(FUD/Wallsten alert) Chicago teachers strike places Obama at odds with key part of political base

[alp227]

by Lyndsey Layton, Peter Wallsten, and Bill Turque, for the 9/12 Washington Post

(Whenever Wallsten writes an article you KNOW this is an anti-Obama propaganda piece. Thanks to my fellow DUers who point that out.)

For most of his first term, President Obama has managed to have it both ways on education reform.

He has received steady, if not effusive, support from politically potent teachers unions while promoting an agenda that is hugely unpopular with many educators, including evaluations that hold them accountable for student test scores.

But a strike by 26,000 public school teachers in Chicago that began Monday threatens to place Obama at odds with a critical segment of his political base in the final weeks of a campaign in which he has little margin for error. At the center of the dispute is his famously blunt former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), who is pushing aggressively for policies the president has championed: higher academic standards, longer school days and greater teacher accountability.

Obama has much to lose, and administration officials are working behind the scenes to end the conflict, which appeared headed into its third day. If Emanuel, who is closely associated with the president, is seen as knuckling under to union demands, critics could depict Obama as in thrall to public-sector employees who locked 350,000 children out of school.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/chicago-teachers-strike-places-obama-at-odds-with-key-part-of-political-base/2012/09/11/df89a776-fc2a-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_singlePage.html

[elleng]

1. Not familiar with Wallstein,

but sounds correct to me re: conflict. 'Education' is one of those things, an abundance of conflict.