Education Week - March 25, 2020 - 7

Endorsements Still
Touchy for Unions
In Election Season
After complaints from members
who felt shut out during the 2016
presidential primary endorsement
process, the national teachers' unions
vowed to better engage members in
this year's process. Have they succeeded?
The stakes are high: Endorsements
from the teachers' unions bring campaign cash and hefty volunteer muscle in what will likely be a bruising
campaign against President Donald
Trump.
The Democratic presidential-primary field had narrowed down late
last week to two people: former Vice
President Joe Biden, who is currently
leading in the delegate count, and
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Earlier this month, the 3-millionmember National Education Association, the largest labor union in
the country, announced that it was
endorsing Biden for president. In a
statement, NEA said its members
"have led the recommendation process and have engaged in unprecedented fashion."
"Biden is the tireless advocate for
public education and is the partner
that students and educators need
now in the White House," said NEA
President Lily Eskelsen García in a
statement. "Now, with so much at
stake in this election, educators are
determined to use their voice to propel Joe Biden to the White House."
And in an interview last week,
American Federation of Teachers
President Randi Weingarten said
that the union's leaders would be
having conversations in the coming
days about who to endorse. The chosen candidate must share the AFT's
values (which both Sanders and
Biden do, Weingarten said), have a
"real path" to defeating Trump in
the general election, and reflect the
consensus of its 1.7 million members.
"We have done so much with our
members to really revamp our process," Weingarten said.
AFT officials have held more than
300,000 interactions with members
through town halls, presidential forums, regional meetings, and local
affiliates' engagement efforts since
starting the endorsement process
last year, she said, as well as polled
members to understand their views.
During the 2016 race, both teachers' unions endorsed Hillary Clinton
for president very early on-the AFT
in July 2015 and the NEA in October
of that year. The decision angered
many members of both unions, who
felt like they had been left out of the
process and wanted more consideration given to Sanders, who was in

contention in 2016 as well.
Union leaders say that this time
around has been different: Members
have had more opportunities to get
involved and voice their opinions.
But some teachers say they still feel
disillusioned with the endorsement
process.
"This just feels like a repeat of what
happened [in 2016]," said Michelle
Voelker, an 8th grade teacher in SacFROM TOP: Supporters
cheer as Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders speaks at a
rally at the Chicago Teachers
Union headquarters, in
September in his bid for the
Democratic presidential
nomination.
Democratic presidential
candidate and former Vice
President Joe Biden speaks
at the United Federation of
Teachers' annual Teacher
Union Day in New York in
October 2019.

Craig Ruttle/AP

By Madeline Will

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times/AP

Members want in on decisions

ramento and an NEA member. "The
rank and file were not asked who they
wanted to support."

Weighing the Choices
At the start of the campaign season, the NEA created a website where
members-and the general public-
could submit their questions for the
union to pass along to the candidates
during town halls and interviews. Eskelsen García did video interviews
with eight candidates, including with
Biden and Sanders.
To make the final endorsement for
the primary, the NEA PAC Council,
which is made up of state representatives and the union's executive
leaders, put forward a recommendation for consideration by the NEA
board of directors. An NEA official
said 98 percent of the PAC Council
and 78 percent of the board of directors supported recommending
Biden.
Meanwhile, in February, before
Super Tuesday's round of state primaries this month, the AFT's board

of directors voted to encourage its
state and local affiliates to "support,
be actively involved with, or endorse"
Biden, Sanders, or Sen. Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, who later
dropped out of the race.
Weingarten, who then endorsed
Warren in her personal capacity,
said state and local union leaders appreciated the ability to make
their own recommendations ahead
of the national union. For example,
Chicago Teachers Union President
Jesse Sharkey and Vice President
Stacy Davis Gates have personally
endorsed Sanders, while New York
City's United Federation of Teachers
President Michael Mulgrew backed
Biden.
Still, some members felt like equal
weight was not given to all the candidates.
"It was abundantly clear that even
though we were being told that AFT is
endorsing all three candidates, ... the
push was for Warren or Biden," said
Robin Brownfield, a retired college
professor who had been a member of
the union for nearly 30 years.

"I've never been very pleased with
AFT's strategy regarding elections
and endorsements because in all the
years I and my husband have been
members, we've never ever been
asked what we think," she said. "We'll
go to meetings, he'll go to meetings
[now], and be told who we're campaigning for."

Candidates' Stances
Although both Biden and Sanders
have a good amount of support from
teachers, Sanders has said that teachers are among the most common
workers to give to his campaign.
Dylan Toth, a sophomore at Illinois
State University and an "Aspiring Educator" member of the NEA, said he
thinks Sanders' education platform is
more aligned with NEA's values than
Biden's plan.
"Joe Biden supports teachers, but
that's about as far as his plan goes," he
said. "There's no real structural plan."
Sanders has promised to pay teachers a minimum of $60,000 a year, to
triple Title I funding aimed at disad-

vantaged students, and to place significant restrictions on charter schools,
including a ban on for-profit entities
running the schools.
Biden's education plan would
also triple Title I funding, and districts would have to "offer educators competitive salaries" to access
the expanded funds, although the
plan doesn't set out a minimum salary. Biden, who has called for more
accountability and transparency of
charter schools, has also pledged to
nominate someone with teaching
experience as the U.S. secretary of
education.
Biden's education plan has appealed to Lisa Mikolajczyk, a high
school special education teacher in
Florida and an NEA member who is
happy with her union's endorsement.
"He has a history of getting results," she said, adding that Biden's
wife, Jill Biden, is an NEA member.
"Joe Biden has always been supportive of public schools, and public
school teachers."
Meanwhile, Mikolajczyk said
she doesn't "trust Bernie to follow
through with anything. ... He's not
willing to compromise, and you need
to be willing to compromise to get
things passed."
Despite his disappointment about
the NEA's pick, Toth said he sees
the political advantage of the teachers' union making an endorsement
early: "If we are in good standing
with Biden, we could almost be in
his ear" about education policy, he
said.

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