Union President, Randi Weingarten, Defends Hillary Clinton on Charter Schools
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, defended Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday over critical remarks she made about charter schools, saying the Democratic presidential candidate had voiced a view many hold about such schools.
Ms. Weingarten’s remarks came in a conference call with reporters, in which she discussed a recent meeting on education policy that Mrs. Clinton held with about 25 members of the teachers union, most of them from New Hampshire. The union, which has been critical of charter schools, is supporting Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy.
“You can be pro-charter and still be critical of things that charters ought not to be doing,” Ms. Weingarten said, pointing to instances of fraud and abuse in the charter school system that have been written about in places like Chicago and in Miami. She argued that charter schools had gotten away from how they were originally conceived of decades ago, and instead had become a competing school system to public schools.
Mrs. Clinton made waves when she sounded a critical note about charter schools at a forum with the journalist Roland Martin in South Carolina on Nov. 7.
“Most charter schools — I don’t want to say every one — but most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them,” Mrs. Clinton said at the event, which was hosted by the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus. She praised public schools that “thankfully, take everybody, and then they don’t get the resources or the help and support that they need to be able to take care of every child’s education.”
Her statement came after months in which she had avoided wading into the debate over charter schools, which has prompted divisions within the Democratic Party. The largest national teachers unions, which are vocal opponents of charter schools, have endorsed Mrs. Clinton. Ms. Weingarten was an early supporter of Mrs. Clinton, and her union endorsed the candidate in July, becoming her first major labor supporter.
Mrs. Clinton’s comments caused alarm among Democrats who support charter schools, some of whom noted that she has voiced support for such schools in the past. Mrs. Clinton has also championed measures that unions have opposed when she was the first lady of Arkansas.
The unions have often been at odds with President Obama over his education policy, including a reliance on testing standards.
Ms. Weingarten declined to answer a question about whether she hoped Mrs. Union President, Randi Weingarten, Defends Hillary Clinton on Charter Schools - First Draft. Political News, Now. - The New York Times: