By Laurel Rosenhall
(From The Sacramento Bee, December 24th, 2010)
Across the nation Democrats have begun to split over education, with a growing chorus arguing the party must move away from its traditional allegiance with teachers unions in order to improve chronically low-performing schools.
In California, the divide likely will be magnified in the year ahead as a new political action committee lays ground here with a goal of backing Democrats who support education policies that unions generally oppose.
Gloria Romero, the former state senator from Los Angeles who lost her bid this year to become the state superintendent of schools, is heading the new California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform, a PAC that operates in 10 states. In New York, the group supported candidates who pushed for expansion of charter schools, whose teachers are typically not unionized. In Colorado, it backed those who wanted to rewrite teacher tenure laws.
Romero said trouble in the schools – 21 percent of California students drop out of high school, and the rate is even higher among Latinos and African Americans – is no longer an “elephant in the room.”
“It’s a donkey in the room,” Romero said. “It’s Democrats who have been tightly aligned with education’s special interests year after year, decade after decade, and we haven’t progressed. So we have to examine our conscience, our party, and really forge a new path forward.”
It’s not the first time Romero has fought the teachers unions. Union leaders backed Tom Torlakson, who won the race for state superintendent, while her funding came from EdVoice – a Sacramento firm that advocates for charter schools – and its network of wealthy entrepreneurs.
David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Association, said Romero’s new role doesn’t amount to much of a political threat.
“If her ideas were that popular with the voters, she would have been the next superintendent of public instruction,” Sanchez said. “Her ideas didn’t make the cut.”
L.A. mayor weighs in
But there are signs that teachers unions are losing the tight grip they’ve traditionally held on Democrats.
In a speech earlier this month, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat who got his start as a union organizer, blasted the L.A. teachers union for blocking changes in the schools.
Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor who fought the teachers union there over tenure and merit pay, is launching a national advocacy group to back politicians who can’t get union support because of their views on education.
“Being a Democrat myself, a lifelong Democrat who is committed to the Democratic party, we’ve got to bring our party along in this,” she said during a recent visit to Sacramento.
And earlier this year, California teachers unions suffered a rare defeat when the Legislature passed a set of bills, written by Romero, that they opposed. The laws give parents new clout to make changes in the lowest-performing schools, including the power to convert them to charters and dismiss teachers.
Many Democrats, including Torlakson, voted against the bills. But they passed with an unusual coalition of support from Republicans who prefer a free-market approach to education and Democrats who said they were looking out for the best interests of black and Latino children.
“It’s a people’s movement, in a way, from groups like NAACP saying ‘enough is enough,’ ” said Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP, which supported Romero’s bills.
“We’re all saying you have to do something about our young people here. You just can’t leave them hanging year after year.”
Taking a position against the unions was a switch for Huffman, a Democratic Party activist who worked for the CTA for 12 years and describes herself as a strong believer in labor rights.
“I’m not trying to destroy the union,” Huffman said. “But sometimes you have to make a choice in life and right now, the education of our young people is more important than protecting the union.”
Race to the Top
The backdrop for the shifting politics of education is the Obama administration, which has embraced many ideas that make unions bristle. Obama’s $4 billion Race to the Top program encourages states to expand charter schools and create data systems that tie teacher pay with student performance. His education secretary, Arne Duncan, was suggested by Democrats for Education Reform.
The group is allied with Rhee, the former Washington, D.C., chancellor, and her fiancé, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson – who became a darling of the national school reform movement when he turned Sacramento High into a nonunion charter school.
“I was elated when (Democrats for Education Reform) decided to come to California because we need to get Democrats in California mobilized,” said Johnson, who was “Mr. March” in a 2009 calendar of education activists the group put out.
Democrats for Education Reform started in New York in 2007 and has become a political force there with substantial backing from several hedge fund managers. The organization’s views reached the masses this fall with the release of “Waiting for ‘Superman,’ ” a documentary about the poor performance of American schools that features interviews with many of its members.
So far the group has few donors from California, a review of Federal Election Commission records shows. One exception is Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who contributed $5,000 to the organization in 2009.
Romero is busy raising money to get the group’s California chapter started this spring. Just last week, she said, she was in Silicon Valley meeting with potential donors during a luncheon organized by Powell Jobs. “This was a roomful of people saying, ‘Count me in,’ ” Romero said.
The growing anti-union movement among Democrats could make the next few years “a pretty gory battle” in the Capitol, said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley.
“The guy in the hot seat is going to be Jerry Brown,” Fuller said. “He’s going to have to mediate between these two camps that have opened up in his own party.”
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