The fact that Democrats cater to special interests, particularly big labor is the reality of the party today at both the state and national level. Hillary Clinton recently offered a perfect example of Democrats’ being under the thumb big labor when she declared her opposition to charter schools, despite supporting publicly financed but privately operated schools for nearly three decades.
In a stunning flip-flop, Clinton “suddenly gave voice to the baseless teachers union claim” that charter schools “have rigged the game to show better results than traditional public schools.” The New York Daily News,
“The unions, backing Clinton, see charters as the enemy because they educate more than 2 million children nationwide, largely with non-union staffs. In parroting the union line, Clinton goes to bat for the status quo rather than support the enhanced opportunities charters give children to escape underperforming schools.
“Aides say she looked at new evidence indicating that charters are cherry-picking smart kids and dumping difficult ones, none of which they produced. In fact, charters enroll kids via lottery.”
Washington State is no stranger to Democrats knuckling under to unions on charter schools. Just last month, the 36th District Democrats passed a “resolution” stating their support for the state Supreme Court’s ruling against charter schools. As Shift pointed out, the resolution serves as more proof of Democrats’ true priority: funding special interests rather than kids.
Perhaps the worst part of this particular Democrat obsession with big labor is that it is at the expense improving education for minority and disadvantaged children. As New York Daily News points out, it is simply horrendous that so much of the Democratic Party, the alleged bastion of “progressivism”, is abandoning black and Hispanic kids.
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