Last night, I was astonished when I saw David Gergen on CNN saying that young people aren’t voting for Hillary because she criticized charter schools. He said she did it to please the teachers unions. As we know, her criticism was true: charter schools don’t accept all kinds of students and she never repeated it.
On the other hand, Bernie has opposed charter schools. Why would Gergen think that young people would prefer Sanders to Clinton over charter schools? Which young people has he been talking to?
Now we know. Several readers pointed out that David Gergen is on the national board of TFA. Does this mean that TFA supports Bernie, who opposes charters, and abandoned Hillary because she mildly criticized them? No, it makes no sense to me either. Just another warning to Hillary never to say bad things about charters, ever.
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Wow..Diane…sounds like we are getting into a philosophical analysis using inductive and deductive reasoning…and all about the descending career of David Gergen.
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Holy crap! What a dunce! Does this moron honestly believe that for 18 year olds who incidentally are the only school age young people old enough to actually vote would give a damn about charter schools with near months until they graduate? Wow this guy is astoundingly stupid. He probably should have been chemically sterilized before he had they chance to pass on what is most likely faulty genes.
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“Acceptable Use Policy
You agree not to use the Information, Services or the Website to take any action(s) that:
are contrary to TFA’s public image, goodwill or reputation or otherwise not in furtherance of our Mission;… ”
FromTFA web site
my comment: Wow are they fearful – sick org.
bc
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I don’t consider him an expert.
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Of course he’s an expert, you know the kind with no practical K-12 teaching experience.
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Thank you for saying this. It seems that anyone and everyone these days can be labeled as an “expert” and we are simply told to believe what we hear from them. We have to be smarter than that!
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So now we know. I hope activists will take note: Gergen was not part of some conspiracy of the establishment. He was trying to push Hillary to jump on the charter program because she isn’t there.
We should be doing the same thing with our cause. What questions are we hoping will be asked at tonight’s debate?
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The sad facts are that there is no Republican Center…Gergen was a decent
writer and editor with USNews and is now with Rubio,Cruz, Bush, Trump as apologists
for a party that has nothing to offer our country…very disappointing.
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While Ms. Clinton’s record on public education is disastrous and reactionary, and Senator Sanders’ is somewhat better, the best candidate I’ve seen so far on combating neoliberal corporate education reform is Dr. Jill Stein, Check out these two quotes:
“Public education is another example where there has been a complete scam [regarding privatization]—charter schools are not better than public schools—and in many cases they are far worse. They cherry-pick their students so they can show better test scores. The treasure of our public schools system has been assaulted by the process of privatization.” (Phone interview on 2016 presidential race by OnTheIssues.org , Jul 6, 2015)
“Unfortunately, charter schools draw down on funding for our public schools, and they siphon off the more capable students and their families. At the same time they concentrate the real social problems in the public schools, which is guaranteed to collapse our public system from within. The advantages of charters ought to be features of all public schools: family engagement, additional resources and budget, and so on.” (2011 AmericansElect interview questionnaire with Jill Stein, Dec 21, 2011)
Here’s a video of Dr. Stein and Kshama Sawant discussing the scourge of charter schools. https://youtu.be/hOpHFBURFgc
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Thank you for this clarification. Although I like both of our current Democratic candidates, I have seen no real evidence that either of them actually understands the above statements made by Jill Stein.
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I understand your criticisms of Gergen, however your comment about Sanders’ stance on charter schools is incorrect. See below for Sanders view on charter schools.
From http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Bernie_Sanders_Education.htm:
Bernie does not oppose charter schools…. Indeed, Bernie voted for the Charter School Expansion Act of 1998. Nonetheless, Bernie believes that these institutions must be “held to the same standards of transparency as public schools” to ensure accountability for these privately managed organizations….
Bernie’s stance on charter schools is similar to that of both the AFT and NEA teacher’s unions, which do not oppose charter schools, but seek to ensure that they are run in ways that benefit the students. The NEA, for example, shares Bernie’s concern that these schools must be run transparently to increase accountability: “As taxpayer-funded schools, charter schools must operate in a manner that is transparent and accountable to the families and communities they serve.”
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That’s disappointing to learn that Bernie supports charter schools and Common Core.
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Disappointing, and heartbreaking and shocking — that in our 2016 election we STILL have no one to stand up and articulate the truth about “accountability” and test-score reform.
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I would be curious to hear directly from the candidate about charter schools. Voting for the Charter School Expansion Act of 1998 — when charter schools were started to serve the most at-risk students by people who weren’t looking to profit from it — doesn’t tell me much.
What kind of funding would Bernie support going to charters? Right now the federal dollars they get are enormous (at least, the rich ones get richer). Does he agree with the current US DOE that there is no oversight necessary by the feds when charters get enormous dollars?
There are ways to support charter schools with REAL oversight and there is the Obama way — where they are satisfied when a rubber stamp group like the SUNY Charter Institute looks the other way at high attrition and suspension rates of at-risk children that go hand in hand with high test scores.
Will Bernie stand up for what is right, or is he simply an Obama clone?
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The problem with charter schools is that their original intent of helping hard to reach students has been perverted into money making schemes by corporations and billionaires. Now they are more about profit and union busting, and they are not getting any better results unless they “stack the deck.” The policymakers that wrote the charter laws failed to understand the dire consequences for public schools where there was widespread charter expansion. We need to overturn some of the laws that have turned charters into a business model, and stop the bleeding of public money into for profit entities while harm is caused to public schools and students in the poorest areas.
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I read quite a bit on the ed reform side and it is amazing how often former Obama Administration promote anti-labor op eds that are disguised as “education reform”.
Either these people aren’t very bright or there’s a large group in the Obama Administration who are simply opposed to labor unions, because this stuff is pretty obviously ABOUT bashing labor unions with a sprinkling of ed reform jargon thrown in.
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Chiara…It should come as no surprise that Obama is surrounded by anti unionists. Immelt of GE, and all the Goldman Sachs and Citigroup advisors and Cabinet members, his choices to head DoJ and the SEC and the FDA and the DoE…. etc…..are all Wall Streeters…and on and on. No new news.
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Either these people aren’t very bright or there’s a large group in the Obama Administration who are simply opposed to labor unions, because this stuff is pretty obviously ABOUT bashing labor unions with a sprinkling of ed reform jargon thrown in.
I think Rahm Emmanuel — not exactly banished from the Obama circle — made it pretty clear how exactly national-level Dems feel about organized labor. Who can forget, “Fuck the UAW”?
Sanders’ campaign is about the direction of the Democratic Party every bit as much as it’s about the direction of the country.
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And…BTW….all these are rooting for Hillary who repeatedly ties herself tightly to Obama in every speech and every debate. With Dems like these, who worries about Repubs…they are Repubs in Dem clothing.
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In last night’s debate, Clinton confirmed her alliance with Obama’s policies. A lot of the time she was working to retain Obama’s minority vote while trying to make Bernie look like he is “out of touch.” Bernie defended his position, but I don’t know if he will be able to attract more of the minority vote.
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David Gergen knows as much about the opinions of young people as I know about Chinese.
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Isn’t David Gergen more aligned with Republicans, anyway? He served in the administrations of Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, I understand.
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I have never understood why anybody ever listened to Gergen about anything. Media types always treat him like some kind of sage, but all I’ve ever heard from him are fatuous commonplaces. I don’t really know much of anything, but I play a guy who does on TeeVee.
Though it is kind of hilarious imagining ol’ Dave telling the world what the youngsters want these days. I picture him on a skateboard, circling around and stroking his chin.
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