U.S. Rep. Jared Polis must have skipped the coffee when he participated in RealClearPolitics‘ “Changing Lanes” segment, which covered Polis’ morning commute in Washington, D.C., because he blamed the far left for electing the reform-minded Jeffco School Board. RCP’s executive editor Andy Rotherham asked Polis to identify the future of the Democratic Party on education. Probably an uncomfortable topic for someone so in bed with the teachers unions.
After praising Democratic elections to school boards, he couldn’t resist a dig at the reform-minded Jeffco School Board:
“…you also see a very unholy alliance between the reactionary left and the far right. You have real conspiracy theories which take hold. We had this in one of our school board elections in Colorado, in Jefferson County, where you had enough people who didn’t like the new data system for certain reasons, who didn’t like common core, and then, they went and ended up electing a far right school board, again, with the help of some of the far left agitators, that is looking at vouchers and things like that.”
That’s wishful thinking on the part of Polis. If only it would be so easy to blame education bogey man “common core”. The truth is that the Jeffco School Board was elected as a collective vote against the education establishment (read: unions). Additionally, the wave of anti-Amendment 66 voters did no favors for union-backed candidates.
But, maybe the real story here is that Democrats have gone so far left that Polis was forced to defend Democrats’ turf on education. The truth is that Democrats have never espoused the reform that parents across the country now demand and the party is watching its stranglehold on the issue of education involuntary loosen due to innovation. Another day, another fissure in the seemingly unified Democratic party.