I’ve thought that the best forecast for elections tends to be Matthew Dowd’s prediction that both the winning and the losing parties will misread the lessons of that election. You will be the judge of whether the following stumbles and falls against that caution.
For months, I have been skeptical (but as a Republican, hopeful) that the Republicans would be able to climb the high hill of taking over six Democratic seats to obtain a majority in the United States Senate in 2014. I thought it probable that Republicans would fall a seat or two short. If that had happened, I expected that the meme of today would be that Republicans had badly lost by missing that six-vote switch, ignoring what would be the rather respectable achievement of picking up four or five Senate seats.
As a recent example of such mis-reading of election results, a false mantra had taken hold about President Obama’s supposedly big victory in 2012. Just a few days ago, in noting how much the landscape had changed in the Republican direction, the New York Times remarked that President Obama had won re-election just two years ago by a “commanding margin.” Only in the world of news spin can an incumbent president winning re-election by 51 percent of the vote—near the low point for presidential re-elections in American history—be characterized as a “commanding margin.”
I was too cautious about Republican prospects—obviously. And thus far, I have been pleasantly mistaken about the general acceptance of the meaning of those election results. Last night saw a higher Republican wave than nearly anyone had anticipated, most definitely including me. And no one seems to be missing the message (other than, perhaps, the Obama White House).
Republicans were remarkably sober in victory, suggesting they might be learning something. Republican winners appear to recognize that they are on probation, that the public doesn’t much like either party these days, and thus Republican winners now are expected to perform. On the other side, with some exceptions, both the media and most Democrats recognize that the mid-term election was a resounding vote of no confidence in the Obama Administration.
An election that had merely produced a Republican majority in the Senate would have been (with much justification) dismissed as a product of an unusually favorable map for Republicans, given that so many close Senate contests were being waged this year in states that President Obama lost in 2012. But that narrative would be sharply at odds with the electoral reality that ultimately emerged last night. The biggest stories of the night came in purple and even blue states, with Republican Senate victories in Iowa, Colorado, and North Carolina (and pulling even in Virginia), as well as new Republican Governors in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Illinois.
Not here in Minnesota. Democratic Senator Al Franken and Democratic Governor Mark Dayton were both re-elected. Beginning in January, Minnesota will be an island of blue surrounded by Midwest states with Republican Governors. At the gubernatorial level, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio have all turned red.
The Republican wave did wash up in Minnesota, though not too far up the shore. Governor Dayton was expected to win re-election handily, but instead barely cracked 50 percent and finished only five points ahead of an under-funded and largely ignored Republican opponent. And Republicans defeated 11 Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party incumbents to retake control of the state house of representatives. Still, the DFL won all state-wide contests and holds the state senate.
Now the states are said to be the laboratories of democracy. While reform Republican governors are now taking charge in all of the neighboring Midwest states, Minnesota’s Democratic governor will continue to be a staid and old-fashioned creature of government. He tends to see the answer to every problem as more government, assume that every conflict is one in which government falls on the side of the more vulnerable, and zealously uphold the interests of government employee unions.
As but one example of democratic experiments, it will be interesting to see what happens throughout the Midwest in the area of education. Midwest states have long prided themselves on being among the best in the country in education. Those who graduate from high school, and also avoid a criminal record or becoming a parent while still a teenager, are unlikely to ever to live in poverty.
Catholics have long recognized that education offers the greatest hope for transforming lives and lifting people out of poverty. And as Catholics with a holistic view of the human person, we know that education opens up human potential, allows people to thrive in cultural richness as well as economic satisfaction, and helps us better understand the world around us and thereby better understand God.
And yet that educational promise is not being kept for all, especially for poor children in minority communities. Despite the pretenses of federal officials and the political advertisements of candidates for President and Congress, the states remain the center of education, and thus state governments are where the action on education will continue to be centered. And there is much work to do.
Minnesota has one of the greatest disparities in educational achievement between black and white children in the country. Four years of a Democratic governor—and two years of solid Democratic control of the entire state government—have done nothing to reduce that disparity. Indeed, those of us who are critical of the DFL agenda in Minnesota would argue that a state administration tightly connected to the teachers’ union has squandered opportunities to move in a positive direction.
Governor Dayton repeatedly announced in his campaign commercials during this cycle that he “cared about education.” I have no doubt that he does. But so does everyone else. That hardly makes him distinctive. What matters in how one expresses that concern. Unfortunately, whenever there is a difficult choice between the interests of the teachers’ union and the interests of kids, Governor Dayton can be counted on to side with the teachers’ union.
When the state legislature voted to allow school districts to consider teacher quality (here), rather than merely seniority, when forced to lay-off teachers, Governor Dayton vetoed it (here). He ignored reams of empirical studies showing that teacher excellence, which is most definitely measurable, has a powerful correlation with outcomes for students, especially those most at risk. But Governor Dayton chose instead to stand with the teachers’ union in favor of rigid and archaic tenure rules.
Governor Dayton then used the line-item veto to deny continued funding to the innovative Teach for America program, which places non-traditional college-educated people—who don’t have a regular teaching certificate—into over-stressed public schools and for subjects on which qualified teachers are desperately wanting (here). Once again, Governor Dayton chose the interests of the teachers’ union, which wants to control the pipeline into the teaching profession. Indeed, when the Teach for America program persevered despite the loss of Minnesota state funding, Governor Dayton’s union-mentality appointees to the state Board of Teaching tried to block those teachers from the classroom (here), later back-tracking under pressure.
One of my colleagues, Professor Nekima Levy-Pounds, points to the stark and indefensible fact that public schools in Minneapolis with a majority of minority-race students are offered teachers with considerably less experience and advanced training than are public schools in the city with white majorities (here). In an elementary school in Minneapolis that is nearly 90 percent white, for example, more than 90 percent of the teachers have ten years experience or more. By contrast, at two elementary schools with more than 88 percent black students, about a third of the teachers have been teaching for less than three years.
A reform of teacher assignment rules in Minneapolis is plainly indicated. But the forces of the status quo may prove stubborn in resisting such reform.
Governor Dayton’s fealty to the teachers’ union seems likely to stymie educational reforms in Minnesota, at least those beyond throwing taxpayer dollars at his allies in the educational establishment. As a consequence, Minnesotans will likely be outside observers in our region of the country when it comes to meaningful educational reform. As educational innovations take hold in the surrounding states with reform-minded Republican governors—some of which may work, others which prove unsuccessful—Minnesota is likely to adhere to the status quo.
I suppose that’s part of the democratic laboratory as well. Minnesota is left to serve as the control group in comparison with our innovative neighbors. But that’s little solace to those who are left behind.
