In the #PhlEd hashtag, Professional Liberals are throwing this myth around that voting for one politician in three weeks will save the Philadelphia School District. This myth is being echoed by professional liberals and by Democratic Kingmakers and they’re flat-out wrong.
Will I be voting for Tom Wolf in three weeks? Yes, I will, but to tell me that voting for Tom Wolf will solve the structural problems that facing Philadelphia School District is pure bullshit. The problems facing the Philadelphia School District were created by anti-public education Republicans from the nether regions of Pennsylvania and anti-public education Democrats in our own backyard. These anti-public education / pro-charter school Republicans and Democrats created the School Reform Commission and makes the Philadelphia of Federation of Teachers the only teachers union in the Commonwealth that is not allowed to strike.
The ONLY action Tom Wolf can take as Governor when it comes to fixing the School Reform Commission is having his education secretary agree that the School Reform Commission should dissolve and THEN having the School Reform Commission cast a 5-0 vote to dissolve itself. I know, it’s a shitty example of democracy in action, and seeing that SRC commissioner Bill Green is hellbent on destroying the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, I am not going to hold my breath.
So, what are some alternatives to this? Taking direct action and a form of direct action would have been holding a general strike. But…we can’t have nice things because Democratic Kingmaker and president of the most politically powerful union in Pennsylvania Johnny Doc thinks that we should just VOTE for Tom Wolf. Per Philly.com
In the end, the region’s labor leaders decided to hold off.
They “all felt there should be a swift movement against the cowardly action of the SRC,” said John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty, head of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, which hosted the meetings at Local 98’s union hall.
That the region’s top labor leaders would coalesce enough to even suggest something as momentous as a general strike indicates the solidarity of Philadelphia’s labor movement, said Paul Clark, director of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Labor and Employment Relations.
But practical considerations won out.
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, told the group that he wanted to exhaust legal remedies first.
And the leaders decided to await the outcome of the Nov. 4 gubernatorial election. Democratic candidate Tom Wolf has said he supports returning Philadelphia’s schools to local control. The SRC is a state board.
“After a thorough vetting, we decided to go out and get Tom Wolf elected” governor, Dougherty said.
Fixing the structural issues in the Philadelphia School District will need to be a bottom – up lead movement because once again labor institutions have capitulated to the Democratic establishment and Kingmakers. The Philadelphia School District is where it is today because of politicians and thinking that voting for more politicians to fix the PSD will make the structural issues facing the PSD even worse.
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