Teachers Union Document Suggests Education Politics Will Get Worse Before They Get Better

The politics of American public education are pretty polarized at the moment. In a column for the Daily Beast today, I argue that a leaked document from the National Education Association suggests that things appear likely to worsen before they improve:

The substance of an organization’s public-relations strategy can reveal a lot. Which gets to the real importance of the document. It’s a powerful piece of proof that the NEA is planning to be as confrontational as possible in the coming years. This has seemed likely for a while—and for a number of reasons: Its criticism of the Obama administration’s education reforms, controversies related to the Common Core State Standards, the rise of radical groups like the Badass Teachers Association, Eskelson García’s increasingly forceful rhetoric, and many more.

The document’s stated purpose is unambiguous: to “engage the base, persuade the middle, and alienate the opposition.” The document also notes that focus groups who heard the new messaging struggled with education policy’s “complex chatter [so] we must draw clear distinctions between what we believe and what our opponents contend.”

Click here to read the rest.”