The deci­sion couldn’t be more wrong­head­ed, and it’s one that mem­bers should demand the union exec­u­tive coun­cil rescind. We should pro­pose instead a deci­sion reached by a very dif­fer­ent process: a ref­er­en­dum of mem­bers that fol­lows and is informed by debate in union outlets.

On Sat­ur­day, the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Teach­ers (AFT) announced that its exec­u­tive coun­cil ​“over­whelm­ing­ly” endorsed Hillary Clin­ton for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent. It did so, the offi­cial announce­ment says, on the basis of inter­views (not released to mem­bers) and the results of a poll.

Every local should be charged by the exec­u­tive coun­cil with pro­vid­ing space and place for mem­bers to air their opin­ions. The nation­al union should encour­age use of its mag­a­zine and web­site for this debate. In this dis­cus­sion the lead­er­ship will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to per­suade mem­bers that endors­ing Clin­ton is the wis­est choice, but it will be oblig­at­ed to car­ry out the will of the mem­ber­ship as expressed in the referendum.

What is most destruc­tive in the AFT’s endorse­ment of Clin­ton is that it has dis­em­pow­ered mem­bers at pre­cise­ly the moment when we most need revi­tal­ized teach­ers unions to save a sys­tem of edu­ca­tion that is being destroyed as a pub­lic good by pow­er­ful elites and the politi­cians they control.

Instead, a rushed deci­sion was made with­out any sem­blance of legit­i­ma­cy. The ques­tions and answers about the process offer few specifics except that the nation­al union con­duct­ed polls of mem­bers and inter­views with (some) can­di­dates. Accord­ing to the union, the endorse­ment was made based on this infor­ma­tion, though peo­ple who know Wash­ing­ton pol­i­tics have been aware for many years of the pub­lic love fest between AFT Pres­i­dent Ran­di Wein­garten and Clin­ton. The process of seek­ing mem­ber opin­ion was an embar­rass­ing­ly trans­par­ent cov­er for Weingarten’s long­stand­ing desire that Clin­ton be the AFT’s candidate.

Not all exec­u­tive coun­cil mem­bers approved of this endorse­ment, though how indi­vid­u­als vot­ed has not been revealed to mem­bers. We have a right to know how lead­ers vot­ed and should demand this information.

While Wein­garten holds much respon­si­bil­i­ty for han­dling this endorse­ment, as if it were hers to make, the exec­u­tive coun­cil mem­bers are equal­ly respon­si­ble. Those who sup­port­ed the endorse­ment sup­port­ed it on behalf of mem­bers with­out hav­ing con­sult­ed their own con­stituen­cies, let alone the nation­al union mem­ber­ship. Their shame­ful actions should also be called to account.

Bernie Sanders’s teacher sup­port­ers are prob­a­bly the most out­raged by the endorse­ment. They under­stand that Clin­ton sup­ports the bipar­ti­san poli­cies that have depro­fes­sion­al­ized teach­ing and made pub­lic edu­ca­tion a prof­it cen­ter for transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions like Pearson.

But even those who think the AFT should sup­port Clin­ton should be dis­turbed by this endorse­ment because it under­cuts the union’s pow­er. A ful­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic endorse­ment process would tru­ly inform and mobi­lize mem­bers, strength­en­ing the union nation­al­ly and local­ly, mak­ing us stronger in the elec­tion and beyond.

Wein­garten and too many mem­bers think we can rely on cozy rela­tion­ships with politi­cians and pow­er­ful elites to defend our schools, our jobs, our econ­o­my, and democ­ra­cy. We can’t. Only an engaged mem­ber­ship that under­stands the grave cri­sis pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and democ­ra­cy, faces is going to be able to turn back our oppo­nents — who include Clin­ton and her Wall Street supporters.

We have a moral and polit­i­cal oblig­a­tion to insist that AFT exec­u­tive coun­cil mem­bers stand up for a dif­fer­ent kind of union­ism, one in which mem­bers are empow­ered and can exert demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol over the poli­cies that shape their lives, schools and communities.