Two weeks ago I attended the National Education Association convention in Washington, a weeklong pep rally for Bill Clinton punctuated by ritual denunciations of privatization. Before the teachers unions rise to political power, it was not unusual to see urban Democrats like former New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo support government aid to Catholic schools. Mr. Cuomo's flip-flop on this issue is especially revealing. If you believe it, then it's your moral obligation, as it is my own, to do something about it. . . . Mr. Cuomo soon learned his lesson.
Teachers are perhaps the most effective of all the state's unions.
If they go all-out, it will mean telephones and vigorous statewide support. It will also mean some money.'' In his 1982 campaign for governor, Mr. Cuomo gave a speech trumpeting the primacy of public education and the rights of teachers. He won the union's enthusiastic endorsement against Ed Koch in the Democratic primary. Over the next 12 years, in private meetings with Catholic leaders, Governor Cuomo would declare that he still supported tax relief for parochial school parents. Then he would take a completely different position in public.