Hillary Clinton Sounds Off On Education Issues: 'We've Gotten Off Track In What We Test'
In her recent meetings with the nation's top two teachers unions, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton positioned herself as a standardized-testing skeptic who believes deeply in the value of teachers.
On Monday, Clinton met with Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country. García interviewed Clinton as part of the NEA's candidate endorsement process for the 2016 election. In the interview, Clinton expressed skepticism about contemporary standardized tests.
“Are tests important? Yes. Do we need accountability? Yes. But we’ve gotten off track in what we test and what we test for that we sacrifice so much else in the curriculum, in the school day and school year," said Clinton in an interview excerpt released by the NEA.
“So many of our poorer schools have cut off all the extracurricular activities. We’ve taken away band, in so many places we’ve taken away a lot of the sports. We’ve taken away arts classes. We’ve taken away school productions," Clinton said in another excerpt. “I would like to see us get back to looking at individual children, looking at age appropriate learning experiences, looking at enriching the classroom experience.”
In March, the NEA formally began considering who it would endorse in the 2016 presidential election. To jump-start this process, it sent all viable candidates from both major parties questionnaires about prominent education issues and hired organizers for states with early voting.
The interview comes a week after Clinton, along with fellow Democratic presidential candidates Gov. Martin O' Malley of Maryland and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), attended the executive council meeting of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's other major teachers union.
During that meeting, Clinton emphasized her appreciation for teachers, saying, "It is Hillary Clinton Sounds Off On Education Issues: 'We've Gotten Off Track In What We Test':