What To Watch For At The Democratic Education Town Hall In Pittsburgh
This Saturday, a consortium of education groups is teaming up with MSNBC to host a forum for Democratic Presidential candidates, centered around education issues. The event kicks off at 9:45 and will run most of the day; it will all be livestreamed.
The crowd of about 1,000 invitation-only attendees (I’ll be one of them) includes a sampling of teachers and parents, as well as members of unions and civil rights groups. They are largely pro-public education; at least one pro-charter ed reform group (the Center for Education Reform) has put out an e-mail call to mount a protest at the event.
The format will allow each of the attending candidates to take the stage, make their pitch, and then take questions from the audience. Currently eight candidates are expected; each will have their own baggage to heft onto the stage. Here’s what to watch for with each.
Things To Remember for All Candidates
Announcing opposition to for-profit charters is a weasel move—there aren’t that many of them, and that’s not where the big money and the big trouble are. Profiteering from non-profit charters is done easily and often.
Big sweeping ideas are nice, but the federal government only has a few levers with which to affect what happens in actual classrooms. Beware promises about things the feds can’t actually do (like, say, CONTINUE READING: What To Watch For At The Democratic Education Town Hall In Pittsburgh
