W Post: How Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley answer union’s questions about education

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/19/how-clinton-sanders-omalley-answer-unions-questions-about-education/

By Valerie Strauss July 19 at 11:48 AM

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers union in the country, became the first major union to endorse a candidate, when it picked Hillary Clinton earlier this month.

The July 11 endorsement by the AFT’s executive council has sparked backlash from some union members, who support Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and/or wanted the AFT to wait longer while the political process played out. But the endorsement was never in doubt, given AFT President Randi Weingarten’s longtime association with Clinton.

Putting the politics of the endorsement aside for the moment, here is how Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley answered AFT questions in questionnaires submitted before the endorsement and before both the House and Senate had passed their own versions of a rewritten No Child Left Behind bill. (They were the only three to answer the AFT’s questions).

The questions involve issues including education, health care and the economy. You can decide for yourself who directly answered questions and who dodged them. Here are the questionnaires with the answers:

FULL story at link.

[LWolf]

1. I'm still reading through

all the responses. This, though, the first few sentences from Senator Sanders, nails the whole issue with the deform movement that has degraded public education for almost 2 decades. This, this right here, will galvanize teachers in this campaign.

BS: I voted against No Child Left Behind in 2001, and continue to oppose the bill’s reliance on high-stakes standardized testing to direct draconian interventions. In my view, No Child Left Behind ignores several important factors in a student’s academic performance, specifically the impact of poverty, access to adequate health care, mental health, nutrition, and a wide variety of supports that children in poverty should have access to. By placing so much emphasis on standardized testing, No Child Left Behind ignores many of the skills and qualities that are vitally important in our 21st century economy, like problem solving, critical thinking, and teamwork, in favor of test preparation that provides no benefit to students after they leave school.

[FSogol]

2. Thanks. n/t