Ever since the end of remote learning post-pandemic, many on the left seem to have given up on education reform. Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign didn’t even try to promote policies that could benefit K-12 students. What gives? How did Democrats go from being the party millions of voters trusted with improving education to being considered by many to be a danger to children? More importantly, can they regain the portfolio?
Education Across the Board
The left seemed to diverge from students’ interests after the era of Barack Obama. “Democrats started to abandon education reform and instead adopted a more neutral position aligned with teachers unions,” wrote political columnist Jonathan Chait in New York magazine. “Hillary Clinton edged away from Obama’s stance in 2016, and Joe Biden edged even further in 2020.”
The relationship between the Democratic Party and teachers’ unions might be one of the biggest factors contributing to the downfall in education. It seemed the stronger the Democrats' ties became with unions, the further the party strayed from policies geared toward improving academics.
“Where Obama butted heads with teachers unions,” said Jaryn Crouson in The Daily Caller, “Clinton sought to make amends, mirroring her education policy to their demands.” Harris also embraced the unions and seemingly adopted their goals, proposing little to help K-12 students. Most of her platform on education had to do with student loan forgiveness and making college more affordable.
That Harris’ first speech as a presidential candidate was at a teachers’ union conference was telling. As soon as she took the stage, she advertised her friendship with the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Randi Weingarten. The AFT was the first union to endorse Harris’ candidacy, soon followed by the National Education Association (NEA).
“The Democratic Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the teachers unions,” said Corey DeAngelis, executive director of the Educational Freedom Institute, to The Daily Caller. Between 2004 and 2016, the donations from teachers’ unions to candidates and parties climbed from $4.3 million to more than $32 million, most of which went to Democratic candidates and liberal groups, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets, a website that provides information on money in politics. “It’s an incestuous relationship and a money laundering operation,” DeAngelis told The Daily Caller. “It ought to be illegal.”
But it was during the pandemic when some Democrats seemed to lose sight of the needs of K-12. Many leftists, following Weingarten’s lead, pushed for schools to stay closed despite blowback from parents nationwide. Some folks saw firsthand what educators were teaching their children during remote learning and were reportedly displeased. Teachers occasionally “exposed parents to left-wing pedagogy that had become fashionable in recent years,” said Chait.
The saddest part, though, is that kids are still behind. “The gap with pre-covid results for sixth graders in math and English grew by 40% and 31% respectively between fall 2023 and spring 2024,” said Jaryn Crouson in The Daily Caller. “[T]he average eighth grader today requires approximately nine months of additional schooling to reach pre-Covid-19 levels in the two subjects, a July study by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) found.” Yet too many progressives and their allies have made transgender rights and diversity their top priorities, among other non-academic subjects.
Teaching kids that gender is “fluid” and allowing boys to play in girls’ sports and use girls’ bathrooms has likely sent many parents running to the right. To some leftists, K-12 schools appear to be nothing more than a battlefield for culture wars.
“Too many Democrats are communists who think your kids belong to the government,” DeAngelis commented. “President Trump believes parents should be in the driver’s seat. The GOP is now the Parents’ Party.”
As long as the Democratic Party continues to accept millions of dollars from organizations like the NEA and the AFT, the chances it will regain its hold on education reform are probably slim. So the battle between radical ideologies being served up in classrooms and opponents trying to unravel the indoctrination their children have experienced persists. No one knows who will win, but for sure the losers are K-12 students.
