2018 promises to be a banner year for the school reform Cartel’s public school privatization efforts. As in the past, the Cartel continues to: expand its membership of billionaires and multi-millionaires; national and regional conservative and alt-right foundations; back (purchase) elected officials at every level of government to advance its political objectives; recruit a diverse group of civic, religious, and grassroots leaders as advocates for its school privatization positions; and to improve its stellar marketing strategies to low-income communities of color.

First up will be the Mark Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) case which is scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) by the end of the month. It will eliminate agency fees for public-sector employees working in a unionized workplace and the ability of unions to collect them via automatic deductions. This decision will likely devastate membership in a number of blue states (New York, New Jersey, California, Washington, Oregon, etc.) that have trended Democratic and entrench Republican control in red states (Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.). In addition, with the reduction in union membership and the corresponding drop-off in revenues, public sector organizations will have less clout in electing candidates to office to represent their interests. If by some chance, Janus does not prevail, the Cartel has other plaintiffs lined up to continue the challenge to collective bargaining as it did with Janus after SCOTUS deadlocked on the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case in 2016.

The Cartel’s ongoing recruitment of a diverse array of political, civic, community, and grassroots leaders has added to its clout in gaining traction with its agenda throughout the nation. Despite intense opposition to its programs and the Trump administration, which is a card-carrying Cartel member, the African American community and its leadership have been heavily infiltrated with massive and/or promised contributions to its storied institutions and elected officials. For example, the Koch Bros. have given more than $50 million dollars to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) during the past two years. These organizations represent more than 80 percent of all private and public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), respectively.

And the controversy surrounding Education Secretary Betsey DeVos and her policies since her appointment were somewhat ameliorated by scheduling her to give commencement addresses at Bethune-Cookman University (B-CU) and the University of Baltimore (UB) in 2018. In both instances, the African American presidents were heading substantially minority institutions in deep financial distress—B-CU as a result of poor financial management (for which its president, Edison O. Jackson, was subsequently terminated) and UB as a result of the precipitous decline in its law school enrollment which had a substantially negative impact on its overall budget. The latter institution is headed by former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, an ardent proponent of vouchers and school choice, who had received major political funding from DeVos and her family during his political career. Both universities were hoping for a bailout from the U.S. Department of Education to help with their financial ills, and both would be “pimped” by DeVos, getting nothing in return for prostituting themselves and their institutions.

The escalating de-funding of public schools across the country is another strategy to undermine and devastate K-12 education. The Cartel consistently criticizes public school outcomes on the one hand while having Cartel-controlled Democratic and Republican legislators systematically reduce public education funding at the state level while increasing contributions to vouchers and corporate virtual and bricks and mortar charter schools on the other. These actions have been particularly acute in large urban districts—Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Denver, and New York City, among others. School funding commissions have been set up to facilitate the downsizing of public schools in concert with the reduction of payments to teachers’ pensions, the forced decline in teachers’ salaries, and the increase in teachers’ contributions to their benefits packages, thus placing them at a significant economic disadvantage, driving many from the profession on an annual basis.

But the premier challenge is the lack of a clear and focused Democratic message for its major constituencies, voters of color, millennials, women, the gay and transgender community, and blue collar workers. With the exceptions of New Jersey, Virginia, and Alabama in the November and December 2018 elections, Democrats remain fixated on an anti-Trump message with the naïve view that it will be enough to take back the U.S. House, and possibly the Senate, in the 2018 mid-terms. As was shown in the 2016 presidential election, that approach will not be sufficient. To beat back the Republican and Trump political tides, teachers, unions, and local progressive political operatives must take control of the political narrative. In the 2016 Iowa Democratic presidential primary, Hillary Clinton’s coat had to be pulled after she championed charter schools during one of her stump speeches—comments that should never have occurred (she went on to lose the state in the general election after Obama had carried it in 2008 and 2012).

There is no coherent, attractive message among rank-and-file Democrats who are vying for the 2018 presidential nomination or the brain trust of Democratic National Committee (DNC). Thus the outcomes, as of now, are likely to be, as noted by the late Yogi Berra, “… déjà vu all over again.” As documented in the 34-page “Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis,” the 2016 “… Democratic campaign was inept, misguided, smug, and out of touch with the country.” Moreover, if the Clinton-Obama wings of the Democratic Party maintain key leadership roles in the 2018 elections, it will likely lose heavily again. Clinton’s Beyoncé, Katie Perry, and Jennifer Lopez concerts in Cleveland, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Miami, Florida, respectively, during the 2016 election were examples of condescending outreach to African Americans and Hispanics and resulted in her losing all three states due to lower minority turnout. The Party’s direction of resources to courting suburban voters at the expense of their long-term constituencies will doom it to defeat yet again if not revised.

Of the challenges articulated above, the lack of a reasoned Democratic message is by far the most serious. Teachers and unions need to demand a seat at the table to construct a more comprehensive Democratic political memo, with a strong statement against privatization of public schools and the public sector.