By John Thompson

I twice supported Barack Obama for president. Throughout President Obama’s first term, I asked what we teachers might have done to provoke him so. Were his anti-teacher policies the avoidable result of teachers and unions being too slow to address conditions in Chicago schools?

By now, it is clear that teachers were in the wrong place at the wrong time. President Obama was searching for a “Sister Soldja,” a loyal Democrat to beat up in order to show how tough he could be – as he used the word “accountable” over and over.  We were doubly unlucky to be an easy target for the former legislator whose district included the “Gold Coast,” elite pro-business donors, at a time when test-driven reform was morphing into the “Billionaires’ Boys Club’s” corporate reform hypothesis.

Non-Education reporters should take note of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s non-mea culpa version of a mea culpa for driving the oxygen out of schools. This is the second of two posts on the basic background information that non-Education reporters need to understand the Duncan story. They should recall that, on the eve of the Obama administration, education was torn between two, mostly liberal and/or neo-liberal camps. The persons who had once used social science and liberal political institutions to improve schools and advance civil rights embraced the Bolder Broader Approach (BBA). While seeking classroom-based efforts to achieve equity and justice, the BBA drew upon generations of education research and history in affirming that school improvement needed to be a team effort.

Our former allies in advancing social justice formed the Education Equality Project (EEP).   They mostly were non-educators who basically took note of everything that education professionals had attempted, and did the opposite. Their hypothesis was that education schools, teachers unions, and local governance constituted the “status quo.” They borrowed the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove personalized politics of destruction, and used high-dollar public relations campaigns to paint teachers as the enemy of poor children of color. It supposedly was our “low expectations” that oppressed children. Destroy teachers’ political and professional power and the rest of the “status quo,” and “disruptive innovation” would supposedly arise, creating excellence for all.

Two major education figures signed the manifestos of both organizations, and one signer, Arne Duncan, became Obama’s Secretary of Education. That seemed symbolic of candidate Obama’s desire to split the difference between both camps; he had spoken admiringly of President Lincoln’s assemblage of an administration where diverse views were aired. His education transition team, for instance, included two esteemed education experts, Linda Darling Hammond and David Kirp, even though it was corporate reformers who seemed, overall, to hold the most sway.

Unfortunately, the administration was explicitly advised against the “Team of Rivals” approach.  In the Education Department, at least, corporate reformers were given complete control.

In a previous post, I explained how Arne Duncan increased high-stakes testing fourfold and fivefold. He also made it even more threatening by using flawed statistical models to hold each individual educator accountable for raising test scores.  The Hechinger Report’s Sarah Garland describes the administration as being deeply rooted in the Republican education reform tradition. She says that Obama “appears to be doubling down on the standardized testing that critics say was a misinterpretation of “A Nation at Risk,” the Reagan administration’s education manifesto. According to Garland, “the Republican-driven revolution is being driven home, as never before, by a Democratic president.”

Numerous Obama staffers have gone full circle, filling up the ranks of corporate reform “astroturf” think tanks and, as USDOE staffers, coercing states into adopting the “Billionaires Boys Club’s” agenda. As several left the administration, they returned to the fray – this time as leaders in overtly anti-union and anti-teacher political and legal campaigns. And, that leads to a sub-theme that should interest political reporters. Not only did Arne Duncan praise teacher-bashers like Michelle Rhee, and collaborate with Republicans like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, but he also opened the door for extremists like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Now, former Obama staffers like Russlyn Ali and Robert Gibbs are fronting for legal initiatives to spread the Scott Walker assault on due process throughout the nation.

Perhaps the Obama inner circle came into office with a disdain for teachers, unions and, perhaps, working stiffs in general. More likely, they were never emotionally attached to unions, blue collar issues, or public schooling. Their effort to “triangulate,” or please corporate powers while not driving off the Democratic base, inadvertently spun out of control.

Education and non-Education reporters need to anticipate the story of what happens to teachers unions if they prove incapable of protecting teachers and students from corporate reform, not to mention the President who they helped elect.

If teachers unions are defeated, the other public service unions will be next. Then, who will provide the organization, donations, and boots on the ground to defend the last of the social safety nets? Will the billionaires fight for civil rights, the minimum wage, job safety or health services for poor families? Will Arne Duncan and similar corporate reformers in the Obama administration be responsible for undermining the last best hope for a coalition for justice, in return for some shortterm political gains?

Image adapted from one by Kevin Dooley, Creative Commons license..