Teachers’ unions begin presidential endorsement process » peoplesworld:
Teachers’ unions begin presidential endorsement process
WASHINGTON - The leaders of the nation's two big teachers unions launched their organizations' presidential endorsement processes with the first publicly reported meetings between union presidents and top Democratic presidential hopefuls.
Both Lily Eskelsen-Garcia and Randi Weingarten, presidents of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, respectively, said the hopefuls are committed to an inclusive vision of education that relies on teachers, not tests.
The meetings are important because both teachers unions are known for their members' political activism, intelligence, credibility and reach. NEA is the nation's largest union, with more than three million members and branches in every state.
AFT, with almost 1.5 million members, is large and influential in key swing states and big cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles and D.C.
Eskelsen-Garcia met the current Democratic front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on June 9. Weingarten, her executive council and seven rank-and-file AFT members met Clinton and challengers Sen. Bernard Sanders, Ind.-Vt. (running as a Democrat) and former Gov. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., on June 3.
AFT also sent questionnaires on education issues to all presidential hopefuls, announced and unannounced, of both parties. No Republican replied, Weingarten said.
NEA also invited all hopefuls to participate, Eskelsen-Garcia added. The Utah 6th grade teacher called her conversation with Clinton "frank and robust."
She added teachers will "ask the tough questions that get to the heart of issues they, their students and families are facing every day. They know all students deserve the support, tools, and time to learn. But are politicians willing to commit to the success of every student regardless of his or her zip code? That's the question educators will ask over and over again."
"What we can do together to deal with the issues we know are at the real core of making it possible to look at every little boy and girl and say 'Yes, you will have the best chances we can give you,'" Clinton told Eskelsen-Garcia.
Clinton satisfied both unions on ending over-exclusive concentration on mandatory testing and teaching to the test as the sole way to evaluate students, schools and teachers. That's the key facet of GOP President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind federal education aid law, which has raised the ire of teachers, parents and unions nationwide.
"Education is not just how well you do on a test," Clinton said in a statement released by NEA. "We know about a lot of different learning modes ant not every child learns the same way. We have funneled our kids into a particular educational model that I don't think will ever produce the looked-for results.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, using tests that are not done for the sake of getting a score but for actually diagnosing the needs of kids and helping those kids do better year after year."
Clinton repeated those themes in her meeting with AFT. She told the AFT council that "unions are part of the solution" to improving schools, respecting teachers and helping kids learn.
O'Malley touted his gubernatorial record: A major expansion of state school aid. Sanders has made access to quality K-12 education and free college education both platform planks and legislative proposals, and tied it into his campaign theme about income inequality.
The Fiscal Times
The Democratic primary field is very clearly broken into two tiers, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sitting alone at the top as the presumptive nominee. The two second-tier candidates, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, are down below Clinton, both in the polls and in terms of fundraising. But when it comes to policy, both are increasingly trying to punch up.
For example, Sanders and O’Malley both blasted Clinton over the weekend for her failure to take a position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, among other issues. Clinton, within a day, came out and articulated a position on TPP, though she continued to waffle on the more pressing question of giving President Obama so-called “fast track” negotiating authority.
It’s a dynamic likely to play out on a regular basis as the Democratic campaign heats up, and the candidates force each other to outline their stances on various issues in the public eye. Not all of the Democrats’ positions are mysteries, though. Here’s where the three main candidates stand on some of the main issues in the news today.
TRADE
Clinton: She broke her silence on the TPP over the weekend, siding with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and arguing that the deal being negotiated by the Obama administration doesn’t have sufficient protections for U.S. workers in its current form. This has opened her up to some criticism, because she was a strong advocate of TPP while serving as Obama’s secretary of state.
Sanders: He strongly opposes the TPP, dismissing it as “another corporate-backed agreement that is the latest in a series of failed trade policies which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs, pushed down wages for American workers and led to the decline of our middle class.” He said he wants American companies to create decent-paying jobs in America, “not just in low-wage countries like Vietnam, Malaysia or China.” O’Malley: The former governor strongly opposes TPP, largely because lawmakers, union leaders and others won’t be able to read the agreement before a final vote on it by Congress. He is convinced the emerging Pacific Rim agreement would weaken the U.S. economy and undermine jobs. “This deal is a race to the bottom, a chasing of lower-wages abroad,” he said recently. “And I believe that that does nothing to help us build a stronger economy here at home.”
THE BUDGET DEFICIT
Clinton: As secretary of state, she warned that a gaping deficit projected weakness overseas, and she spoke of the personal pain it caused her when the budget surplus achieved during her husband’s second term as president was whittled away by tax cuts and two wars. However, she has been quiet about the issue in her campaign so far; the deficit did not come up at all in her speech over the weekend.
Sanders: He berates Republicans for seeking to balance the budget in the coming decade by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and other federal programs while many major corporations escape paying taxes by keeping revenues off shore and exploiting other loopholes. He said that as president, he would make the wealthiest Americans start paying “their fair share” of taxes to help address the deficit. At the same time, he thinks the government should commit to a $1 trillion, five-year plan to repair and improve the nation’s crumbling highways and infrastructure. O’Malley: After eight years as governor, O’Malley left the Maryland governor’s office in January with a legacy of one of the most progressive agendas in the nation. But in order to finance his programs and avert big deficits, he had to raise the sales tax, gas tax, income tax and more. Even so, he left behind a long-term structural deficit that his Republican successor, Larry Hogan, has had to wrestle with.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
Clinton: She ties economic growth to increased income equality, claiming that “growth and fairness go together.” She is advocating a rewrite of the tax code that she promises will penalize businesses for hoarding profits overseas, reward companies that invest in long-term growth and “unleash a new generation of entrepreneurs and small business owners.”
Sanders: He is championing an end to the “40-year decline of our middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else.” Sanders would make public college fees free for everyone and lower interest rates on federal student loans — all paid for with a “Robin Hood Tax” on trades of stocks, bonds, options and futures. He would also raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
O’Malley: The former governor has frequently spoken out against income inequality and has promised to fight for better wages for the middle class. “Americans are working harder but earning less than they did 12 years ago, and wealth has concentrated in the hands of the very few as almost never before,” he says. That means raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, increasing the threshold for overtime pay to $1,000 a week and restoring workers’ collective bargaining power.
WALL STREET AND BANK REFORMS
Clinton: She has often been criticized for her perceived closeness to Wall Street. Democrats further to the left, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have pressed her to take a stronger line on Wall Street reform. On Saturday, she offered a tepid acknowledgement there is a need to “rein in the banks that are still too risky, courting future failures.”
Sanders: The self-described Democratic socialist wants to break up big banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. He argues that the government hasn’t gone nearly far enough in regulating major financial institutions and their investment and loan practices – which, he says, pose too great a risk to the financial system and taxpayers.
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