By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

NEW YORK – For months several candidates for mayor of New York have been groveling before the leaders of the United Federation of Teachers, vying for the official endorsement of the powerful union.

They obviously don’t realize the union’s endorsement has not been particularly valuable in recent New York mayoral elections.

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So who, of all people, took the opportunity to point out that obvious fact?

It was outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the arch-enemy of the UFT.

“It’s almost a kiss of death,” Bloomberg said of the union endorsement in a Monday press conference, according to a WSJ.com. “I don’t know what goes through voters’ minds, but maybe they understand: If the UFT wants it, it ain’t good, and you don’t want that person.”

Bloomberg appears to be right.

As the news story puts it, “The UFT endorsed a series of losing Democratic candidates in the 2001 race for mayor. First, it endorsed Alan Hevesi in the primary and Fernando Ferrer in the runoff. Then it endorsed Mark Green in the general election against the eventual winner, Mike Bloomberg.

“The UFT didn’t endorse anyone in 2005 or 2009, when Bloomberg won a surprisingly close race against returning candidate Bill Thompson.”

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The UFT is expected to endorse a candidate on Wednesday for this year’s election. That person will quickly find himself or herself in the middle of the ongoing war between education reformers like Bloomberg, who want to hold teachers and public schools more accountable for student learning, and the UFT, which wants to deflect responsibility away from teachers and limit school choice options for parents.

Given the parameters of that debate, we have to wonder if the union’s losing streak will continue.

New Yorkers, like Americans everywhere, want better schools and better instruction in those schools. That’s why, in the end, they may very well reject whatever (or whomever) the UFT has to offer.