The Left's Education Divide

[Geee]

American Spectator:

There are plenty of canyons running between the Democrats at this week's convention. The left is angry at President Obama for selling them out on a raft of issues. The Blue Dogs (what's left of them) are glancing uneasily toward the election calendar. And of course that tattered emblem of Democrat disunity, Bill Clinton, is on the speakers' list.

But there's something else threatening to disrupt the Democrat hive mind. As Jon Ward reported at the Huffington Post, convention-goers were treated to a special screening of the movie Won't Back Down. The film, which stars Maggie Gyllenhall and Viola Davis, is about a single mother who tries to reform her daughter's dismal public school. The villain is the obstructionist teachers union. It promotes "parent triggers," which allow parents to vote to overhaul schools.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, fired off a letter calling the film "divisive" and saying it doesn't focus on "real parent empowerment." (And if anyone knows "real parent empowerment," it's the stridently anti-school-choice Weingarten.)

But her letter ignores the elephant in the rubber room: Won't Back Down director Daniel Barnz is a Democrat. For that matter, so is reform hero Michelle Rhee and Davis Guggenheim of Waiting for Superman fame. All three have issued a call to arms over education that transcends party lines. The reality of America's public schools is finally cracking through the liberal eggshell.

At the state level, Democrat governors and mayors, wrangling with drained budgets, are battling the education establishment. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick backed a law that tied teacher layoffs primarily to performance rather than seniority. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also took on the unions over evaluations and declared, "It's this simple: It's not about the adults; it is about the children." And Mayor Rahm Emanuel cranked up his famous pugnacity after the Chicago Teachers Union refused to budge on compensation and benefits issues.