"MAD AND MOBILIZED"

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

At a rally in Chicago last week for the nation's two teachers' unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the scene appeared straight out of one of those old melodramas with vocal audience participation. The guest speaker, Vice President Al Gore, had only to mention the villains--Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich, "the Ginsu gang," who "tried to chop, slice and dice all those things that are important to us"--and hisses filled the air. The heroes, too, were just as easy to identify. "We love all our teachers," Gore told the pumped-up, cheering crowd. "We don't bash them."

Long before last week, of course, the Clinton-Gore campaign had known it could count on the votes of the majority of members of the N.E.A. and the smaller A.F.T., a politically active bloc some 2.5 million strong that traditionally backs Democratic candidates. (Since it was established in 1972, the N.E.A. political-action committee has never endorsed a Republican for President.) But in July, Dole began attacking these organizations by name, railing against the evil influence of "the teachers' unions" much as George Bush used to invoke the A.C.L.U. During his speech to the Republican Convention in San Diego, Dole fulminated, "I say this not to the teachers, but to their unions: If education were a war, you would be losing it. If it were a business, you would be driving it into bankruptcy. If it were a patient, it would be dying." Now, as some new N.E.A. posters are proclaiming, America's teachers (90% of whom belong to a union) are MAD AND MOBILIZED.

Dole's attack on the teachers' unions is "the single most mystifying thing we've seen,'' says White House press secretary Mike McCurry. Notes Joe Lockhart, press secretary for the Clinton-Gore campaign: "People don't see the teachers as Big Labor, like the Steelworkers." But they do see an education system in terrible disarray, and last week's back-to-school headlines brought fresh evidence: 91,000 students without classroom space in New York City, a bankrupt board closing schools in the District of Columbia, buildings crumbling, test scores falling. Voters are looking for someone to blame, and the Dole campaign is trying to capitalize on the perception--and sometime reality--that the unions, rich, powerful and self-protective, are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Certainly, the N.E.A. and the A.F.T. have a history of resisting changes, from curriculum reform to teacher certification to merit pay. But as unionized teachers see it, the fierce struggles to protect their jobs, their raises and their work rules are part of a bigger war to save the very institution of public education in a climate of budget cutbacks and ideological polarization. "Blaming teachers for problems in education is like blaming doctors for aids,'' says Susan Moore Johnson, a dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "The problem with public education in this country has to do with poverty, immigration, dissolution of the family and community."

Nowhere is the battle line drawn more clearly than on the subject of school choice. It has been touted as an all-purpose panacea: let parents shop around and they will reward good schools over bad, forcing the bad ones to play catch-up, thus improving quality overall. President Clinton has embraced this idea in the form of "charter schools"--public schools that throw out all the rules, including union rules, and start over--and some local teachers' unions have slowly come around to endorsing these experiments. But the unions draw the line (as has the President, so far) at giving students public funds to attend private schools, including religious schools, on the ground that siphoning off money and motivated students will destroy public education. "We are unalterably opposed to vouchers," says incoming N.E.A. president Bob Chase.

Christian conservatives, on the other hand, are unalterably committed to vouchers as the best way to gain control over what their children learn. But until the day that vouchers can subsidize religious academies and home schooling, the Christian Coalition will be very active on local school boards, where it often faces off against the teachers' unions on curriculum and rules. Training materials for a seminar the Coalition ran last year in Atlanta state that the "strategy must be to weaken the teacher unions financially. Any success in achieving this objective will facilitate virtually all conservative objectives, educational and noneducational."

Given that, it's not surprising that Chase, for one, believes Dole's San Diego attack was meant "to placate the far right." That's not the case, a Dole staff member insists. The real issue: "We need an enemy besides Clinton. Sometimes you're defined by your enemies--and [teachers' unions] are a great enemy to have." At the same time, Dole says he is not a teacher basher. "Maybe I don't make it clear enough, but teachers do a good job," he told TIME. "This is about the people at the top who won't let President Clinton make any reforms." But, says Kathy Bell, a Republican teacher from Florida who sits on the N.E.A. executive committee and feels "really hurt" by Dole's attacks, "anyone who tries to divide unions from teachers really doesn't understand the concept."

Yet it is not only the religious right that has grown frustrated with teacher-union tactics. Around the country, local officials complain about lengthy, bitter contract fights and union rules that make it nearly impossible to fire bad teachers. In Texas, for instance, a right-to-work state where the teachers' unions have limited clout, it could have taken 2 1/2 years to terminate an incompetent teacher until new legislation was passed last year. In New Jersey, where the New Jersey Education Association contributes more to local and state campaigns than any other organization, battles between the local school boards and the N.J.E.A. often involve hardball tactics: in Madison last fall, teachers stopped writing college recommendations for seniors after they had worked nine months without a new contract. Yet even the N.J.E.A, says Lynne Strickland, director of the Garden State Coalition, a lobbying group for 118 suburban school districts, is making some "midcourse corrections" and now supports charter schools.

In fact, a new spirit of compromise is evident across the country. Albert Shanker, the longtime head of the A.F.T. who was once a symbol of teacher militancy, has been quick to support such contested measures as teacher standards. In Illinois 40 school districts belong to the Consortium for Education Change, begun by the state N.E.A. affiliate, which promotes cooperative efforts among unions, schools and parents. In Glenview, Illinois, for example, teachers have adopted a "constitution" rather than a contract and become active participants in reform.

The N.E.A. has also started to play up its bipartisan nature, noting, for instance, that 30% of its membership is Republican. Yet this year, of the 255 congressional candidates being supported by the group, only one Republican is receiving any part of the N.E.A.'s $5.5 million in PAC money--not to mention the $20.7 million it will spend on such indirect political activities as lobbying and training members for campaign work. "If they're saying they're bipartisan, but their dollars are saying something else, I'd listen to their dollars," says John Berthoud, an analyst with the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a public policy research group.

"We don't apologize for the political power we have with the Democrats," says A.F.T. media director Janet Bass, "just like N.R.A. and the tobacco industry don't apologize for the political power they have with the Republicans." The Clinton campaign isn't apologizing either. A senior official says the White House always "welcomes" the opportunity to discuss the President's record on education, including his expansion of Head Start, the creation of direct student loans and a new literacy program he unveiled last week. Instead of talking about unions, the President talks about a much more popular subject: the teachers themselves. "None of us would be here tonight if it weren't for our teachers. I know I wouldn't," he told the Chicago convention. And the thing about teachers is, they never forget a name or a face--or an insult.

--Reported by Stephen Barr/Metuchen, Michele Donley/Chicago, Tamala M. Edwards with Dole, Deborah Fowler/Houston and Ann M. Simmons/Washington

With reporting by STEPHEN BARR/METUCHEN, MICHELE DONLEY/CHICAGO, TAMALA M. EDWARDS WITH DOLE, DEBORAH FOWLER/HOUSTON AND ANN M. SIMMONS/WASHINGTON