Will Bernie Sanders Take on K12 Education Issues?
By Anthony Cody.
As we enter the campaign for the 2016 presidential race, educators and students are looking for a candidate willing to buck some very powerful trends. In 2008, we were led to believe that Obama would break with the disastrous policies of GW Bush, and bring an end to No Child Left Behind. But instead of change, we got NCLB on steroids through Duncan’s Race to the Top and NCLB waiver program. I think I speak for many when I say we will not be fooled again. As I wrote two months ago, “progressive” Democrats have largely ignored K-12 education issues, focusing only on pre-K and college debt. Unless a candidate is willing to confront the billionaires now driving education policy (and pretty much everything else), I will probably vote, but that is about it.
The current field of candidates in the Democratic party is limited to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Clinton has a close association with the Gates Foundation, which has been a major donor to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton has made it clear that she is a solid supporter of the Common Core and believes that such a testing system “helps you organize your whole education system.” So if we want a change from the nation’s current trajectory in education, we need to look elsewhere.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is shaking the race up with some unconventional thinking. His willingness to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership shows he is willing to stand up to big money. His call for a “political revolution” is focused on driving big money out of its position of control in our political process. This is what we need in education as well.
Sanders has yet to speak out very clearly on education issues, so I want to offer some suggestions here. Our nation’s public education system is reeling from a more than a decade of political attacks. Any candidate who takes a clear stand will attract a huge burst of energy from teachers and students. Here are the key issues that we need addressed:
- We need a sharp shift away from federal micro-management of education, and a return to the original goals of ESEA, which was to provide resources to schools to address the effects of poverty. The role of the federal government should be to provide resources to the neediest school communities, so that all public schools receive adequate and equitable funding, not tied to test scores OR zipcodes. Current federal policy puts pressure on states to include test scores in teacher evaluations, and use test scores to close down low-scoring schools. Research continues to show that an emphasis on test preparation is actually leading to less prepared students. This policy sold as the remedy to the “achievement gap” is actually expanding inequities. The information we get from test scores can actually be found with a high level of accuracy simply by looking at socioeconomic indicators. The Senate is currently debating changes to ESEA. We need a candidate willing to oppose annual testing. (See this recent statement written by Jesse Hagopian and the Network for Public Education to understand why annual testing is NOT a civil right.) Rather than a curriculum focused on preparing for tests, our students need a rich curriculum tied to their culture and that of their community. Art, music and sports should be available to all.
- Public schools are a basic democratic institution, and they should remain under democratic control. There is an intense drive to shift education funding away from schools governed by elected school boards and towards semi-private charter schools, as well as parochial and private schools Will Bernie Sanders Take on K12 Education Issues? - Living in Dialogue:
