, in part, by the proliferation of charter schools.
With a plethora of Democrats running in this year’s primary race, AFT’s rank-and-file members are even likelier to split their support among the available options, and the union seems to anticipate that possibility. Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, told New York on Tuesday evening that the union’s endorsement would unfold as a “four-step process,” partly in response to earlier controversies; she spoke of “trust issues,” which arose from the union’s handling of its 2015 endorsement. “Some of it may be Russian bots, some of it may be from the Bernie camp, because our endorsement was earlier than what is typical,” she speculated.
This year, an official summary states, the first step will be to seek “input” from members, via polling and town halls. Candidates will then interact directly with members. “Members get engaged and get involved. We ensure that people see the candidate and have a candidate who will walk in the life CONTINUE READING: The American Federation of Teachers Is Gearing Up for 2020
Big Education Ape: Hey, Teachers’ Unions, Let’s Get This One Right – No Early Presidential Endorsements & Lots of Membership Engagement | gadflyonthewallblog - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/02/hey-teachers-unions-lets-get-this-one.html
