Hillary Clinton discusses education with AFT members
Hillary Clinton met with 25 AFT members on Nov. 9 in Nashua, N.H., for an hourlong discussion that covered a range of education and related issues. Teachers, paraprofessionals and higher education faculty participated in the conversation with Clinton—the AFT's endorsed candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination—which was moderated by AFT President Randi Weingarten.
Participating members came from Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and West Virginia as well as New Hampshire. Among the topics covered: testing, the Common Core, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, special education, poverty, equity and much more.
"It means so much to me to have the AFT endorsement because I really want to be your partner," Clinton said in her introductory remarks. "I want to figure out how we can work together to achieve our common goals."
"What I think we have to do is really, starting today and moving through the election into the next administration," she said, "figure out what our priorities are, how I can be working with you, and how we can make the changes that we know will benefit kids and families, and restore respect to educators, and create an atmosphere in which we're all on the same team. We're on the American team. We're on the team that is going to actually get things done, not just talk about it or not just engage in insults."
Here's what Clinton had to say in response to some of the questions from members:
Building on advice from real-world educators. "I'm inviting you, the AFT and constituent members, to put forth your best thinking, your ideas, what you know will work better for our kids. And, in particular, I want us to do a deep dive into the collective experience of educators and the research, so that instead of these back-and-forths that you see now, particularly from the other candidates on the Republican side, it's not rooted in real-world experience. It is not rooted in the advice from people who actually stand in front of a classroom and know the names of their students. And so, I want to know what are the top priorities and how do we go about achieving those."Overuse of standardized testing. "I've said from the beginning of the campaign, we need fewer, better tests. I believe in diagnostic testing that teachers can use to try to figure out how to help individuals and classes deal with their learning challenges. I do believe that there can be and should be a set of tests that everybody agrees on. So we do need as a first priority to figure out: What are the tests that should be administered? When? And what do we do with them? And I have for a very long time also been against the idea that you tie teacher evaluation and even teacher pay to test outcomes. There's no evidence."
Help for English language learners and special education students. "When we accepted that opportunity to really get all of our kids in school, the federal government said it was going to pay 40 percent of the cost of special ed. The most we've ever paid is like 17 percent. I think that's one of the reasons why you don't have the services and the support that your students need to be able to get the education they deserve. So I have said I'm going to do everything I can to raise the federal contribution. There are two big areas of federal funding that I feel strongly about. One is the special ed funding, and the other is the Title I funding, the equalization of funding for poor schools."Common Core State Standards. "Some of what's gone on has been well-meaning but misplaced, and one of the well-meaning but misplaced areas that I have seen over the years is this emphasis on standardizing learning, and holding out college as the goal and stripping schools of technical education, of what used to be called vocational education, of job preparation and the like. … Now, I don't want to give anybody any excuses to walk away from or ignore the hard-to-teach kids, the special ed kids, the disciplinary kids, all of that. But I also understand that if you're trying to fit different kids with different interests, different habits, different patterns of learning and all the rest of it, into one channel, it's not going to work. And it creates great frustration for teachers, for students, for families."
Holding charter schools accountable. "There's no doubt in my mind that charters have to be held accountable. There are good charters, and there are bad charters. They have to be held to high standards, and if they are working like the one you work at, why aren't there more using the model that you have pioneered? And so, from my perspective, again, I want to go to the research. What are the good models and where are they found, and how do you do more of what works instead of reinventing the wheel all the time? A lot of people show up and they want to do a charter, and they don't pay attention to the educational research. They have a pet idea. They may be, again, motivated to try to help kids, but they don't have the experience, and they don't necessarily know how to do it."
Community schools. "We've got to figure out what we're going to do about all communities that are poor, whether they're white or communities of color. We've got to figure out what we're going to do to direct more federal help into what will work, not just get siphoned off into useless, unproductive projects. And using the school as a magnet or as an organizing institution makes a lot of sense to me. … I want to know how we recruit and keep teachers like you because I know it can't be easy when you are dealing with life or death issues a lot of days, not math or other learning issues. And so, part of my hope is that we look at what the real problems are and not get diverted all the time to the shiny object in the corner."
[Dan Gursky, AFT press release/photos by Michael Campbell]
- See more at: http://www.aft.org/news/hillary-clinton-discusses-education-aft-members#sthash.NWZRnIQ4.dpuf