Thompson: "Reform" Could Hurt Obama Re-Election Chances

Twenty-five years ago, the New Deal safety net, and the Democratic coalition that it spawned, were aging.  School reform was just one of the neoliberal efforts to update federal policy for the 21st century.  Even then, observes William Galston in the New Republic , Americans believed that the federal government wasted 38 cents of every dollar. Now we believe that  51 cents is wasted, and that is the highest estimate ever recorded.  Since voters are less skeptical about state and local government, federal school reform never was risk-free.  But it created an opportunity for progressives to sound tough-minded, and to use the word "accountability" over and over.  Data-driven "reform" also won the good will of corporate donors.  And it could have helped swing Independents too - had it worked.  Galston says that President Obama now faces a double threat, having alienated his base at a time when "the ideological playing-field heading into 2012 is tilted against Democrats." In my recurring nightmare, teachers in swing states end up being responsible for the President Obama's reelection defeat.  The demonization of teachers could undercut our turnout in swing states like Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio.  That wouldn't be entirely unreasonable.  After all, it was Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, who opened the Pandora's Box of government-bashing with his kinder, gentler version of blaming teachers for the sins of society.-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.

Comments

[zoniedude]

Obama has already lost me, and I provided money and support in the 2008 primary to Obama. I'm pretty much going to sit out the 2012 election for President if Arne Duncan is still Secretary of Education and I won't vote for Obama unless Linda Darling-Hammond replaces Duncan. Simple message: I am so blindingly furious with Duncan/Obama I don't care about anything else: fool me once ....

[Mary]

Lost me, too, and I've told "Organizing for America" that, everytime they've called. I donated thousands last time (I went without upper molars on the left side. Took me 3 months to save up for a denture, after we "won" the election).

I realize I'm not going to be able to hold my nose and vote for the destruction of my grandchildren's public education heritage.

Somebody who can remorselessly lie like this isn't who I thought he was, anyway.