Time reports that D.C.'s controversial schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, who self-identifies as a Democrat, admits she would have voted for John McCain had she not been talked out of it by a close friend. "It was a very hard decision," she said. "I'm somewhat terrified of what the Democrats are going to do on education." At U.S. News and World Report's On Education blog, Eddy Ramírez speculates that Rhee's honesty is a sort of veiled threat to Obama, who has praised the chancellor. Something along the lines of, "You may like me, mister, but I won't like you back unless you loudly and quickly take my side in battles against the teachers' union." From Rhee's perspective, that would mean supporting aggressive merit pay and an end to tenure, and appointing a secretary of education known more for bucking unions than supporting them.
If Democratic education policy seems to you like a bit of a playground brawl right now ... well, then you must be paying attention. Social justice, union, and anti-testing activists are lauding Obama's choice of teacher quality expert Linda Darling-Hammond as the head of his transition education team. Darling-Hammond has been a vocal critic of Teach for America -- the program in which Rhee began her career -- and speaks frequently about inequality between rich and poor schools. One coalition is even circulating a petition asking Obama not to name "a corporate executive such as New York City’s Education Chancellor Joel Klein or Chicago [schools] CEO Arne Duncan" to lead the DOE. They "have demonstrated their vision of privatized, corporatized, and anti-democratic schools," the petition reads.
On the other hand, Rhee and groups such as Democrats for Education Reform are boosting folks such Duncan and TFA founder Wendy Kopp for the DOE job. Obama was the Democratic primary candidate most in-tune with their priorities, yet in the general election he noticeably tilted toward the teachers' unions. I'd be surprised at this point if Obama chose an education secretary mistrusted by the unions. And if he moves as cautiously as I think he will on education, we'll have to see if folks like Michelle Rhee will really begin voting for Republicans, who have a long history of de-funding education -- when they aren't ignoring the issue altogether. My guess is there's a lot of heat in those threats, but not much fire.
--Dana Goldstein
