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.

Medicare For All Is The Way America Should Go Now-- Another Reason To Reject Status Quo Joe And Trump And Vote For Bernie

When I look at polls I always have to remind myself of something I figured out when I used to run for office in college. I was elected freshman class president and, in my senior year, an at-laerge senator with more votes than any other candidate running. What I figured out at the time-- in the midst of the Vietnam War is that we start off with about a third of the people favoring, a third of the people opposing and a third of the people not sure or not caring about just about any contentious issue. At my school, it was that way over the war. It was that way when right-wingers tried impeaching me for hiring The Doors (for $400) to play a concert at the college. (It was before they were famous; they became famous the next week, but the complaint the right-wingers had wasn't just about The Doors. It was because I was hiring all sorts of what they insisted was garbage, from Jimi Hendrix, the Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, the Dead, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, The Byrds, Ravi Shankar... on and on. And the concerts were free for students. I won the impeachment vote.) All the way back to the American Revolution, you have progressives fighting for our freedom (1/3 of the colonialists), conservatives joining the British to kill the Patriots (also a 1/3) and another third too busy or scared or something to care one way or the other). Once the arguments start, each side can win over some of the third that is undecided or uninterested and maybe even persuade a tiny sliver of voters from the opposing point of view. Like when the impeachment thing came up, I reminded the voters that they didn't have to pay to see The Doors, that since so many of them didn't chose to go, we sold seats to the public and made a huge profit and that, "just look at the charts this week, "Light My Fire" is #1; this band is going places.




Now, take it from me, Medicare-For-All is every bit as good as "Light My Fire" (the long version). And progressives are winning the country over on that. The new YouGov poll for The Economist this week is exhaustive. Before we examine how voters see Medicare-For-All, let's take a quick look at how they see the Green New Deal. 63% of voters answered affirmatively when asked if the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity, while 28% said the climate is changing but NOT because of human activity and 10% assert that the climate is not changing. Now look at this:

34% support it, 31% oppose it and 35% aren't sure or have no real idea what it is-- a third, a third, a third, more or less. Now let's get to Medicare-For-All. When asked "Do you support or oppose Medicare for all?" this was the result-- NOT a third, a third, a third:

• Support strongly- 30%
• Support somewhat- 22%
• Oppose somewhat- 9%
• Oppose strongly- 24%
• Not sure- 14%

52% approve, 33% disapprove and 14% aren't sure. That;'s the good news. However, there's some good news for conservatives (from both parties) as well. When asked the question this way: "Do you support or oppose a national health plan in which all Americans get their health insurance from the federal government and private health insurance companies are eliminated?" the results change drastically.

• Support strongly- 19% (down 11 points)
• Support somewhat- 18% (down 4)
• Oppose somewhat- 13% (up 4)
• Oppose strongly- 30% (up 6)
• Not sure- 21% (up 7 points)

It isn't just Trump, McConnell and the whole GOP that oppose Medicare for All. Remember, conservatives opposed Medicare for anyone for years and years. And that means conservative Democrats as well. Today, among the viable presidential candidates, Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris (who doesn't quite understand what it is) and Cory Booker all say they are for Medicare For All, although one would not be unfair to realize only Bernie would fight for it tooth and nail. McKensey Pete has never made a clear statement about supporting or opposing it and just says whatever the audience he's speaking to wants to hear; that's who he is. Beto used to say he was for it but now admits he isn't. And Biden is not only against it, he's campaigning vigorously against it. Vigorously and-- hey it's Joe Biden-- very dishonestly, using GOP talking points. His own plan incremental plan, expanding Obamacare, isn't bad, but it doesn't fundamentally change much, just props up the current unsustainable Sickness Industrial Complex-- and the way he talks about it is filled with lies. For example, as reported in the L.A. Times this week, "Biden warns that walking away from Obamacare could leave a large swath of the country vulnerable to losing coverage, an untrue GOP scare tactic. Bernie accuses Biden of using the same tactics as Trump and his campaign donors in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries to mischaracterize his Medicare for all plan. Bernie: "I traveled all over the country to fight the repeal of Obamacare. But I will not be deterred from ending the corporate greed that creates dysfunction in our health care system. We must pass Medicare for All."

Biden's plan "still fundamentally preserves the employer-based health insurance system that most working-age Americans rely on for coverage. It builds off the health insurance system created by the Affordable Care Act, with targeted adjustments that appear aimed at fixing some of the law’s shortcomings. Biden’s plan envisions creating a new government health plan akin to Medicare-- popularly called a 'public option'-- that any American could elect to purchase if they are unhappy with their commercial health plan option. It’s not a buy-in to the actual Medicare program that Biden had earlier signaled would be the linchpin of his program, but a new public insurance system styled after Medicare."

Say Republicans will put a billion joules of energy into defeating Medicare For All. They will also put exactly the same billion joules of energy into defeating Biden's much less helpful plan. So why both with incrementalism and starting off by asking for something less than the best? In Biden's personal case... he gets an awful lot of financial support from anti-Medicare For All interests. Besides, the courts are in the process of striking down Obamacare, so why bother fighting for something completely imperfect instead just saying everyone is entitled to Medicare, not just the elderly-- and adding vision, mental, dental and hearing-care? That why over half the voters like it.

Yesterday, during his speech at George Washington University, Bernie challenged the other Democrats running to reject donations from private health insurance and pharmaceutical interests. "You can't change a corrupt system by taking its money. Candidates who are not willing to take [the 'no health insurance and pharma money' pledge] should explain to the American people why those interests believe their campaigns are a good investment."

Bernie continued: "People are telling me that in the year 2019, after Medicare has already been around for over 50 years, when we have all kinds of technology, that somehow we really can't do it over a four-year period. And to answer the question, we're being pretty conservative here. I think it can be done quicker."

The Ramones-- 40 Years Ago Today

I had dinner with my old friend Danny Fields today. You may know him as the guy who discovered Iggy and the MC5 or as manager of the Ramones or as the guy from the movie, Danny Says, that came out last year. I met Danny 50 years ago. I was still a teenager, in college, and he was ten years older and working in the music buisiness and seemed very much the ideal, cool adult hipster. I had booked an unknown band I had met at a tiny club in New York over the summer to play my school in September, The Doors. I went to see them at the club every night for a couple weeks while they were in New York and got to be friends with Jim Morrison, bonding over DMT, a wretched drug no one liked except he and I, and I agreed to pay them $450 for the concert. A month later they released their first single, "Light My Fire" and it exploded. Although there was no album yet, the single made them famous and the $450 fee looked like a great deal, although some students were disgrunted that I had wasted so much student money on an unknown band. It was one of the greatest rock shows I had ever seen and The Doors introduced me to their A&R guy from Elektra Records, Danny, that night.

Me, then

After the show Danny let me sit in his limo. I had never seen one except on TV and he invited me to his office if I was ever in the city. I soon was and he brought me to a closet and told me to take any records I wanted "but not more than 2 or 3 of any one title" and I felt light-headed and thought I was going to faint. It was the moment I decided I wanted to be in the record business.

Instead, I went to India. I lived in Asia and Europe for almost 7 years and when I got back, I was walking down the street in Manhattan and ran into Danny. "Oh, you've got to come see this new band I'm working with," he said immediately. I was only into Indian music-- Bismillah Khan, the Ali Brothers, Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar...-- and had no interest in rock bands. He insisted. It was at the coolest club in town and the band, he swore, was the future of rock'n'roll. I don't know why I let him talk me into it but that night I went to CBGB's for the first time, saw The Ramones for the first time and met my future boss and mentor, Seymour Stein, for the first time. And I got hooked on rock music again, or at least the version of it The Ramones were playing.

Soon after I moved to San Francisco and, as a radio dj, became The Ramones evangelist in that city. It was 40 years ago today that they released their first , eponymous, album. Later I wound up as general manager of their record label, Sire, and because I was an early champion of their cultural revolution, the company picked me to be the president of Reprise Records. I trace it all back to Danny. I was more than happy to pick up the tab at dinner tonight. This was the first single from that first Ramones album. It changed the direction of music and it changed the direction of my life (which had been pretty directionless before then.

The Doors, The War Against Afghanistan And Marianne Williamson

The great Barbara Lee (D-Oakland)

I met the Doors in 1967 when they were recording their first album in New York. They had a residency in a tiny, little known club under the 59th Street bridge, Ondine's and I went… every night. I became friends with Morrison-- we were the only two people around crazy enough to use DMT-- and I invited the band to play at Stony Brook, where I was chairman of the Student Activities Board, after the summer break. I offered them $400, thinking a Doors concert would be a lovely way to welcome everyone back to campus. I met Tim Buckley and Jackson Browne, kids around my age, at a Velvets show on St. Marks place and I gave Tim the opening slot for The Doors show. In the interim "Light My Fire" was released and became a smash and some of the students thought I was brilliant. Not all though. The president of the sophomore class, thought I had wasted $400 in student fees. You can't please everybody. He started a petition to impeach me. It failed. The people who voted to impeach probably weren't happy that I brought the Dead, the Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Otis Redding, Big Brother, the Byrds, or any of that stuff to the campus. In retrospective, though, everyone loved the concert series at Stony Brook.

Today, a majority of Americans-- finally-- are ready to admit the war against Afghanistan was a mistake. "For the first time since the U.S. initially became involved in Afghanistan in 2001," reported Gallup this morning, "Americans are as likely to say U.S. military involvement there was a mistake as to say it was not." It took a lot longer for the majority of Americans to realize that than it did for them to realize that U.S. attacks on Korea, Vietnam and Iraq were mistakes-- 13 years in Afghanistan, only 5 months in Korea, 2 years in 'Nam, and a year in Iraq. Barbara Lee (D-CA), however, realized it before it even started. In fact, Barbara Lee was the only Member of Congress to realize it-- or at least to act on that realization by voting NO. On September 14, 2001, just before midnight, the House voted to give Bush and Cheney the authorization to attack Afghanistan. It passed 420-1.

Barbara Lee is pretty well marginalized by our political elite today and the people who brought us the disastrous war are lionized and rewarded. Even among Democrats, who came to the realization sooner than others that attacking and destroying Afghanistan was a mistake, Lee hasn't been honored or respected. When a corrupt shit-head, Joe Crowley-- in fact, the single most corrupt Member of the House Democratic caucus-- decided it was time for him to climb the House leadership ladder by running for vice chair of the caucus, a position that puts him on the road to the Speakership, he ran against Barbara Lee. His support-- from fellow corruptionists, many of whom he had bribed-- was so solid that Barbara withdrew before the vote.

Crowley, of course, had voted for the attack on Afghanistan. He was wrong; Lee was right. But he got the job. Things ended better for me. The Doors and Hendrix and The Dead and all those bands I booked at my school before they were "big," got big. I wound up the president of what they called "a major label"-- and was well-rewarded for being right then and right about punk rock in the late '70s when other record company executives were laughing at it and behaving just like Joe Crowley. Is the Democratic Party doomed? Absolutely… just useless. How could anyone even think about voting for a Democrat-- not just a bottom of the barrel Democrat like Wendy Greuel, but even the best the Democratic Party has to offer, like Ted Lieu-- when there's an independent alternative along the lines of Bernie Sanders. This is from an OpEd yesterday by Marianne Williamson, the independent progressive running for the CA-33 seat Henry Waxman is abandoning.

The fact that a few self-appointed arbiters of who-gets-to-run-and-who-gets-to-play - whether in the area of politics, education, economics or anything else - know they have it in the bag because they hang out with others in the same gang, and they own the system, and they control the media, and they go to the same dinner parties, does not mean that we cannot disenthrall ourselves of their mental filter. And that is all, I assure you, that keeps the lock in place. It is not their money, or even their connections, that makes them masters of our universe. It is the simple fact that we are not laughing at them, but are lining up for their approval instead.

So regardless of whether or not you agree with my political vision, plan to vote for me or support my candidacy, I hope you will join me in recognizing that something is fundamentally wrong when any group of people, including any political party, thinks it's theirs to decide who will be taken seriously, who will have a shot at power, and who will be considered a viable candidate.

That is not their job. That is your job. And if you do agree with my politics and you do wish to see me in office, I hope you will write more of your friends to tell them about my candidacy than you might have; post my website more times on your social media than you might have; and give a couple more bucks to the campaign than you might have. We're trying to penetrate a system here, and it is dense. It is energetic. And it is not amused by free thinkers.

CHARLIE CRIST SEEMS TO HAVE OPENED THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION-- PARDON FOR JIM MORRISON?

Last year, Florida Republicans rejected the hard right posture of Bush's self-indulgent brother Jeb and chose moderate Charlie Crist over right-wing loon Tom Gallagher, even after it was clear that Crist is another GOP closet queen. So far, Crist has been a far better governor than anyone would have imagined. He's been governing from the point of view of trying to help his constituents, the citizens of Florida, rather than the way Jeb was running the state, as an off-shoot of BushCo, the family firm, every move meant to further narrow partisan aims and enrich political supporters at the expense of everyone else.

A couple weeks ago I was knocked out when I read that Crist was going to actually deal with the disgraceful situation whereby Florida has been disenfranchising thousands of ex-felons. Under Crist's compromise plan-- the legislature, after all, is still dominated by far right maniacs and racists-- "cuts down on the time and paperwork that ex-convicts need to get their civil rights restored... Under a draft of the plan, felons would be divided into three categories upon their release: nonviolent offenders, criminals who haven't committed murder or sex crimes, and those who have committed the more heinous acts. The nonviolent offenders, who account for 80 percent of the crimes, would be eligible for the swiftest restoration of their rights to vote, sit on a jury or obtain occupational licenses, according to a draft the Miami Herald obtained under the public records act." It was approved by the Florida Clemency Board last week.

Last week I mentioned in a Crooks and Liars Late Nite Music Club that Crist is also considering a posthumous pardon for native Floridian/Door lead singer Jim Morrison. After a rally with Sheryl Crow at the University of Florida on Monday to stop global warming, "Crist got on a plane for the capital and seemed lost in thought. He then turned and said he is seriously thinking about pardoning Morrison's 1970 indecent exposure and profanity convictions stemming from a Miami concert the year before. 'He died when he was 27. That's really a kid, when you think about it, and obviously he was having some challenges. There's some dispute about how solid the case was,' Crist said."

I wasn't at the show, but Morrison was a friend of mine and I remember the incident well. He was a real superstar and youth hero at the time. And "the time" was very explosive since VietNam was front and center and young people were overall very alienated from the Establishment. Many people felt Morrison was being crucified unjustly. There was no evidence that he had ever exposed himself and he died before the appeal. Some think the conviction led to his death. "Who doesn't do things that maybe they wish they hadn't done when you're that young?" Crist said. VH-1 did a sensationalized report on the story a few years ago: