Rating The 2020 Presidential Candidates On Their Education Stands

We wrote a post on Saturday-- published Sunday-- Are Democrats Going To Finally Get Behind Public Education For Real-- And Leave Charter Schools To The Republicans? that needs some updating. The education forum in Pittsburgh that the Democratic presidential candidates took part in has led to a valuable evaluation published by ElectraBlog. Mitchell Robinson wrote that "In the spirit of our country’s current rather draconian approach to 'accountability' in public education," he would describe each of the candidates’ performances "by rating them on the Danielson teacher evaluation rubric, a common teacher evaluation system used by many school districts across the nation." Each candidate was "graded on a simplistic, reductionist, atomistic, 4-point scale of the sort loved by corporate education reformers, as though it makes sense to distill the entirety of an individual’s performance on a complicated set of tasks to a single number between 1 and 4:

Highly Effective = 4
Effective = 3
Developing = 2
Ineffective = 1

The short version: the two progressives in the room, Bernie and Elizabeth, scored best. Charter school shill Michael Bennet did worst, although another charter school shill, Cory Booker, backed out of the forum at the last minute. Steyer was also rated "ineffective." Here are the scores, from best to worst:

• Bernie- 4
• Elizabeth- 4
• Klobuchar- 3
• Status Quo Joe- 3
• Mayo Pete- 3 (with a terrible caveat)
• Bennet- 1

Robinson wrote that Bernie was "an obvious favorite with the teachers in the house, Sanders entered the stage to a hero’s welcome. He was his usual garrulous self, alternately grousing and charming. Rumpled and tousled, Sanders is in many ways the anti-politician, and is unique in American politics. And teachers love him... As expected, Sanders’ best moments have to do with economic and labor issues: canceling college debt, making public colleges tuition-free, eliminating right-to-work laws, and strengthening unions. His best education response was on his opposition to No Child Left Behind because of its reliance on standardized testing. Sanders may be the most consistent political leader in the field, if not our nation’s history, and nothing he said at the Public Education Forum changed that record. The teachers in the hall loved Bernie, and his support among the members of the profession remains strong... HIGHLY EFFECTIVE."

Elizabeth Warren did just as well and "received one of the two strongest and most enthusiastic receptions from the crowd of public school teachers, students, and union officials in the hall. She used her two-minute opening spiel to describe how she would pay for the ambitious agenda outlined in her education plan (a 2 cent tax on high wealth individuals; 3 cents for billionaires), promised to get rid of high stakes testing (loud applause), and a lot more very specific policy ideas... HIGHLY EFFECTIVE."

Robinson was taken by Klobuchar and called her "the surprise star of the forum." He wrote that he "knew going in that Sanders and Warren were good on education, but Klobuchar was every bit as well prepared, thorough in her understanding of the issues, and communicated with skill, clarity, and grace. Klobuchar’s first words to the audience were about making the firing of Betsy DeVos her first act as president-- an idea that the crowd embraced with obvious enthusiasm... EFFECTIVE."

Status Quo Joe did better than I would have imagined he could. Robinson: "In the span of about 5 minutes, Biden reversed course on two of the major planks of the Obama era’s education policy platform: support for charter schools and standardized testing. If true, and not merely another instance of Biden-esque verbal imprecision, these are major reversals that signal a return to traditional Democratic policy positions." Yes, if true indeed. Biden is a compulsive liar on a near Trumpian scale and, like Trump, says whatever he needs to say depending on the audience's speaking to. I'd love to see him speak on the same topic to a bunch of charter school donors. Biden is full of shit and his words are worthless. Robinson generously gave him a 3 (EFFECTIVE) and added "Joe is an old-school politician, and knows how to work a room-- his support and respect for the profession of education is clear and honest-- he says that if he is president, teachers will have a friend in the White House, and I think teachers believe him; the concern is whether his apparent reversals of course on charters and testing are lasting, or fleeting." ( I would have rated him a 2 (DEVELOPING) by the standard being used.

Mayo Pete, as usual, was a sweet-talking consultant-schooled bullshitter. He's another one whose words are meaningless and says whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear. Robinson seemed surprised about something anyone who follows Mayo could have predicted: "Buttigieg’s time on the stage was curiously devoid of much in the way of, well…policy... Buttigieg finished his session by recycling the worn-out reformster argument from Raj Chetty, that 'a good kindergarten teacher is worth $300,000 to a kindergarten student’s earnings over time,' an idea that’s just…well…silly. What it does do is align with Buttigieg’s technocratic world view: that things are only valuable when they can be measured, preferably in dollars and cents. It’s the way that a McKinsey consultant whose number crunching results in firing nearly a thousand employees at a Michigan health insurance company might think about making education seem 'valuable,' by reducing the quality of one’s educational experience to a simple cost-benefit analysis–but it’s not how students, teachers, or parents value the education offered in their community’s schools." Robinson gave him a 3 (EFFECTIVE) but then reduced it a 1 (INEFFECTIVE)... "backdoor TFA?"





Also predictable was that Colorado Senator Michael Bennet would be the worst of the candidates who showed up. "Bennet began by claiming to be the 'first superintendent ever to run for president,' a boast that might have gone over better with this crowd if Bennet had ever studied education (he did not), or taught (he did not) before beginning his career in education as superintendent of Denver’s schools. Bennet then moved on to one his favorite talking points-- setting up the false choice that free preschool would be a better use of tax dollars than free public college and university tuition. As if this was an episode of Highlander instead of a serious policy discussion, and 'there can be only one.' He then pivoted to what would become a common theme among the candidates, the need for better teacher pay…but Bennet’s suggestion to pay teachers more came with some pretty shocking strings attached: a call for a 6 day school week, and year-round schools-- especially for urban schools. Neither of these ideas gained much traction with a room full of students and teachers–none of whom, it should be pointed out, would have been able to attend this Saturday forum if Bennet’s ideas were put into policy... For Bennet, equity is a beard for charters and privatization... Bennet followed up his performance at the Public Education Forum with a visit to a group of charter school activists who were protesting outside of the venue... INEFFECTIVE... Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Presidential Candidate."

And of course, never expect to see Michael Buy-The-Election Bloomberg at any kind of a free-wheeling policy forum like this.