Here’s the thing: When Sanders/Warren get up there and talk dirt about charter schools in order to endear themselves to union lobbyists, they are distinctly un-woke. They are painting over the messiness and ambiguities of public education to satisfy adults. They are turning their backs on a growing segment of the Democratic party that supports school choice. They are, as Chris Stewart says, genuflecting “to the public relations departments of America’s national teachers unions.”
They are proposing policies that will damage the futures of children who live in cities like Newark and Los Angeles and Chicago and Boston and Philadelphia.
This doesn’t seem very “progressive” to me, nor Democratic. In fact, it seems akin to the Trumpian “build that wall” canard that provokes applause from the unwoke.
We should be better than that.
Booker writes,
The Democratic Party is at its best when we lead with the conviction, above all else, to help people. We fall short of that when we race to embrace poll-tested positions that may help us avoid being yelled at on the internet by an unrepresentative few but don’t reflect the impossible choices many low-income families face.
We’re not at our best right now, union endorsements aside.
If not, there’s always 2024.