Education policy remains one of the few areas of unsettled debate within the Democratic Party."

"President Obama’s education agenda has often infuriated the teachers’ unions, and last year, the head of the National Education Association, another union representing teachers, called for the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, to be fired. Advocates of changes to the system, including some major Democratic donors, consider Mr. Obama an ally and have been pressuring Mrs. Clinton to adopt Mr. Obama’s posture. But in meetings with the A.F.T. last month, Mrs. Clinton said that teachers shouldn’t be the 'scapegoat' for society’s ills. After that meeting — members also heard from Mr. Sanders and Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor — [Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers,] praised Mrs. Clinton’s performance and detailed responses to members’ concerns."

And yesterday, the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary Clinton.

That's from an article in the NYT — "Hillary Clinton Picks Up Teachers’ Union Endorsement" — that doesn't remind us what Obama is doing that has infuriated the teachers' unions.

I found this from June 2014: "AFT’s Weingarten smacks Arne Duncan about his praise for Vergara decision":

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten just sent a letter... to Education Secretary Arne Duncan blasting him for his statement praising a California judge’s decision to throw out five state statutes that provide job protections to teachers.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu handed down a ruling in Vergara vs California Wednesday siding with plaintiffs who argued that California children who live in low-income families receive an inadequate education because they get the weakest teachers who can’t be fired....

"A California judge ruled Tuesday that teacher tenure laws deprive students of their right to an education under the state Constitution."

The NYT reports. It's a lower court decision, and it's only California law, but it's radical and, notably, it was "enthusiastically endorsed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan." The old Wisconsin protests chant springs to mind: "What's disgusting? Union busting!" I didn't realize the current administration was so anti-union:

“We believe the judge fell victim to the anti-union, anti-teacher rhetoric and one of American’s finest corporate law firms that set out to scapegoat teachers for the real problems that exist in public education,” said Joshua Pechthalt, the president of the California Federation of Teachers. “There are real problems in our schools, but this decision in no way helps us move the ball forward.”

Who are the "us" toward whose goal the president of the teachers' union wants the ball moved? The teachers and the students or just the teachers?

Arne Duncan would like people to stop talking about the time he said "white suburban moms."

The phrase was "clumsy," and he's sorry about letting it slip out. But why was it in there, capable of slipping out?

Former George W. Bush adviser Nicole Wallace asked Duncan if his comments were indicative of an Obama administration that views the nation through a lens of race.

“My point was when you dummy down standards, you’re lying to children. That affects all children, that affects all families … even in more affluent suburban areas, not just in the inner city,” Duncan said. 

So the point — and he fully intended to make it — is that he thinks white women in the suburbs deceive themselves imagining that urban black kids are the ones with the education problems.

Obama's Secretary of Education pick Arne Duncan says "he gave my sister and I the opportunity to start a great school on the South Side of Chicago."

And what do the kids learn at this great school? How to make the kind of grammatical errors that only people who are trying to speak well make?

(Via SondraK.)

ADDED: The Stump likes Duncan:

He's pushed for aggressive reforms [in the Chicago system] that have at times placed him at odds with the city's education establishment. But he's also managed to appeal to that establishment, averting teachers' strikes like those that plagued the city in previous decades....

He's been a leader in the education reform movement, which supports tough policies on teacher accountability, merit pay, high-stakes testing, and fixing failing schools. And yet, he's also been keenly diplomatic with traditional forces like teachers' unions...

Other critics say that Duncan's selection only solidifies that Obama has yet to come down on either side of the debate between reformers and the education establishment.

So he solidifies gelatinousness? Great!

"[Duncan] is seen as a blank slate in terms of ideology or vision," Elizabeth Green at the New York blog Gotham Schools wrote last night. "Indeed, he hasn't done much publicly to indicate where he stands in the Democratic Party's education wars."

Isn't that precisely what you need to be Obama-ready?

Obama [said]: "He's not beholden to any one ideology--and he doesn't hesitate for one minute to do what needs to be done."

So we're getting the moderate, pragmatist Obama I was hoping for. Again, great.