Here's Jonathan Alter with a scathing and spot-on article in Newsweek about what's really going on, with well-deserved jeers to Obey and a call for the Obama administration to rekindle an obvious grand compromise: more money to prevent layoffs, but tied to eliminating rigid "last hired, first fired" rules:

But Obey, who is retiring at the end of the year, is in danger of going out as a water carrier for the teachers' unions—the man who gutted President Obama's signature program on education, Race to the Top.

…Obey's education cuts would undermine the reform agenda that Obama told me (in an interview for my book The Promise) is one of his "proudest achievements."

…To simplify the math, Obey wants to cut from the terrific 5 percent of education spending devoted to exciting reform proposals, not the 95 percent that went for other things.

…Obey was in high dudgeon when I spoke with him Wednesday night. "I know some of the ed guys are bitching, but who the hell do they think put it [reform money] in the budget in the first place?" he asked. Even so, Obey made it clear he's no fan of Race to the Top, which he called "walking-around money," "a luxury," and, before backing off, even echoed the teachers' unions description of it as a "slush fund."

…It may all be moot anyway. The effort to stop layoffs isn't going anywhere in the Senate. "They can't pass a two-car funeral over there," Obey said. "Anyone who thinks we're gonna get a single Republican vote is smoking something illegal." He put the odds of Congress providing money to state and local governments to prevent teacher layoffs at one in 10.

The best way to improve those odds would be to tie the money for teachers to reform of the seniority system. This is something that would get the attention of Republican senators like Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Lindsey Graham. But after taking on the teachers' unions with Race to the Top, Obama has decided to go easy on the unions when it comes to challenging seniority rules.

How disappointing. Rigid "last hired, first fired" rules are a disaster for schoolchildren. They mean that across the country, teachers of the year will be pink-slipped simply because they are young. Yep—some of our very best teachers will be driven out of the profession. Meanwhile, older, incompetent teachers will be kept on. That's unconscionable. We now know that having a bad teacher two or three years in a row in the early grades all but dooms disadvantaged children.

With a little imagination, there's a grand compromise available: money to prevent layoffs in exchange for a requirement that seniority no longer be the only factor in determining layoffs (it could continue to be one of four or five factors). But according to an administration source, this was apparently considered and rejected by the president without any serious effort to determine if it could win enough Republican votes in the Senate. (White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel disputes this account.) It would take action to change collective bargaining agreements in some state legislatures, but this was true of portions of Race to the Top and proved to be a surmountable barrier.

The brutal truth is that teachers' unions don't care much about protecting young, great teachers (often union members, but less influential ones) who will get laid off soon. Instead, the unions and their lackeys in Congress and state legislatures will go down fighting for older teachers, even if they're lemons of the year.

By the way, this is a perversion of the American labor movement. Who went to the union barricades in the mid-20th century chanting "Last hired! First fired!"? No one. Seniority systems might make some sense on assembly lines, but have no place in education.

But Obama and the Democratic Congress have apparently decided that an election year is the wrong time to continue their historic and highly commendable challenge to the teachers' unions.

Tackling seniority "messes up their Christmas present to the teachers' unions," says Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust. That present was symbolic anyway. Without a bold bid for the support of moderate Democrats and Republicans, no bill will emerge. The stranglehold of the teachers' unions on the Democratic Party, loosened a bit with Race to the Top, is back in place, asphyxiating the careers of the terrific young teachers who the country needs most.

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