Bernie Sanders Would Be the First Jewish President – What That Means to Me

March 6, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, antisemitism, Bernie Sanders, Compassion, Congress, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, history, Labor, Media, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, protest, Schools, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, Unions, voting, Whiteness Bernie Sanders, Election, erasure, jewish, Judaism, media, Politics, prejudice, President

Being Jewish is not something I advertise.

Some of my earliest memories are trying to explain to school friends that no, I didn’t kill Jesus – and, yes, I do eat matzo but it isn’t made with baby’s blood – and would they like to come over to my house and play Legos?

I’ve been called “yid,” “kike,” “heeb,” even just plain “Jew” with the lips curled and the word hurled at me like a knife.

Heck. When I was a kid even the bus driver called me “moneybags,” though my family was far from rich.

So it makes sense to me that Bernie Sanders isn’t running for President as a Jew first.

He’s running on his policies and experience.

But it still hurts when pundits complain that there are now just two white men vying for the democratic nomination.

Um. Okay.

Sanders IS Jewish. You know that, right? If he were elected, it would not be business as usual. It would be unprecedented.

Yet that fact is almost always glossed over because it doesn’t fit the media narrative they’re selling.

Sanders is the “crazy socialist,” not the “historic Jew.”

This constant erasure is a slap in the face.

And I mean MY face, not just Sander’s.

I doubt it feels too good to him, either, but it feels personal to me, as well.

My family and I live just outside of Pittsburgh, about a half hour away from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill where just two years ago 17 people were gunned down in perhaps the worst act of violence against Jews in our nation’s history.

I teach “The Diary of Anne Frank” to middle school children less than 15 minutes away.

I have relatives who belong to that congregation, though I didn’t know any of the 11 people who died.

Let me ask – were they white?

I’ll bet they thought they were, but all it took was an anti-Semite with a gun to challenge that.

Like Bernie, I lost my extended family in the Holocaust – great grandparents, great uncles and aunts, cousins, who I will never meet. I grew up with only the closest of familial relations.

Before I was old enough to get in to see a PG-13 movie, I knew about mass graves, ghettos, cattle cars and crematoriums.

Generation upon generation of European Jewry never expected to be singled out for extermination. They probably thought of themselves as regular, everyday people, too – an US not a THEM.

Bernie would meet that same standard. Like all of us, he knows we’re white only until someone decides we’re not.

So when talking heads decide to erase the fact of Bernie’s ancestry, they aren’t just playing politics. They’re engaged in naked prejudice.

Let me be clear. I don’t bring this up out of some sense of political tokenism. Bernie shouldn’t be recognized just for appearances sake. He needs to be seen for who and what he is.

This isn’t about identity politics. It’s about basic truth.

When some folks complain about the way Bernie speaks or that he yells too much, they’re really showing a xenophobic bigotry.

Bernie is a Jewish man who grew up in New York.That is how people from there talk.

I’ve known scores of people who speak like that – often at the dinner table during family gatherings. Just because it isn’t a part of your personal experience doesn’t make it acceptable to dismiss.

If you belittled someone for speaking with a Spanish accent, it would be called out for what it is – prejudice.

But by ignoring Bernie’s Judaism, you allow all kinds of discriminatory preconceptions to pass as little more than valid criticisms.

Don’t get me wrong.

I don’t think Bernie’s Judaism is the most important thing about him or his campaign.

I wouldn’t support just any Jew who was running. For example, I wouldn’t back Joe Lieberman or Jared Kushner if they were seeking elected office.

But it DOES mean something that Bernie is in the hunt for the Democratic nomination and is Jewish.

For me, he typifies what is best about us.

He embodies the spirit of doing good for others and trying to make the world a better place. He seeks justice in economic, social, racial, gender and political relationships. He tells truth even when it’s uncomfortable to hear. And that includes the truth about the Israeli government’s reprehensible treatment of the Palestinian people.

In his 30 years in Congress he passed mountains of bipartisan legislation as the amendment king. He refused to support the Iraq War or cuts to social security. He supports unions, workers, public schools and universal healthcare.

Being Jewish does not take precedence to those things. But I hope supporting those things will help redefine what people think of when they think of Judaism.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Don’t Fear Summer Lee. Fear the Devil’s Bargain Labor Leaders Are Willing to Make Opposing Her

February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, Budget, Child Safety, Democrat, Election, Healthcare, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Politics, Prejudice, Social Justice, Unions Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council, Bethany Hallam, cancer, Chris Roland, Democrats, employment, environment, fossil fuels, fracking, Green New Deal, jobs, PA AFL-CIO, Paul Costa, Pennsylvania, Politics, pollution, Summer Lee, unions

Cancer or unemployment.

That’s the choice Pennsylvanians are being asked to make in 2020.

Do we allow hydraulic fracking to continue to destroy our environment and increase our risk of cancers and other debilitating illnesses?

Or do we clean things up and risk losing jobs?

Some labor leaders seem willing to chose the former on behalf of their constituencies.

That’s why the Pittsburgh-based Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council (PA AFL-CIO) voted to oppose the re-election of State Representative Summer Lee, the first black woman elected to the State House from the western part of the Commonwealth.

She chooses life.

And that might put some people out of work.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of the labor movement that union bosses are willing to make this trade – life for a living wage.

And it’s a completely unnecessary choice.

We can have BOTH jobs and health – if Democratic politics allow for minds open enough to see the truth.

Let’s get this straight.

Lee is a badass.

The Democrat represents Homestead and West Homestead – two of the three municipalities in the school district where I work as a middle school teacher. She also represents parts of Pittsburgh, Braddock, Swissvale, Rankin, Turtle Creek, Forest Hills and Churchill.

But the 32-year-old lawyer and community organizer is more than just a politician. She’s a local hero.

Just two years ago, Lee beat 20-year incumbent Paul Costa by a margin of 68-32%.

She helped found UNITE, a grassroots political action committee, which has successfully defeated several old guard Democrats in bed with the fossil fuel industry.

Most notably, UNITE was part of the effort that ousted Allegheny County Council President John DeFazio in favor of another Democratic insurgent, Bethany Hallam. Once again DeFazio’s pro-fracking and fossil fuel platform went down in flames to Hallam’s environmentally friendly policies by a margin of 54%-46%.

Fracking is a relatively new and dangerous method of extracting natural gas from otherwise inaccessible sources like the region’s abundant Marcellus shale. “Fracking fluid” made up of water, sand and harmful chemicals is injected in a high pressure blast into deep rock formations releasing natural gas, petroleum and other substances.

Fracking has been known to increase health risks like respiratory problems, a negative impact on pregnancies, and a host of other problems – and that’s not even considering the risks of spills. The process also has devastating environmental impacts including the escape of greenhouse gases, groundwater pollution and increase risk of earthquakes.

In Harrisburg most debate has centered around removing a Republican-backed sweetheart tax deal for the industry and not outright banning the process altogether.

Lee, Hallam and other UNITE Democrats are changing the conversation, yet some of the area’s labor unions aren’t coming along with these insurgent winners. They’re sticking with establishment figures.

The PA AFL-CIO has endorsed Chris Roland against Lee in the primary. He’s a white North Braddock councilman who supports fracking.

Lee is a Democratic Socialist with a massively pro-labor campaign. She’s been endorsed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and United Electrical Workers (UE).

She is the only incumbent who the labor council did not endorse.

The only reason is her environmental stance, her race, or both.

Lee supports a Green New Deal and tightening enforcement against illegal air emissions from steel mills.

Roland has already raised $77,635 mostly from local unions. Steamfitters Local 449 and the Laborers’ International Union of North America have both given him $20,000 while the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Plumbers locals each gave $10,000.

To combat this, Lee has raised $55,789.

Some pundits theorize that the move to stop Lee is doomed from the start because of her incredible popularity in her district. The real motivation is to weaken UNITE’s ability to fundraise against other pro-fracking Democrats.

It’s tragic that the labor movement has come to such a low point with leaders like PA AFL-CIO President Darrin Kelly willing to trade the health and safety of the people living here for the promise of a paycheck.

Kelly has been a vocal opponent of the Green New Deal fearing what it would do to fossil fuel employment in the area.

In an April interview with Payday, he said:

“When you have a situation where you are taking away from someone’s ability to feed their family, that is not going to be looked at favorably. I am going to be against it; I’m going to be vocal against it and not welcome it in Western Pennsylvania.”

He seems to forget that dead people don’t need a paycheck.

Trading the environment and the health and welfare of our friends and neighbors for a living wage is a bad deal.

Moreover, labor leaders opposing environmentalists like Lee ignore key aspects of her proposals.

A Green New Deal would create millions of sustainable new jobs. It would require replacing pipes, weatherizing homes, expanding railways, manufacturing wind turbines – all of which would require people to do the work.

These would be high quality union jobs with good salaries, benefits, safe working conditions, training opportunities, etc.

This opens a once in a generation opportunity for new jobs to upgrade and expand the Commonwealth’s crumbling roads, bridges, energy grid, and water systems. Not only would we repair what exists, we’d build a cleaner, more affordable, and more resilient infrastructure that would be there for our posterity.

We need to expand access to light rail and low-emissions public transit, replace lead pipes, build a smart grid for increased wind and solar power, replace storm water systems to prevent flooding and toxic runoff, and restore wetlands and other natural buffers to protect our communities.

These are exactly the things our labor leaders should be concerned about doing. These are exactly the policies we need to move forward into the future.

It’s time to stop the necrotic paralysis of labor propping up the dying fossil fuels industry. The future is with sustainable energy.

If we want to actually live to see that future, we need to back policies that save our children from getting sick, that preserves Pennsylvania’s natural resources.

Green New Deal Democrats like Lee and Hallam are the future.

It’s time the holdouts in the labor movement get with the program.

78345718_10157331312783860_2217528104966946816_n — Summer Lee, Mark Fallon and me at December’s Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh.

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

There Are No Bernie Bros, Just Diverse Supporters Being Made Into What They’re Not

February 8, 2020 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Bernie Sanders, California, capitalism, Civil Rights, Credibility, Data, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, history, Journalism, Media, Obama, Politics, Prejudice, President, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, Social Justice, voter suppression, voting, Voting Rights, Whiteness 2020, Bernie Bros, Bernie Sanders, Election, hispanics, Judaism, latinos, lgbtq, Myths, People of Color, Politics, propaganda, women

It’s time to call the whole “Bernie Bros” phenomenon exactly what it is – racist, sexist, homophobic propaganda.

I don’t mean that Bernie Sanders’ supporters are any of those things.

I mean that the term used to lump us all together is.

There is no monolithic group of angry straight men backing the Vermont Senator’s bid for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020. Nor was there in 2016.

A substantial portion of Sanders’ supporters are female, racially diverse and/or LGBTQ.

Women under 45 make up a larger share of Sanders’ base than do men of the same age, according to February findings from The Economist.

Moreover, women have given more money to his campaign than to any other candidate.

In November, Sanders raised about $17.1 million in itemized contributions, or 40% of his total funds from women, according to Nicole Goodkind of Fortune.

In particular, that’s more than $13 million in small donations from nearly 280,000 suburban women. And he took in more than $2 million more from suburban women in large donations.

Women support him just as much as men do, “if not more,” according to a Vox analysis of polling between November 2018 and March 2019.

But he’s also extremely popular with people of color.

In fact, the same Vox analysis found that Sanders is more popular among people of color than among white people.

Heck! Sanders’ polling numbers with black voters were double that of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) who was also seeking the nomination before dropping out in December, according to a March Morning Consult poll – and Harris actually is a person of color.

Both The Economist’s latest numbers and Univision Noticias poll found Sanders was the second choice of Latino and Hispanic voters after former front runner Joe Biden. Moreover, 39% of Latinos in California said they prefer Sanders, compared to 21% for Biden and 5% for Warren, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Meanwhile, he also has strong support in the LGBTQ community.

Sanders is the first-choice for 34 percent of Democratic primary voters who identify as LGBTQ, according to the latest Morning Consult poll. That’s more than Elizabeth Warren at 19%, Joe Biden at 18%, Michael Bloomberg at 7%, even Pete Buttigieg at 12% – and Buttigieg is openly gay.

Sanders has a long record of supporting gay rights. In the 1980s as Burlington mayor, he proclaimed a Gay Pride Day, while during his tenure in the House, he opposed both the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – a law that barred gay and lesbian military service members from proclaiming their sexual orientation. And in 2009, Sanders endorsed marriage rights for gay couples — three years before then-Vice President Biden did the same.

If that’s not enough, the Sanders campaign has women and people of color in prominent leadership positions.

Two women of color, Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner and San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, are co-chairs of the campaign, along with Indian-American Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen. Sanders’ campaign manager is longtime progressive activist Faiz Shakir.

Are all these women and minorities really Bernie Bros?

The term was coined four years ago by Atlantic writer Robinson Meyer to characterize those backing the Vermont Senator as mansplaining internet trolls – a sexist mob who refused to support Hillary Clinton because of her gender and not her neoliberal policies and anti-progressive history.

And that’s really the crux of it.

The Bernie Bros phenomenon is an attempt to use identity politics to minimize the beliefs of people – to paste over their actual identities as real, live women and men, to erase the opinions of diverse people – to create a fake picture of who these people are.

But don’t take my word for it. Take that of Barbara Smith, the black feminist author who coined the term “identity politics” and has thrown her support behind Sanders in 2016 and 2020:

“It was absolutely meaningful for Bernie Sanders or for anyone else to say, ‘No, I’m going to step away from that white-skin privilege, I’m going to interrogate what is going on here around race. And then I’m going to do what most people never do: I’m going to actually put my body on the line and take a stand and work with those whose oppression we are committed to ending,’ That’s what Bernie Sanders did.”

Bernie’s opponents are trying to weaponize the language of civil rights activism against that very same movement.

To dismiss his supporters as “Bernie Bros” is just not true.

It is merely tone policing – an attempt to silence passionate political advocacy because it is too loud, too enthusiastic and – frankly – too nonwhite, lower class and ideologically progressive.

To be sure there are some belligerent Bernie supporters out there – just as there are for every candidate running.

But to suggest that Bernie’s supporters are somehow more ill-tempered, rude or unwilling to compromise is to display your own prejudices.

Clinton is not even running for anything in 2020, yet she misses no opportunity to attack Sanders as unliked and has even said she would not support him if he won the nomination. She repeatedly criticizes him as unsupportive once she locked up the party’s nomination in 2016, yet Sanders relentlessly campaigned for her in the last two months before the election – appearing at 39 rallies in 13 states on her behalf.

In fact, her supporters tried a similar bit of propaganda back in 2008 when she was running against Barack Obama where Clinton supporter Rebecca Traister ran an article in Salon entitled, “Hey, Obama boys: Back off already!”

This is just more establishment propaganda meant to divide progressive voters who actually care about social justice issues so that the big money candidates can more easily get the party’s nomination.

It is insinuation, libel and slander. It is racist, sexist and anti-LGBTQ.

And though most of the remaining Democratic candidates are white, Bernie is also a minority. He’s Jewish.

Their carping on his irritating voice and mannerisms border on the anti-Semitic.

But no one talks about that – least of all Bernie who is too busy talking about policies that would benefit us all – often in a Jewish Brooklyn accent.

Moderates complain that regardless of the primary, in the general election we must vote blue no matter who. It is imperative we end the Trump presidency in any way possible.

Erasing the voices of the most energetic and committed constituency in the election is not the way to accomplish this.

A significant share of Sanders supporters — myself included — consider Warren their second choice, and if she wins the party’s nomination, would cast a ballot for her with little to no hesitation. And this despite her own foray into bogus accusations of sexism against Sanders that backfired actually increasing his support among women and minorities.

Sanders’ supporters willingness to consider other nominees besides their top choice will probably depend to a large degree on the fairness with which the primary is conducted.

As we saw in Iowa, the Democratic Party has not committed itself to ensuring this goal.

If anything is likely to derail a Democratic victory in 2020, it is that partisanship and incompetence.

If we want any chance at uniting behind a common candidate – Sanders or otherwise – we need to stop deleting our strongest allies under such a false characterization.

Let the people decide who they want to represent them against Trump.

And when they support Sanders, respect that decision without degrading them behind a prejudicial and politically convenient lie.

Sixteen Gadfly Articles That Made Betsy DeVos Itch in 2019 

December 29, 2019 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, Budget, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Cory Booker, Data, Democrat, edtech, Education, Elizabeth Warren, history, Learning, Local Control, Obama, Parents, Pennsylvania, Philosophy, Pittsburgh, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Racism, Republican, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers end of the year, New Year, year in review

“Life can only be understood backwards,” wrote Søren Kierkegaard, “but it must be lived forwards.”

I remember reading the Danish philosopher’s “Fear and Trembling” in my philosophy of religion class back in college.

To be honest I was never a big fan of his work – I thought if the only way to truth was taking a leap of faith, how many madmen have already reached enlightenment?

But he had a point when he wrote about the backwards order of perspective – that we can only understand the meaning of our lives once those moments have passed. How cruel that we must live our lives without knowing the importance of those moments until later.

The only times I remember knowing – really knowing – that I was living through an important moment were when I was married and when my daughter was born.

Other than those few instants of my life, I’ve wandered forward like an infant – unaware of whether this would really leave an indelible mark on the fabric of my reality or not.

And that’s not even mentioning what I’ve done – if anything – that has had an effect – any effect – on our larger shared reality.

It’s the same with writing a blog. I wrote 77 posts in 2019 – a full 32 less than last year. Yet my blog got 297,000 hits – 82,000 more than the year before.

However, which articles – if any – will have any staying power?

Will anything I wrote this year still be read in the days to come? Has any of it made a difference?

Maybe it’s foolish but that is what I’m trying to do.

I sit at my laptop pounding away at the keys as if any of it has an impact on the world.

A few weeks ago at the Education  Forum in Pittsburgh – when the leading Democratic candidates for President actually seemed to have heard the education activist community’s concerns – it felt like what I had been writing really HAD made some sort of mark.

Then a week later when the Pittsburgh School Board decided to make cuts to services for students instead of raising taxes to meet costs beyond the district’s control, it felt like nothing I wrote really mattered. Really, Pittsburgh? You have the lowest millage in Allegheny County, but you can’t get the gumption to fund your schools? You’re beset by charter schools, pension costs and a mayor who refuses to put back tax revenue he was perfectly willing to use to help the city when it was in dire straights.

Does no one care about school children – if they’re poor and black?

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, if anything I’ve written this year has made a difference, it was probably one of these articles.

I’ll include the usual top 10 list – a countdown of my most popular works this year – but I’ll end with six honorable mentions. These are articles that I feel personally proud of that wouldn’t qualify based just on sheer numbers alone.

I hope you enjoy this stroll down memory lane, and here’s hoping 2020 will leave the negativity behind while still continuing the positive change that may have crept in this year that was.

10) Standardized Testing is a Tool of White Supremacy

Published: April 5

Views: 4,389

Description: Here’s the story of how standardized testing went from the eugenicist movement to the Barack Obama administration to continually enforce white power. High stakes testing is an instance of being color blind – when “post racial” just means racist and ignorant.

Fun Fact: I think the title really captured people’s attention. Black people have been saying this for decades, but the so-called mainstream has refused to listen. This article still gets a lot of readers in its incarnation on commondreams.org. I hope it provides easy proof of this point to stop the constant gas lighting from naysayers in every walk of life who can’t seem to grasp how something so pervasive can be so pernicious to people of color.

9) Six Problems with a Growth Mindset in Education

Published: Aug. 12

Views: 4,678

Description: One of the most frequent excuses given for high stakes testing is that we can substitute growth for achievement. However, that idea has its own problems.

Fun Fact: A lot of folks have guzzled so much of the testing Kool-Aid that they simply refuse to accept the facts about cognition and development here. Growth has its place – but it doesn’t fit at all in a pedagogy based on standardized testing.

8) Standardized Tests Are Not Objective Measures of Anything

Published: June 29

Views: 5,290

Description: Question – If standardized testing doesn’t assess student learning, what does it assess?Answer – not much. And certainly not what you thought it did.

Fun Fact: There will come a day when standardized tests are rightly considered pseudoscientific. This is my attempt to get this idea across to a larger audience. Audience reactions have ranged from giving me looks like I’m deranged to sighs at how obvious this is.

7) Every Charter School Must Be Closed Down – Every. Single. One.

Published: Sept. 8

Views: 6,869

Description: The world finally seems to be realizing that charter schools are deeply problematic. But what to do with them? My answer is to shut them all down and any that actually provide value to their students should be transitioned to becoming authentic public schools.

Fun Fact: This article was partially in response to charter school critics who would say things on Twitter like “No one wants to shut down all charter schools, but…” No. I really do want to shut them all down. I think their time is up. We need to abolish this failed concept and move on to real education policies that actually have a chance at helping students.

6) Charter School Teacher Introduces Elizabeth Warren at Rally

Published: June 4

Views: 9,761

Description: Before Elizabeth Warren introduced her education policy, no one really knew where she stood on the issue. So many of us in the education activist community became worried when she had former charter school teacher Sonya Mehta introduce her at a California Rally.

Fun Fact: This article drudged up huge controversy over my characterization of Mehta. At first, I called her a “Charter school lobbyist.” This was unfair and I changed the article to reflect that. However, I was dragged in the media as an anti-Warren troll and Russian bot. Since Warren has released her education policy, I have written extensively about how really comprehensive it is. I think Warren is second only to Bernie Sanders in this race and even exceeds him in some areas of policy. But no one has yet to apologize to me for daring to question a political figure.

5) Teachers Are Not Responsible for Student Growth or Achievement

Published: Nov. 29

Views: 11,188

Description: Teachers can’t make students learn. We can’t even make them grow. We can do lots of things to optimize the conditions for growth, but we are not ultimately responsible for the result. We’re only responsible for what we do to help bring it about.

Fun Fact: Lots of folks hate me for writing this article. Lots of folks love me for writing it. However, it was past time someone said it. Teachers make a huge impact on their students, but we are not magical. When you expect us to be wizards, you end up destroying our ability to do our jobs and you enable all the corporate testing and privatization hacks who build themselves up by tearing down our profession because we’re not magic.

4) Charter Schools Were Never a Good Idea. They Were a Corporate Plot All Along

Published: Sept. 15

Views: 13,153

Description: Where did charter schools come from and what was their original purpose? Read here to find the facts.

Fun Fact: I wrote this article because of the common lie that charter schools were created by union president Albert Shanker to empower teachers. WRONG. They were created by Minnesota “policy entrepreneur” Ted Kolderie and privatization cheerleader Joe Nathan. This is an attempt to get the record straight. I hope it succeeds.

3) Are Teachers Allowed to Think for Themselves?

Published: Nov. 7

Views: 22,041

Description: It’s kind of a simple question. Many administrators and school boards treat teachers like robots to be programmed and do what they’re told. But we’re also expected to display a large degree of autonomy. Which one is the real expectation because we can’t ultimately be both.

Fun Fact: This article was republished in the Washington Post and continues to be hugely popular. I think that’s partially because it calls out the elephant in the room in every faculty meeting, school board meeting and education policy session at local, state and the federal government. Maybe allow teachers to be part of the conversation if you really want to bring about positive change.

2) How Many Decisions Do Teachers Make Every Day?

Published: Jan. 5

Views: 27,286

Description: Answer – on average, teachers make at least 1,500 decisions a day. That comes out to about 4 decisions a minute given six hours of class time.

Fun Fact: This fact has been around since at least the 1980s. It represents the kinds of things we were interested in education before standardized testing and school privatization took over. And it has implications that go on for miles and miles and miles…

1) As LA Teachers Strike Over Charter Schools, Democrat Cory Booker Speaks at Pro-Charter Rally

Published: Jan. 18

Views: 37,652

Description: In California, 30,000 Los Angeles teachers were on strike because charter schools are gobbling up their funding without providing the same level of quality services or accountability. Meanwhile in New Orleans, Sen. Cory Booker was giving the keynote address at a charter school rally.

Fun Fact: This raised the question of where the Democrats stand on education policy. And thankfully the Booker branch of neoliberals has been overpowered by the Sanders-Warren wing. We’ll see if this continues through the Presidential nomination and (hopefully) the next administration. Could it be a sea change in Democratic support for real, authentic education policy and away from standardization and privatization? Time will tell.

Honorable Mentions

6) Pittsburgh Mayor’s Tantrum About School Finances Proves He Doesn’t Understand Education or Equity

Published: Nov. 17

Views: 3,237

Description: Mayor Bill Peduto refuses to give back millions of dollars in tax revenue to city schools that could help close budget gaps and provide the services students need. The money was given to the city when it was in financial distress, but now that the city situation has improved, the schools are calling for that money to be returned. Just simple fairness.

Fun Fact: This was one of the first times I really addressed Pittsburgh politics especially as it branches out from the schools. Readers were extremely interested and I seemed to have tapped into a real conversation about the mayor’s role in school politics.

5) Charter Schools Are Quietly Gobbling Up My Public School District 

Published: May 20

Views: 2,919

Description: The Propel charter school chain keeps getting more and more of Steel Valley Schools budget despite enrolling around the same number of kids. It is expected to get away with 16% of Steel Valley Schools’ entire $37 million yearly budget in the coming year. How is that fair?

Fun Fact: This is one of the first times I have written so openly about the district where I teach. The result was extremely positive. It really got people talking and put together a lot of information that – sadly – our local media has failed to compile. With the loss of neighborhood papers and the consolidation of newspaper budgets, it’s left to bloggers like me to do actual journalism.

4) Greater Test Scores Often Mean Less Authentic Learning

Published: Oct. 5

Views: 2,580

Description: Standardized tests only assess ability at taking standardized tests. So if we misconstrue test scores for learning, we’re leaving out the entire universe of concepts and skills that are not and cannot be captured by those tests.

Fun Fact: I think this is an important point that can’t be emphasized enough. It frustrated some readers because they wanted the easy conflation between test scores and learning. But few things in education are that easy. This article outlines exactly where the tests go wrong. It’s a tour of the sausage factory that will leave anyone less hungry for standardization.

3) Top 7 Ways Technology Stifles Student Learning in My Classroom

Published: July 31

Views: 1,991

Description: We have become too reliant on technology in schools. We’ve welcomed and incorporated it without testing it, or even reflecting upon whether it promises to offer better pathways toward student comprehension and discovery or whether it merely offers flash and novelty devoid of substance. And perhaps even more frightening, we have not investigated the ways in which using these technologies actually puts student privacy and intellectual growth at risk.

Fun Fact: It is essential we question our assumptions – especially about technology. Many teachers fund this article a breath of fresh air. Others condemned me as a technophobe. You be the judge.

2) The Last Day of School

Views: 1,271

Description: I had a stronger connection with last year’s students than any group I’ve ever taught. I was their Language Arts teacher for two consecutive years – 7th and 8th grade. When our time ended, they even re-enacted the closing scene of “The Dead Poet’s Society” – a movie we had watched together in class.

Fun Fact: I will always treasure the two years I had with these children. They changed my life for the better and made me a better teacher. I am honored by their reviews of my teaching.

1) The Stink of Segregation Needs to End in Steel Valley Schools

Published: Nov. 12

Views: 988

Description: The dark secret of my district is how deeply segregated our elementary schools are. I wrote about what the problem is and how I think we can solve it. This is about as real and raw as policy making gets.

Fun Fact: Again this was one of the first times I let myself talk so openly about my district and what I thought needed to be done to improve it. Community members have come forward to talk with me about it but the response from anyone in the district has been total silence. I hope we’re actually serious about making a change here. The community is crying out for it. Teachers want to help. Where we go in the future is anyone’s guess.

Why is Accountability Too Much to Ask of Charter Schools?

December 20, 2019 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Local Control, NAEP, Obama, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers 2020, Accountability, ALEC, Bernie Sanders, Center for Education Reform, charter schools, Democrats, education, Elizabeth Warren, Jeanne Allen, Politics, public schools, Republicans

Screen Shot 2019-12-19 at 11.23.34 PM — **NOTE:** Not an exact quote but Allen wrote a book “Charting a New Course The Case for Freedom, Flexibility & Opportunity Through Charter Schools” that proposes just this idea.

If you hire someone to buy your groceries, you’ll probably ask for a receipt.

That’s really all education advocates want from the charter school industry.

Charter schools are bankrolled with tax dollars but often run by private businesses.

Is it too much to ask these businesses to account for how they spend the money?

Apparently it is because Jeanne Allen has been sending her representatives all over the country to harass Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and any other candidate with the audacity to demand charter schools be transparent and accountable.

Yesterday she wrote another blistering press release with the title:

“Democratic Candidates Asked to Listen to Voices of Struggling Parents Following Them Across Nation”

Allen is CEO and Founder of the Center for Education Reform – a billionaire backed lobbying firm for school privatization.

Not exactly a “struggling parent” or anyone who speaks for them. But she is a former member of the Heritage Foundation and current member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

She doesn’t speak for parents. She speaks for the billionaires who pay her salary.

Armed with bundles of cash from the Walton Family and others, Allen has been organizing functionaries to disrupt Democratic rallies across the country including a speech by Warren in Atlanta last month. I wonder how she’s moving her protestors around – perhaps utilizing $2 million a year private jets like the one leased by Texas-based charter chain IDEA.

Oh! Wait! The Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers made such a stink about that use of public dollars, the charter chain had to give up its lease.

States shouldn’t have to rely on teachers unions and the media to shame charters into being accountable. That should be the price of accepting public money.

But Allen doesn’t want to hear it. Back in 2016, she wrote a book called “Charting a New Course The Case for Freedom, Flexibility & Opportunity Through Charter Schools” that put forward the libertarian idea that charter schools need not be held accountable by anything other than the invisible hand of the market.

Unsurprisingly, such far right radicalism didn’t result in an invitation to last weekend’s Education Forum in Pittsburgh for candidates seeking the Democratic 2020 Presidential nomination.

Instead the room was full of public school parents, students, teachers, advocates and civil rights leaders.

Allen was furious. How dare they leave out charter school flunkies!?

It wasn’t so long ago that Democrats like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were staunch supporters of school privatization. But many in this new batch of progressives typified by Sanders and Warren are demanding real reform.

According to reports by the Network for Public Education “Asleep at the Wheel” and “Still Asleep at the Wheel,” more than $1 billion in federal funds were wasted on charters that either never opened or closed not long after opening. And now Congress has appropriated $440 million more dollars for the federal Charter School Program, a slush fund to open even more charter schools across the country even in states like New Hampshire that don’t want them.

Isn’t it fair to demand a few receipts?

Thank goodness there’s Republicans like Betsy DeVos who make no such demands. Allen has the entire Trump administration willing to listen to her anytime she wants. But ironically for someone who champions schools be run like businesses, she wants to corner the market and eliminate any political choice or competition.

In yesterday’s press release, Allen demanded the seven leading Democratic candidates at last night’s Los Angeles debate sit down and listen to her particular special interest group.

And – make no mistake – it is a special interest group.

Charter schools are the very definition of special interest.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, Special Interests are:

“A group of people or an organization seeking or receiving special advantages, typically through political lobbying.”

That’s exactly what Allen is trying to do.

She is challenging the request that charter schools meet the same accountability standards as authentic public schools.

She wants charter schools to be held to a lower standard – that they can enroll just the students they choose instead of having to accept everyone in their coverage areas like authentic public schools are required to do. She wants charter schools to be able to narrow the curriculum and get rid of extraneous classes and student services so that the business folks running the place can take the money that had funded these things home as a bonus. She wants to ensure charter schools can continue to operate with appointed bureaucrats and not be required to be managed by elected school boards drawn from everyday citizens in the community.

Authentic public schools aren’t allowed to skirt these rules. Why should charter schools? If they’re public schools, shouldn’t they have to abide by the same safeguards?

Allen claims she’s just looking out for children of color.

Yet the overwhelming majority of black students enrolled in authentic public schools – 7 million strong – would probably disagree with her. She certainly isn’t speaking for THEM.

Here’s this white woman telling the black community she knows what’s best.

Only about 800,000 black kids are enrolled in charter schools nationwide and that number is dropping.

Black people know how charter schools disproportionately locate in the inner cities to target them – just like those other markers of the predatory economy: takeout liquor stores and payday lenders.

Ex-journalist Roland Martin, who at least is black, held a streaming event a few days ago to reiterate his support for charter schools.

He used to be backed by the billionaire funded Black Alliance for Education Outcomes (BAEO) which praised DeVos to the heavens when she was chosen as Education Secretary.

In a press release, the organization enthused:

“BAEO congratulates Betsy DeVos on becoming our next Secretary of Education. She is a very gifted and well-respected education leader with a proven track record of advancing excellence and equity for students. She has been a strong advocate of parental choice, ensuring that all children regardless of race or economic status have access to excellent schools.

“DeVos has spent much of her life working on behalf of low-income and working class Black families who just want access to better educational options for their children. She will be a strong supporter of parental choice policies and education reform initiatives that we believe will help close the academic achievement gap.”

However, after DeVos championed cutting civil rights guidelines for students, slashing funding for everything other than school vouchers and advised teachers to report their undocumented students to ICE, the civil rights community revolted.

Both the NAACP and Black Lives Matter have condemned DeVos and demanded a moratorium on new charter schools. These huge people powered groups represent the will of the black and brown community – not Allen, Martin and their billionaire backers.

BAEO was so overcome with negative publicity, the group disbanded.

Allen claims charter schools are necessary because of low standardized test scores at public schools.

However, she’s just parroting the same school privatization talking points of the past three decades. Increasing charter schools didn’t raise test scores in the 90s, the 00s or the 10s.

Moreover, the test scores she’s referring to are international comparisons between the US and other industrialized countries that don’t take many relevant factors into account. Most importantly, the US is committed to educating all of its students while many of these other nations are not. They weed out the lower achieving students by middle and high school. They don’t educate all of their students with special needs. And they don’t have the same level or scale of poverty. In short, these are not apples to apples comparisons and have little to tell us about the quality of the American system unless it’s that our ideals are better than most international systems.

Finally, Allen neglects to mention that charter schools have never outperformed authentic public schools. They are not a solution to falling test scores, because charter school kids get the same scores or often worse ones. Cyber charter schools in particular are notorious for achieving worse academic outcomes for students than literally not going to school at all!

The fact that many of the current Democrats have embraced charter school criticism may be a sign of real reform on the horizon.

And that’s what terrifies Allen and her rich backers.

The school privatization industry relies on being held to a lower standard than authentic public schools. That’s all a charter is, anyway – an agreement NOT to hold the business running a taxpayer funded school to the same standards as the authentic public ones.

It’s time those charter agreements were ripped to pieces.

All public schools should have to reach the same standards.

If there are charters that can do so, we should allow them to continue running as public schools. But those who cannot should be closed.

That’s just fiscal responsibility.

I say it is NOT too much to ask of any public school – including charter schools.

Like authentic public schools, charter schools should be required to show us the money, present the receipts and be accountable for their actions.

Top 10 Lessons From the 2020 Public Education Forum

December 15, 2019December 15, 2019 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Badass Teachers Association, Bernie Sanders, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Elizabeth Warren, Labor, Learning, Parents, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, protest, Race to the Top, Racism, Republican, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, school segregation, Schools, segregation, Social Justice, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Unions, Value Added Measures, VAM, voting Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, charter schools, Democrats, education, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Michael Bennet, MSNBC, Pete Buttigeig, Pittsburgh, Politics, President, public education forum, public schools, Rehema Ellis, Tom Steyer

The school bell chimed and the class shuffled home.

But the students weren’t little children.

They were Democratic Presidential candidates!

And boy-oh-boy did they get sent packing with a ton of homework!

Teachers, students, parents and community members from all over the country sat them down with instructions on how to improve the public education system.

Kudos to the candidates for agreeing to listen.

It was billed as the MSNBC “Public Education Forum 2020: Equity and Justice for All” – and though it’s over now, its effects may be felt for months or years yet to come.

The fact that it happened at all is almost miraculous.

Who would have thought Presidential hopefuls would care enough about public schools to address education issues and answer our questions?

Who would have thought it would be broadcast live on TV and the Internet?

And – come to think of it – who would have EVER thought it would happen in my hometown of Pittsburgh!?
But it did.

I was there – along with about 1,500 other education activists, stakeholders and public school warriors from around the country.

It was an amazing day which I will never forget.

Perhaps the best part was getting to see so many amazing people in one place – and I’m not talking about the candidates.

There were members of the Badass Teachers Association, the Network for Public Education, Journey for Justice, One Pennsylvania, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and so many more!

I wish I could bottle up that feeling of commitment to our children and hope in the future.

Perhaps that’s kind of the point behind this article.
So much happened and there is so much worth noting, let me put my impressions down as a series of takeaways or lessons for us to savor between now and the primary election – maybe even until the general.

Here’s my top 10 most important lessons:

1) Charter School Support is Weak

When the forum was announced, Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform wrote a blistering memoabout how the charter school community would not put up with politicians listening to constituents critical of their industry. Allen is a far right Republican with close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) who even used Donald Trump’s public relations firm to publicize her protest. But when we got to the forum, all it amounted to were a dozen folks with matching yellow signs trudging through the rainwho didn’t even stay for the duration of the forum. YAWN! Silly school privatizers, that’s not how you protest!

2) Michael Bennet Doesn’t Understand Much About Public Education

The Colorado Senator and former school superintendent really doesn’t get a lot of the important issues – even when they intersect his life. As superintendent, he enacted a merit pay initiative for teachers that resulted in a teachers strike. He still doesn’t comprehend why this was a bad idea – that tying teachers salaries to student test scores makes for educators who only teach to the test, that it demands teachers be responsible for things beyond their control, etc. Moreover, he thinks there’s a difference between public and private charter schools – there isn’t. They’re all bankrolled by tax dollars and can be privately operated.

But I suppose that doesn’t matter so much because few people know who Michael Bennet is anyway.

3) Pete Buttigeig is Too Smart Not to Understand Education – Unless He’s Paid Not to Understand

Mayor Pete came off as a very well spoken and intelligent guy. But he also seemed about as credible as wet tissue. He said a bunch of wrongheaded things. For instance, he said that “separate has never, ever been equal,” but he supports charter schools. Separate but equal is their business model.

It’s the kind of misunderstanding that only happens on purpose, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s taken so much money from anti-education billionaires like Netflix Founder Reed Hastings, no one else can trust him. How are we supposed to think he works for us when his salary comes from the super rich? You never recover from ignorance when it’s your job to be ignorant.

4) Gender Neutral Bathrooms Just Make Sense

I used a gender neutral bathroom for the first time at the forum. I figured I just had to pee so it didn’t matter. Inside were nothing but bathroom stalls – no standing urinals. People of all genders were in there using the facilities and it didn’t matter at all. In fact, it just made sense. It only seems strange because of what we’ve grown to expect. Gender neutral is just logical – no one uses the bathroom for anything but… using the bathroom. Try it and you’ll see – it’s the most logical and natural thing in the world.

5) Elizabeth Warren is a Star!

Warren simply electrified the room as soon as she entered it. She was at least as smart and well-spoken as Mayor Pete, but she was credible, too. She said all charter schools should have to meet the same requirements as authentic public schools. She said public school money should stay in public schools. She had detailed plans for how to fix what ails or school systemincluding a two cent wealth tax (three cents if you’re a billionaire) to pay for universal child care, universal pre-kindergarten, better pay for childcare workers, broader pell grants, and SO much more.

I was even more impressed with her in person and she got a standing ovation from the crowd. She would make a great President.

6) Bernie Sanders is a Superstar!

If Warren electrified the audience, Bernie was like a nuclear explosion. I don’t think anyone stayed in their seat when he entered. Fists pumping in the air, applause, chants of “Bernie! Bernie!” It was clear who the audience appreciated most.

And he was amazing. He said we need to break our dependence on property taxes to fund our schools. He said the problem with testing is we spend too much time teaching to the test. There are better ways to assess learning. He said we need a revolution in how we feel about education and learning. We’ve got to respect the educators who provide that education. He talked about criminal justice and unions and a broader range of issues and in more depth than any other candidate.

But my favorite moment was this.

Question: Should the federal government subsidize student lunch?

Bernie: “And breakfast and dinner as well.”

I think he solidified for most of us that he’s our number one candidate in this election. He would be a once in a lifetime President!

7) MSNBC Anchor Rehema Ellis Does Not Understand Standardized Testing

Throughout the forum, Ellis kept asking the same question over-and-over. She kept asking about America’s dismal standardized test scores compared to other countries. But we weren’t ignorant rubes. She was talking before an audience of teachers. It became clear she didn’t understand what these international test scores mean. First of all, she kept talking about US kids being behind grade level. Proficiency on tests like the NAEP isn’t the same as grade level proficiency. Moreover, comparing the US – which educates everyone – and other countries that do not is like comparing apples to oranges. But Ellis was part of NBC’s Education Nation initiative and has been spreading falsehoods and half-truths about testing for a decade. Maybe after educating the politicians we need to send the media back to school, too.

8) This is Not the Moment for Tom Steyer

Steyer is a billionaire self-funding his campaign in a time when voters are sick to death of the rich controlling our politics. He’s like a fox warning us all about foxes. It doesn’t make me want to vote for him. It makes me wonder if he thinks I’m lunch.

9) Amy Klobuchar is a Better Candidate Than I Expected

And the winner of most improved image is Klobuchar – by a mile. She came off so authentic and honest. She started with an emotional story about her mother – a teacher – which naturally lead into some really smart policy suggestions. And saying that she’d fire Betsy DeVos in seconds after becoming President and replace her with an educator was nice, too. I’m not saying I think she can or should win the nomination, but I’m glad she’s in the race and I hope we see more of her.

10) Joe Biden is Not Going to Beat Donald Trump

Biden came tottering onto the stage late like a friendly but lost old man. He flashed the charm and told us what his policies were but he couldn’t explain why he supported a single one of them.

He was the worst public speaker all day. His words rambled this way and that. At one point he told the audience to stop clapping so he could explain why he wanted to fully fund special education, but then he went off on a digression and got lost. At one point he rhapsodized about all the terrible teachers out there and said teachers touch students’ lives – “metaphorically speaking.”

Dr. Denisha Jones – an amazing activist and friend – asked him a pointed question about standardized testing and whether he was against it? He told her she was “preaching to the choir” but then rambled on for moments more about … something. I don’t know what.

Biden seems more like someone with Alzheimer’s Disease than aspirations to the chief executive. If he won, his wife or someone else would really be making the decisions. He isn’t well. And all you have to do is hear him speak for a few minutes to see it.

Bottom line: I don’t think he could beat Trump.

As terrible as Trump is, he can speak more coherently than Biden. That’s a horrible thing to admit, but it’s true.

So there you have it – my top 10 takeaways from the education forum.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

The candidates left knowing exactly where the education community stands. They know what they need to do to get our votes – and many of them are actively trying to do that.

We have several candidates that would make good Presidents – and several who stand a good chance against Trump.

Here’s hoping that we all learn our lessons and use them to win back our government in 2020.

thumbnail_IMG_9173 — Network for Public Education buddies – Carol Burris, Dan Greenberg, me and Peter Greene.

thumbnail_IMG_9186 — Pittsburgh strong – Kathleen Newman, me and Jesse Ramey

thumbnail_IMG_9187 — Mitchell Robinson and me

thumbnail_IMG_9188 — Keeping it Local – State Rep Summer Lee (Homestead), Mark Fallon and me.

If you missed the event, you can still watch it here:

Public School Teacher Questions for 2020 Dem Presidential Candidates

December 11, 2019December 12, 2019 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Elizabeth Warren, Journalism, Labor, Learning, National Academic Standards, Obama, Parents, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Republican, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, standards, Students, Teachers, Unions, voting 2020, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, education policy, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, MSNBC, Pennsylvania, Pete Buttigieg, Pittsburgh, Politics, President, Public Education Forum 2020: Equity and Justice for All, public schools, schools, teachers, Tom Steyer

What happens when you give a microphone to a public school teacher?

That’s not a rhetorical question. I really want to know, because we so rarely let educators speak in any context other than the classroom.

Maybe that’s why it’s so refreshing that MSNBC is hosting “Public Education Forum 2020: Equity and Justice for All”on Saturday, Dec. 14, in my hometown of Pittsburgh.

Public policy is usually made by billionaires who tell their think tanks what to write up and then give it to legislators to vote it into law.

But ask parents, students, community members or – God forbid! – school teachers about what we should do with something as mundane as education!? That’s crazy talk!

Well, the Democrats, at least, are taking it seriously.

The candidates who are expected to attend Saturday’s forum include: Former Vice President Joe Biden; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana; billionaire businessman Tom Steyer; and Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

All the presidential candidates who either qualified for the October debate or hold statewide office were invited to attend, according to organizers.

And guess who else will be there?

ME!

Somehow your humble edu-blogger got an invite to the party – limited to an audience of about a thousand.

To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to actually ask a question. I might spend the whole time listening, but that would be far from wasted.

Forcing candidates to tell educators to their faces what they intend for public schools is a worthwhile endeavor in itself.

But I must be honest – there is a possibility I may get the microphone and have the opportunity to ask something.

So I’ve prepared the following questions – one for each candidate expected to be at the forum:

Joe Biden

Your education plan triples the amount of money the federal government spends annually on low-income schools from about $16 billion to about $48 billion. That money is supposed to go to raising teachers’ salaries, Pre-K, and “more rigorous coursework.” My question is this: will you tie federal spending to standardized testing, Common Core and school privatization initiatives like your former boss Barack Obama did, and how does your position differ from Race to the Top and Obama’s other top down corporate education reforms?

Pete Buttigieg

You are infamous for taking money from some terrible people who want to destroy public schools – Reed Hastings, for example, the billionaire founder of Netflix, who wants to replace authentic public schools with charter-schools so that all schools are run by corporations and not elected school boards. Hastings has hosted fundraisers for you. He set aside $100 million to promote the privatization of public schools by charter-school expansion as well as served on the California State Board of Education, where he used his influence to minimize any regulation of charters. My question to you is this: how are any of us to take you seriously when you allow yourself to be bought and sold by the school privatization industry? How can we believe a thing you say when your vote has so obviously been up for sale to the highest bidder?

Amy Klobuchar

You’ve said that you support national testing standards and that schools should be held to the highest benchmarks. You’ve also said you’ll work to help schools better measure comprehensive achievement. My question is this: how much and in what ways does your education policy differ from the reductive and corporate-driven policies of Barack Obama and George W. Bush? Would you continue to use biased and unscientific standardized assessments to measure student learningand then hold schools responsible for scores predicated on economic inequality and white supremacy?

Bernie Sanders

Along with Sen. Warren, you have one of the most progressive and comprehensive education plans of any candidate running in 2020. In fact, it’s one of the best any candidate who has sought the Democratic nomination has ever put forward. However, the weakest part of your plan concerns standardized testing. As recently as 2015, you voted to keep the same test and punish bogus accountability initiatives as Barack Obama and George W. Bush. My question is this: what happened to change your mind and would you please explain if and exactly how high stakes standardized testing fits in with your education policies?

Elizabeth Warren

Along with Sen. Sanders, you have one of the most progressive and comprehensive education plans of any candidate running in 2020. In fact, it’s one of the best of any candidate who has ever sought the Democratic nomination. However, you seem to equivocate on standardized testing and national academic standards. On the one hand, you say that you’re against high stakes testing, but on the other you speak about putting an emphasis on student careers, and aligning high school graduation requirements with that of colleges. You even say you’d direct “the Department of Education to issue guidance on how schools can leverage existing federal programs to facilitate education-to-workforce preparedness.” This sounds a lot like Barack Obama’s Race to the Top which held school funding hostage to regressive reforms and Common Core which used standardized tests to determine what would be taught in schools. My question is this: please explain exactly if and exactly how high stakes standardized testing and Common Core fit in with your education policies?

Tom Steyer

Your campaign Website takes no stand on many issues important to educators, families and students including charter schools and standardized testing. Yet you’re a hedge fund billionaire who has donated at least $100,000 through your foundation to Teach for America in 2009. My question is this: what is your position on these policies – standardized testing, charter schools and Teach for America? Do you still think that a few weeks of a crash course is equal to a full teaching degree? Do you still think we need fake temporary teachers who are only committed to the classroom for a few years? Or is it better to have teaching be a respected vocation with highly educated and valued professionals?

HONORABLE MENTION

Finally, here’s a question I could ask to any and all of the candidates:

I want to ask you about charter schools. Why do we need them at all? Why do we need schools that are publicly funded but privately run? Shouldn’t public schools that accept public money have to accept public administration – elected school boards, transparency and accountability? Shouldn’t all public schools be required to accept all student who live in their coverage areas and not be allowed to cherry pick students? Wouldn’t it be better to close all charter schools that can’t meet the same requirements as authentic public schools and transition those that can to becoming fully public schools?

Well, those are my questions.

If anyone has any other suggestions, please post them in the comments. And if someone else this weekend or later in the campaign season happens to get a chance to query one of the candidates, feel free to use one or all of what I have compiled here.

My hope is that this interest in education isn’t just a political stunt but will translate to better school policies no matter who wins the election in 2020.

gadflyonthewallblog

"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

Bernie Sanders