For anyone who wants to see how the presidential candidates feel about K-12 education, I would recommend that you go to the Network for Public Education Action's 2020 Presidential Candidates Project page. It rates all of the candidates in several areas concerning education.
We have already highlighted, and it is worth noting again, how Bernie Sanders achieves an NPE Action grade of A for who is donors are (people like me), an A for being opposed to public money going to private schools (vouchers), an A for his stance on charter schools (he agrees with the NAACP's call for a moratorium on new charters), and an A for who he is affiliated with. If not for a B in testing, Bernie would have received a perfect NPE Action report card.
Here is what Bernie said about charter schools at an NEA forum on education:
“Taxpayer money should be going to educate our kids, not to make Wall Street investors even richer than they are,” he said. “And our proposal puts a moratorium on all new charter schools until we have a full understanding of their impact on public education.”
For education advice, the Sanders campaign reached out to Diane Ravitch, who is one of the top advocates in this country for public education. Please read her latest book: Slaying Goliath. She chronicles the battle to save public education. If you want to see how Sanders listened to Diane, just look at his Thurgood Marshall Education Plan. It is pro- public schools. Also, read Bernie's Workplace Democracy Plan. He is public education and union friendly.
NPE Action gives Bernie the best overall grades for public education of any of the candidates. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden received decent ratings from NPE Action but Warren is affiliated with some key people who favor privatization and the former Vice President voted for No Child Left Behind which Bernie opposed. Biden has also associated with some questionable ed deformers. He isn't bad on education but Bernie is just better. Even my friend Chaz, who is very centrist politically, gives Bernie a grade of A on education.
Here is what Chaz says on Bernie:
Bernie Sanders:
Bernie is pro public education and wants to increase teacher pay and wants to fully fund our traditional public schools while putting a freeze on new charter schools. Moreover, he wants existing charter schools to be held accountable as traditional public schools are. Finally, he also wants the charter schools to have the same student demographics and percentage of high needs students as the neighborhood schools.
GRADE A
Chaz blames Biden for former President Barack Obama's ultra anti-teacher education policies and therefore gives him a grade of F but I kind of think Biden's wife Jill, who is a community college teacher who I heard speak when I worked at Middle College, is a positive influence on him. AFT President Randi Weingarten told activists that teacher unions went to Vice President Biden as an important person who would listen to us during the Obama years. I wouldn't give him an F.
It is too early to tell but the race for the Democratic nomination may come down to Bernie vs Biden which should at least move the education agenda a little in our direction. However, I have a nightmare scenario for us and that is Biden implodes and Michael Bloomberg takes over the moderate lane and actually catches a head of steam as he buys off potential opposition to his agenda like he did when he was mayor. The entire country could conceivably have to live with what we endured in NYC. For education, that agenda won't be pretty.
I was reminded by a friend last week of when Bloomberg's henchmen came to Jamaica High School to tell us why they were closing us and informing the community that they were turning one of our Ed Options Programs, the Gateway Program, into a separate school. They actually said with a straight face that the Gateway teachers were better than the regular Jamaica teachers. We were the exact same teachers!
Let's go to what NPE Action says about Bloomberg on education. His grades are F across the board.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg said he would not rule out spending a billion dollars of his own money on the 2020 election. He is his own donor and his education policies are designed to support his ideology which supports, charters, testing, school closures, merit pay and the evaluation of teachers by test scores.
Trump also gets all F's from NPE Action but Trump doesn't seem to care much about education enough to make it a priority. Iif Bloomberg is the Democratic nominee, I'm voting third party.
I think the best course of action for me now is to make another donation to Bernie. Maybe others will too.
With Biden going down the tubes (Dems starting to admit publicly he's lost his marbles and Dems finally admitting publicly that he and his family are wildly corrupt) as so many predicted he would, Bernie is the obvious Dem candidate.
ReplyDeleteBernie's obviously not a gibbering babbling old fool and he's pretty honest. Only problem is the establishment Dems won't stand for it. This should be a doozy.
TWO POINTS: 1) Unless Bloomberg actually gets elected president, the shit that teachers in NYC face will be the same as it is now. 2) There are actually a lot more Trump supporting teachers out there than most people think. These folks merely keep quiet so as not to get hated on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteI believe Bloomberg will get the Democratic nomination. I hope I’m wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf Bloomberg gets nomination, it will split the party. The progressive wing won't accept him.
ReplyDeleteBloomy will attempt to placate them (the progressives) any way he can. I don’t believe he’ll be able to do that with all of them (AOC), but I would have said the same thing about Weingarten in 2005. He is already starting that with his deep pocketed support for fighting climate change, his increasingly vocalized stance on taxing billionaires and ending income equality. I’ got into heated argument tonight with a progressive Democrat that told me she will vote for Bloomy, if he gets the nomination, and she knows full well what Bloomberg did to us. She, like many, has a visceral hatred for Trump. Understandable. She believes that Trump must go - and will vote for the nominee no matter who he/she is. Now the other progressives are asking me ‘whats so bad with Bloomberg, other than he’s a billionaire?’ They have very little background knowledge on what occurred in NYC during his reign of terror. It behooves all of us, and especially NYC unions, to educate the public. As for the extreme Democratic progressives and the staid Democrat baby boomers that split is inevitable, with it without Bloomberg.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg is not progressive. He has some progressive positions on guns and the environment but he is anti-union, anti-worker, and anti-public school. The Sanders folks will not accept him. Bloomberg will hasten split in party.
ReplyDeleteThis is why our industry is so screwed up with so many educators so ignorant and never seem to learn....Many people are suffering in the doe right now and the culture was turned upside down by bloomberg who destroyed the livelihoods of so many great people.
ReplyDeleteOne thing is that trump will leave education alone for the most part but bloomberg will put his ill nerve clenching spanish speaking mentalityf (listen to bloomberg speak spanish the nerve of him) into our lives and we will see the end of public ed, the uft and the resurgence of charter schools bullying us out of our own buildings just like it was happening before bloomberg left. Moskowtich was the queen of nyc education when blooomberg was here he gave her anything she wanted and she hates public schools. When will the rank and file smarten up.
As student told me he would slap me in the face yesterday. James, what do you suggest?
ReplyDeleteThe only Democratic candidate whom I would not vote for instead of Trump is Bloomberg. He has no respect for the will of the majority and total contempt For teachers in general
ReplyDeleteWhen Bernie gets outmaneuvered again by the establishment democratic operatives (most likely at a brokered convention) I suspect his supporters will feel betrayed (again) and won't strongly support the brokered nominee (especially if the nominee himself is part of the maneuvering).
ReplyDeleteOne way to placate (indeed, the only possible way) Bernie and his followers would be to give him the VP slot. Perhaps that will keep the Democratic party together although they have no shot at winning v Trump/Pence in any case.
The Elizabeth Warrens and Barack Obamas and Joe Bidens and Hillary Clintons of the Democratic Party have been demanding we trust them for decades while betraying us before our very eyes time and time again. Bernie Sanders is such an obvious choice here that it’s almost baffling.
ReplyDelete@4:46, Bloomy hates Bernie much, much more than he hates Trump - he just wont admit it. He’s a smart mofo - he knows if people see it, it will hurt him. He’ll never allow him to share the same ticket. Most people don’t see it or understand it. Bernie has gone from an existential threat to a concrete one. Even if Trump wins, it’s a victory for Bloomberg, because Bernie will have lost.
ReplyDeleteIf Bernie wins the nomination, Trump becomes the establishment candidate. How is that for irony?
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding occasional media reports to the contrary, Trump was and is still absolutely despised by the Republican establishment and I do agree Bernie is in a similar position vis a vis the Democratic establishment.
ReplyDeleteI'd say Bernie has an easier (relatively) path to his party's nomination than Trump did because Biden (corrupt, astonishingly gaffe-prone and possibly senile) is weaker than Bush, Rubio and Cruz (none of whom were seen as corrupt, astonishingly gaffe-prone or possibly senile).
I'd also say the ill-advised impeachment attempt did near and long term harm to Biden much more than Bernie (Biden's antics in Iowa in Bernie's absence were unimpressive, his Ukrainian corruption was further exposed, and Bernie's kept a low profile at the sputtering trial.) I think Pelosi/Schumer were hoping the opposite.
On the other hand, the Dem leadership (and CNN/NYT/WAPO) is more cunning than Republican leadership so they'll be tougher for Bernie to outmaneuver than the Republican leadership was vis a vis Trump. And there will be the late-breaking Bloomy factor.
I believe President Trump will win again, no matter his opponent. I will vote for any candidate who has the least to say on education. Politics and education do not mix.
ReplyDeleteI got my informal rating back and I was rated ineffective for a lesson that was the first day of the unit. The kids had to preview something online and they’re really pushing us to stick to exactly what the program says to do. So I did exactly that- but when my AP asked my kids what they were being assessed on they said “I dunno” and that made me ineffective in the assessment category. But I wasn’t actually assessing them on anything! It was day one of a new unit and the whole point of the lesson was to preview what was to come and let them self discover a few things on a site, watch a video clip and introduce the unit question. So......🧐 why am I ineffective??? It’s too late to fight it but I’d love to hear any feedback about similar experiences! And he knew this was what I was doing as he has my pacing calendar! So if that’s not what you want to see, don’t come in that day!! Had he come in the second day, he might have seen something more!
ReplyDeleteIs anyone else tired of getting assaulted by children everyday? I have bruises, scratches, been kicked, punched, spit on. Teachers have had to go get x rays. But since we are on the crisis team we have to keep putting ourselves in a situation to be abused. Where are the protections for school staff? What can be done? And it’s not as simple as “call 911” (kid is back the next day and still being physical until they arrive) or “find a diff school” (this happens all over) or “the kid doesn’t belong there” (YES, but not so simple to get a kid out of a school). This has been going on for years, I’m getting tired.
ReplyDelete