By Lyndsey Layton, Peter Wallsten and Bill Turque
(From The Washington Post, September 11th, 2012)
For most of his first term, President Obama has managed to have it both ways on education reform.
He has received steady, if not effusive, support from politically potent teachers unions while promoting an agenda that is hugely unpopular with many educators, including evaluations that hold them accountable for student test scores.
But a strike by 26,000 public school teachers in Chicago that began Monday threatens to place Obama at odds with a critical segment of his political base in the final weeks of a campaign in which he has little margin for error. At the center of the dispute is his famously blunt former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), who is pushing aggressively for policies the president has championed: higher academic standards, longer school days and greater teacher accountability.
Obama has much to lose, and administration officials are working behind the scenes to end the conflict, which appeared headed into its third day. If Emanuel, who is closely associated with the president, is seen as knuckling under to union demands, critics could depict Obama as in thrall to public-sector employees who locked 350,000 children out of school.
Should Emanuel be perceived as the victor, the president could lose valuable ground with the most powerful forces in organized labor.
“It’s hard to extricate the White House from what’s happening in Chicago right now,” said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a political group that has aired ads in support of Obama’s agenda and, most recently, run radio spots in Chicago to pressure the union to go along with Emanuel’s policies.
Read the full post here.