Education was ignored by debate moderators. What the Democratic presidential candidates should have been asked about America’s public schools.
Twenty Democratic candidates debated over two nights this week about why they should be the party’s choice to take on President Trump in next year’s election. Five moderators asked questions for hours, but somehow, fundamental education issues were never raised.
Here are some of the issues that could have been topics for questions by moderators Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie and José Diaz-Balart:
- The United States has its most controversial education secretary ever, Betsy DeVos, who has made clear that her priority is not fixing public school districts but expanding alternatives to them. She also has, among other things, rolled back civil rights protections for LGBTQ students, rescinded Obama-era guidance to schools on how to deal with sexual assault on campus and taken steps to help the controversial for-profit education industry. What do the candidates think are her worst missteps, and how would they fix them?
- This week, a report was published describing systemic dysfunction in the Providence public schools in Rhode Island, including conditions that are unhealthy and unsafe for students and teachers. That underscored the truth that schools in low-income neighborhoods in America still have fewer resources than schools in better-off neighborhoods because of the role of property taxes in school funding. How would the candidates change the way public schools are financed in this country?
- Teachers in a number of states, including those led by Republicans, have staged strikes — sometimes in defiance of state law. They have protested issues including the underfunding of schools, low pay that forces some of them to take second and third jobs, and the effects that charter schools, which DeVos champions, are having on school districts. How would they address the teachers’ issues?
- Democrats, many of whom have been supportive for years of charter schools — which are publicly funded but operated privately, sometimes by for-profit entities — have suddenly started to pull back from that position. How do the candidates view the growth of charter schools, and what does that mean for the future of the school choice movement?
- DeVos and Trump are pushing a federal program that would allow all states to use federal money for private- and religious-school funding, and a battle is being waged in the states between forces that believe using public funds for religious education is unconstitutional and those who don’t. (The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider a case that could deal directly with this issue.) Should public funds be used for this purpose?
- Republican and Democratic administrations have spent billions of dollars to try to close the “achievement gap” between low-income minority students and whites, but they have not seen systemic improvements CONTINUE READING: Education was ignored by debate moderators. What the Democratic presidential candidates should have been asked about America’s public schools. - The Washington Post
