Big education issues won't change with election results

June 2, 2012

 Alan J. Borsuk

In the closing moments of Thursday night's debate between the two candidates for governor, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett raised a point that intrigues me. In fact, separate from all the other aspects of Tuesday's historic recall election, I think it resonates across the debate about education in America:

Brass knuckles or handshakes?

Share a cup of coffee or send incendiary tweets?

What's the best way to get things done amid differences?

Facing Scott Walker, the Republican governor who sat next to him at a round table at Marquette Law School, the Democratic challenger said, "You and I know that if you had accepted back in February of 2011 the offer from those employees to allow them to pay towards their health care and towards their pensions, we wouldn't be sitting here tonight."
Walker replied, "That's just fundamentally wrong." He said that even as public union leaders offered to accept cuts in benefits for their members, following Walker's proposal to strip public unions of almost all their powers, local unions across the state were rushing to make contract deals that protected their benefits.

"Actions speak louder than words," he said.

But I've often wondered what would have happened if Walker had agreed to negotiate with Democrats and union leaders. Could they have agreed to impose cuts in benefit packages in line with what the governor proposed and perhaps some other changes - in the case of schools, to free management's hands in picking health insurance contractors and to ease up on union contract rules on hiring, firing and assigning teachers - while leaving unions with rights to bargain salary and other issues and to represent teachers in meaningful ways?

My inclination has been to think Walker would have captured the middle of the state's political spectrum and increased his popularity just by agreeing at least to talk. He already had a lot of support, and a lot of people across the aisle knew changes were necessary.
And if unions had balked, it would have hurt their standing with the broad public, at a time when Walker had so many cards in his hand. Walker would have prevailed in the end and reduced the chance of the kind of tidal wave of opposition that has brought us this extraordinary election.

Or am I naive? I grew up when "Kumbaya" was actually a popular song. It's part of my cultural heritage. I'm still kind of a lowercase person in a world where expressing yourself in capital letters and exclamation marks is increasingly dominant.

I've talked with Walker supporters who argue that compromise and less sweeping steps would have been ineffective, and, within several years, would have meant no real change. They argue it was time to get to the root of what was wrong with the dynamics of government at state and a big piece of that root was union power. Look at the ample record of efforts to change that bore no consequential fruit. Hardball is the only game that brings real change, they argue.

The missing middle

I see much of the same adamancy about prevailing without compromise at the other end of the spectrum.

And look across the U.S. at how hard-liners are driving out compromisers from public issues. There isn't much middle left these days.

Nationwide, this is an important strategic question that underlies a lot of education advocacy. Who are the main figures in education debate now? Two who come to mind right away are Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C., school chancellor famous for her uncompromising positions on improving teaching, and Diane Ravitch, the former conservative who is the leading voice of uncompromising opposition to such things as school vouchers and assessing teachers based on students' test results. This is not the path labeled, "Let us all reason together."

I'm not here to tell anyone how to vote on Tuesday. Not my role, and, frankly, I would give each of the candidates mixed grades on education issues. (OK, I'll go this far: I wish Barrett would be more specific about what he sees as the way to pursue higher overall achievement for Wisconsin students. I wish Walker could better understand why morale is generally so low among teachers and how Wisconsin is likely to regret for many years the surge of disrespect and hostility toward teachers.)

Whichever way the election turns out, a lot of education issues are going to be the same. The courses that will be pursued may not even be changed much by the outcome. Consider most of the elements of the state Department of Public Instruction's proposal for overhauling teacher and school accountability in Wisconsin, keys to the application to the federal government for a waiver from current federal rules. There are some big changes in there, and they have been supported in many ways by both liberals and conservatives.

Whoever wins on Tuesday, finding ways to make teaching a respected job and to make the environment around education - especially in high-needs communities - more respected is going to be an important matter. We're going to need to wrestle with big questions about paying for schools and promoting high-quality education while dealing effectively with those who don't provide that. All of these things can be pursued most successfully, I am convinced, by a wide range of people who deal with each other, amid serious, public-minded differences, with a fundamental eagerness to get as many people as possible rowing the boat forward as fast as possible.

But what do I know? I'm still kind of hung up on whether we needed to get to the point of being on the eve of this election or if we could have solved our problems in a hard, smart, but constructive and at least semi-cooperative way back in the spring of 2011. I still think someone's singing, Lord, kumbaya.

Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette University Law School. Reach him at