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For years, Democratic politicians have treated support for teachers unions as a proxy for supporting public education itself. The logic is simple and politically convenient: Stand with unions, stand with teachers; stand with teachers, stand with students.

It’s a clean story. It’s also wrong.

The interests of teachers unions and students are not always aligned. Until Democrats stop pretending otherwise, they will continue to lose credibility with voters — and they will deserve to. 

Teachers unions exist to advocate for the labor interests of their members, not the educational interests of kids and families. That is not a controversial claim; it is the truth. Expecting them to prioritize student outcomes over member interests is like expecting a union to negotiate its own pay cuts. It misunderstands what the organization is for.

The failure is not unions behaving like unions. The failure is Democrats pretending that union priorities and student priorities are the same thing, and building education policy around that fiction.

Union presidents are elected by their members and accountable to them. Like most elected leaders, they are especially responsive to their most engaged constituents. In the case of teachers unions, these are typically tenured educators who are the most likely to vote, attend meetings and shape their organization’s direction. Leadership priorities tend to reflect the interests of those members, not necessarily of teachers as a whole, much less students.

That, in turn, shapes the politics of union leadership. Pledging to always put students first is not what gets officers elected in a union hall. Their real mandate is to increase salaries, strengthen seniority, secure pensions and protect their members’ jobs. That is what they campaign on and what they pursue after they are elected.

Teachers union leaders understand classrooms and schools because many of them are educators — or at least, started their careers that way. But their day-to-day focus is not on education policy; it is on representing their members in disciplinary and grievance matters, arbitration hearings and contract negotiations, as well as engaging in political advocacy. They become experts on labor relations, employment law and politics. That is what their role requires.

That insight matters, because education policy is not the same as labor policy. Yet Democrats have spent years collapsing that distinction and outsourcing their education agenda to groups with a labor agenda.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has repeatedly that what is good for educators is inherently good for students. If that were true, there would not have been prolonged school closures during the pandemic after the costs to children were clear. There would not be continuing opposition to high-performing charter schools or resistance to accountability in chronically failing district schools.

The adults working in America’s schools have legitimate interests. Students do, too. But teachers unions are among the largest donors to Democratic candidates, giving them more leverage than students when their priorities diverge. The role of a healthy party is to navigate those tensions in the public interest, but Democrats have too often steered toward the union interest.

That dynamic has narrowed the party’s policy imagination. Despite a decade-long trend of declining academic outcomes, Democrats have offered little on education policy beyond familiar calls for . Since roughly 2015, they have effectively abandoned K-12 as a domain of serious policymaking. Instead of calling for urgent reform to address an acute crisis, they have defended the existing system and even further with the demands of teachers unions. 

The cost of those choices has fallen disproportionately on the families who can least afford it. Black, Latino and low-income communities who have long formed the base of the Democratic Party stand to benefit the most from reform, but Democrats have stood in the way. The party that claims to fight inequality has kept families locked in a system that entrenches it.

The public has taken notice. As Democrats have stepped back from K-12 as a domain of serious policymaking, education has shifted from a reliable Democratic strength to a . Voters no longer trust the party to deliver for their kids. 

This reflects a larger crisis. The Democrats have come to govern as a coalition of organized interests rather than as a party with a clear mission. In that reluctance to challenge powerful stakeholders, voters see a party that lacks not only the will but the courage to confront hard problems — one that’s more inclined to manage decline than drive change. 

When voters stop believing you will fight for them, they stop trusting you to govern.

Democrats are at an inflection point. The organized interests that have long anchored the Democratic coalition can no longer be the party’s north star. Challenging powerful allies and rethinking an entrenched system is never easy. That’s the point. It’s precisely what leadership requires, and what the moment demands. 

Education is a test of whether Democrats are willing to change course, put students first and lead again. It is a test the party can, and must, pass.

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