We Need to Defend Public Education at the Polls and Support Teachers’ Unions

Defeating reactionary forces in school board races at the bottom of your ballot should be one of your top priorities

By Jim Miller

Last fall, after Virginia turned to the right when the Republicans weaponized educational culture war issues, the vast majority of the mainstream media coverage reveled in the horserace analysis but never engaged in any deeper examination of how we got to a place where debates around a Toni Morrison novel, among other things, could swing the balance of power in a key political battleground.  

As I noted in this space then, the answer lies not just in the failure of the Democrats in that election or even the persistent drag of the never-ending pandemic, but also in the darker corners of the American right.  

Indeed, it was Steve Bannon who first signaled that the “the path to save the nation is very simple.  It’s going to go through the school boards.” And this assault has been funded by a wide array of astroturf groups frequently funded by big money from the Kochs and DeVoses to Turning Point USA and many others. Hence, rage at the school board is one-part angry white soccer mom and another part Koch brother.  

The result of this assault has been broader, however, than ginning up the right to take over school boards as it has played a big role in intensifying the national teacher shortage.  Doug Porter did an excellent job here at Words and Deeds a few weeks back outlining how the teacher shortage is more of a recruitment and retention problem than a shortage of actual humans who could do the work.  After pondering the roots of the crisis from pandemic pressures, mental health woes, low pay, lack of respect, the long-running neoliberal push toward privatization and union-busting, and current attacks on education by ideologically motivated culture warriors and anti-vax zealots, Porter wryly observes that, “having your profession targeted by bigots bearing threats and lies isn’t exactly encouraging for education as a career choice.”

Educators agree, as my son’s former teacher at Roosevelt Middle School, Francisco Garcia, observed in a column I wrote on the teacher shortage for the San Diego Union Tribune: 

• Young potential teachers are very aware of the political climate.  News feeds on their phone are incessantly providing articles about the politically-motivated policy shifts on what and how educators can teach in states like Florida and Texas.  The pedagogical nature of teaching and the growth mindset in the instructional process are considerably compromised when teachers have to precariously wade through a hazardous ideological minefield on any given instructional day, California’s not there yet, but to a young college graduate, this aspect of teaching is not at all enticing.  Emancipatory pedagogy diminishes while students' voices are quelled in order to satisfy the demands of reactionary sectors in our society that aggressively bark the loudest. 

• Because of the shortage of teachers nationwide, there is much talk about hiring people outside of the profession to teach.  Additionally, there appears to be widespread momentum toward watering down the requirements to become a teacher.  First of all, this is profoundly concerning because it deprofessionalizes the profession.  Would you want a lawyer who went through a watered-down law school program and passed a “quickie” bar exam to represent you in court? Secondly, the deprofessionalization of education could potentially open the door to “fringy” and conspiracy theory-centered charter schools and educators more concerned with advancing their beliefs than they are with promoting the pluralistic democratizing values that unify Americans.

Garcia is insightful here to link the war on public education and the de-professionalization of educators to the larger, ongoing attacks on American democracy.  Undermining public education has frequently been part of the project of not just the right but also of the billionaire boys’ club, some of whom identify as Democrats, as well as the Democrats for Education Reform crew who happily have union-bashed and promoted neoliberal corporate education reform wrapped up in civil rights rhetoric.  

As Emilia Gold and Nicholas Rabb, recently wrote in The Nation:

• Unfortunately, not just Republicans but also Democrats have been responsible for undermining the strength of teachers’ unions. It is time that Democrats commit to strengthening teachers’ unions, and labor unions generally, to combat the rising tide of divisive, far-right politics.

Attacks on teachers’ unions and educators from some Democratic quarters have, clearly, opened the door for the right to step in and try to finish the job on their own terms that have absolutely nothing to do with equity.  It should be obvious to any progressive observer paying attention that supporting this turn in our politics is not just wrong-headed; it is, at this juncture, politically dangerous.  

Thus, voting for school board candidates who robustly support public education and the rights and professional dignity of educators is crucially important.  Defeating reactionary forces in school board races at the bottom of your ballot should be one of your top priorities.  If you really want to save American democracy, it is essential to win these under-the-radar screen political battles.  

Save education for democracy.  

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Lead image: Snip of poster by Milwaukee public school teacher John Fleissner