Archives for category: Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)

Gary Rubinstein keeps a close eye on Teach for America and watches how it shows its true colors from time to time. That happened with the votes cast on amendments to the Senate bill called “Every Child Achieves Act.”

TFA lobbyists urged Senators to support the Murphy-Booker amendments, which would have retained the worst, most punitive features of No Child Left Behind. They also publicly opposed parents’ right to opt their children out of state tests, on the flimsy claim that this would hurt poor and minority children. In fact, poor and minority children are victimized by high-stakes testing, by a greater emphasis on testing, and by closing of schools located mostly in their communities.

Rubinstein writes that the Murphy-Booker amendment:

says that the states must identify the schools most in need of intervention, which must be at least the bottom 5%. It seems that the Democrats did not learn the lessons from NCLB about the danger of putting specific numerical targets into federal law and how those numerical targets can be abused. The fact that there is always a bottom 5% no matter how good the schools are in a state. Also, schools where the graduation rate is less than 67%, a magic number for ‘failing school’ that is not grounded in any real research (not to mention one that is easy to game with different ‘credit recovery’ schemes, but that’s another issue altogether). For schools like this some of the federally mandated interventions are to inform the parents that their child is attending a failing school, to establish ‘partnerships’ with ‘private entities’ to turn around these schools, and to give the states the ability to make, and for this I’ll use a verbatim quote, “any changes to personnel necessary to improve educational opportunities for children in the school.”

So where does Murphy’s Law come in? What could possibly go wrong with this? Well for starters, there would need to be an accurate way to gauge which schools are truly in the ‘bottom 5%.’ I admit that there are some schools that are run much less efficiently than others and surely the different superintendents should have a sense of which schools they are. But as NCLB and Race To The Top (RTTT) taught us, with all the money spent on creating these metrics and the costly tests and ‘growth metrics’ that go along with those tests, it is likely to lead to way too much test prep and neglect of some of the things that make school worth going to. Then those ‘private entities’, could it be any more clear that these are charter schools taking over public schools? And as far as “changes to personnel necessary to improve educational opportunities for the children in the school”, well, firing teachers after school ‘closures’ in New York City hasn’t resulted in improved ‘educational opportunities.’ My sense is that with enough of these mass firings, it will be very difficult to get anyone to risk their careers by teaching at a so-called failing school and the new staff is likely be less effective than the old staff. So you can see why the NEA wrote a letter to the Senate urging them to vote against it. Sadly nearly all the Democrats (and Independent Bernie Sanders!) ignored the plea of the NEA.

TFA’s leaders gave their approval to an article sharply criticizing parents who opt their children out of standardized testing:

In The 74 [Campbell Brown’s website], disgraced former Tennessee Education Commissioner and TFA alum (not to mention ex-husband of Michelle Rhee-Johnston) Kevin Huffman wrote a completely incoherent comparison of parents opting their children out of state tests to parents opting their children out of vaccinations. The title of the article was “Why We Need to Ignore Opt-Outers Like We Do Anti-Vaxxers.” Not that we need to ‘challenge’ them, but we need to ‘ignore’ them. Don’t bother learning what motivates them to do what they do, just assume you know and ignore whatever concerns are causing them to want to do this. Huffman is also a lawyer, though his argument is quite weak. He says that wealthy opt-outers are selfish since they are doing something that somehow benefits themselves while hurting the other, less wealthy people. But does he consider that many opt-outers are doing it as a protest against the misuse of their students test scores to unfairly close schools and fire teachers? Or to protest an over emphasis on testing and testing subjects so they opt out to say “Since I’m opting out anyway, please teach my child as you would have before all this high stakes testing nonsense.” Now I can’t speak for every opt-out supporter, but I believe that opting-out helps everyone, especially the poor since the way the results of the state tests have been used has hurt them disproportionately with school closures and random teacher firings so the idea that all opt-out supporters do so knowingly at the expense of less fortunate others is something that I find offensive. Both co-CEOs of TFA, however, tweeted their approval of this article.

High-stakes testing and punitive policies widens the market for privatization, drives out experienced teachers, and clears the way for more positions for TFA.

Mercedes Schneider transcribed key portions of the debate about the Lee amendment. This amendment would have given parents the right to opt out of federally mandated annual tests.

Senator Mike Lee of Utah explains why he proposed the amendment. Senator Lamar Alexander explains why he opposes it. Senator Patty Murray does as well.

The amendment was defeated, with all Democrats and some Republicans voting it down.

The Journal News of the Lower Hudson Valley wrote an editorial explaining the genesis of the testing madness that has gripped the nation for at least 15 years.

First came No Child Left Behind, then Race to the Top, destroying education by a mammoth obsession with test scores.

Andrew Cuomo used federal policy to lash out at teachers’ unions. Of Congress passes s new law, reducing federal punishments, what will the states do with their new flexibility?

The editorial sees some positive sights:

“Newly arrived state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has said she will appoint task forces to review the Common Core standards, New York’s 3-to-8 tests that are now tied to Common Core, and how test results are used to evaluate teachers. Elia has a track record of supporting the standards-testing-evaluations approach to improving education, but seems keenly aware that many New Yorkers have little faith in our testing obsession. She’ll soon realize that a whole new group of parents are now irritated because of the recent Regents exam in algebra, which left even top students scratching their heads.”

Giving the boot to Pearson sent a good signal.

But now there is “the Cuomo problem.”

“Then there’s the Cuomo problem. Our governor is the driving force behind New York’s brutish teacher-evaluation system, which will increasingly rely on test scores to label teachers (even though we won’t use the same scores to evaluate students because the tests are unproven). Many classroom teachers and the parents who appreciate them will remain peeved until the system is changed. Elia will have to confront this problem pronto and figure out a way to circumvent Cuomo’s stubbornness, driven largely by his animus for teachers unions.
We hope that Congress will let states decide how to use test data for their own purposes. But it would be up to New York’s leaders to recognize what even those in Washington see: testing should not drive education policy. Many teachers will spend too much time next year trying to protect their jobs by preparing students for tests. This must not continue.”

Barbara Madeloni, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, comments here about the “bittersweet victory” associated with Senate passage of the Every Child Achieves Act.

She writes:

“The bill continues yearly testing in grades three through eight and once in high school, but leaves it to states to determine how to use those tests for school accountability. It removes the authority of the federal government to demand that teacher evaluations be connected to student test scores and gives more authority to states to determine specific standards and curriculum.

“In giving more authority to states, the bill loosens constraints on how funds will be spent, though fortunately the Senate rejected a voucher amendment. The Senate measure now goes to a conference committee, where senators and members of the House will mesh their bills and develop a final piece of legislation. If approved, that bill will have to be signed or vetoed by President Barack Obama. If Obama vetoes it, Congress would have to override the veto for the bill to become law.

“It is a bittersweet victory to applaud the power of school accountability going back to the states, should this bill become law. While it would allow us to organize locally and make the demands we want for our students and our schools, others have noted that it would mean we have 50 battles to fight instead of one – and that some states are especially weak in their readiness to fight.” 

Unfortunately the bill does nothing to alleviate poverty and racism, which are the root causes of low test scores. Instead, many of the senators wanted to push some of the most punitive aspects of testing that were embedded in George W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind act. The most outspoken proponents of the Bush accountability, unfortunately, were Democrats, who have bought into the fiction that closing schools and firing teachers will help poor children.

That was not the vision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act when it was passed in 1965. At that time, President Lyndon Johnson and the Congress recognized that poverty hurts children and gets in the way of academic success. Today’s Democrats think that testing and accountability are necessary to combat poverty; they have bought the NCLB rationale hook, line, and sinker.

Madeloni continues:

“Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored an amendment that 41 Democrats supported to essentially continue the most punitive aspects of No Child Left Behind, as the current version of the ESEA is known. The amendment proposed a change in what student test scores are used for accountability, from all students to subgroups, but retained the use of test scores as a basis for labeling and punishing schools. In my conversation with Warren, her concern for traditionally underserved students, which is noble, was distorted by a seeming unwillingness to accept what so many teachers and parents are saying: that the use of testing for accountability is narrow-minded, undermines meaningful teaching and learning, and shifts the focus from the real issues our students and communities face.

“The amendment failed and was not included in the final bill, but Senator Warren’s vote against the final bill was based in large measure on her concerns for what assurances there would be that funds would go where they are most needed. Fellow Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey joined Warren in supporting the amendment, but voted in favor of the final bill. In the end, Warren was one of only three Democrats to vote against the ECAA.

“Now that the Senate has passed the ECAA, we need to talk about resources and about the larger issues of race and class. But we need to acknowledge that our efforts must focus on Democrats as well as Republicans. Indeed, some of the worst excesses of corporate “reform” have been supported by elected officials who call themselves our allies.”

Mercedes Schneider is one of the few people I know (outside of Congressional staff) who has read every word of the proposed legislation to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now called No Child Left Behind).

In this post, she explains that both bills remove any penalties for parents who choose to opt out. It is up to the states to determine whether parents are allowed to opt out of testing, but there will be no federal penalties if they do.

In states that are either silent on the matter of opting out or that explicitly ban it, parents can still opt it. They are the parents, and they can decide what is in the best interest of their child.

Emma Brown of the Washington Post has a good article about the Murphy amendment, which Democrats favored and Republicans opposed.

 

The chamber voted 54 to 43 against the amendment, which aimed to give the federal government more say in defining which schools are low-performing and require intervention.

 

Instead, the bill allows states to decide not only how to judge schools’ success, but which schools don’t measure up and what to do to improve them.

 

The proposed amendment’s lead sponsor, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), said that could return the country to the days when states and school districts could ignore achievement gaps and allow poor, minority and disabled children to languish.

 

“This law is an education reform law, but it has to be a civil rights law as well,” said Murphy, invoking the law’s original passage in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

 

The measure was opposed by many Republicans who want to rein in the federal government’s influence over education, which they say ballooned under the Bush and Obama administrations.

 

“Instead of fixing No Child Left Behind, it keeps the worst parts of it,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate education committee.

 

Democratic lawmakers in both chambers are sure to continue pushing for stronger accountability provisions before sending the legislation to the White House. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said that the Obama administration would not support the legislation unless it strengthens the federal role in school accountability. But he stopped short of saying whether the president would veto it.

 

Why do Democrats believe that the U.S. Department of Education has the capacity or knowledge to identify “failing” schools or to intervene to improve them? Nothing in the past decade suggests that this is a realistic expectation.

 

Democrats have now almost completely bought into the assumption that more testing=more equity, when it is a well-established fact that standardized tests always have a disparate impact that disadvantages students and adults of color. For many decades, the same civil rights groups that now defend standardized tests for students have litigated to block the use of standardized tests as decisive measures, whether in school or in employment. But for reasons that are hard to discern, certain leading civil rights groups now insist that without testing every child every year, children of color will be overlooked and neglected. Of course, if standardized tests could meet the needs of children of color and children in poverty, these children would be in far better shape today than they are because they have been taking standardized tests every year since 2003, when NCLB was implemented. That is an entire generation of children. What are the results? Where are the benefits of the billions spent to test every child every year? How many children have lost access to courses in the arts, history, science, civics, geography, physical education, and foreign languages because they took time away from test preparation?

 

NAEP already documents the achievement gaps every other year for every state and for many urban districts by scientific sampling. No other nation tests every child every year. The cost of testing and the instructional time lost to test prep actually hurts the children it is supposed to help.

 

Why don’t the Democrats listen to other civil rights groups, such as the Journey for Justice Alliance, which opposes high-stakes testing. Is it because they don’t have lobbyists? Here is part of their open letter to the leaders of the Senate:

 

The Journey for Justice Alliance, an alliance of 38 organizations of Black and Brown parents and students in 23 states, joins with the 175 other national and local grassroots community, youth and civil rights organizations signed on below, to call on the U.S. Congress to pass an ESEA reauthorization without requiring the regime of oppressive, high stakes, standardized testing and sanctions that have recently been promoted as civil rights provisions within ESEA.

 

We respectfully disagree that the proliferation of high stakes assessments and top-down interventions are needed in order to improve our schools. We live in the communities where these schools exist. What, from our vantage point, happens because of these tests is not improvement. It’s destruction.

 

Black and Latino families want world class public schools for our children, just as white and affluent families do. We want quality and stability. We want a varied and rich curriculum in our schools. We don’t want them closed or privatized. We want to spend our days learning, creating and debating, not preparing for test after test.

 

In the Chicago Public Schools, for example, children in kindergarten through 8th grade are administered anywhere between 8 and 25 standardized tests per year. By the time they graduate from 8th grade, they have taken an average of 180 standardized tests! We are not opposed to state mandated testing as a component of a well-rounded system of evaluating student needs. But enough is enough.

 

We want balanced assessments, such as oral exams, portfolios, daily check-ins and teacher created assessment tools—all of which are used at the University of Chicago Lab School, where President Barack Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have sent their children to be educated. For us, civil rights are about access to schools all our children deserve. Are our children less worthy?

 

High stakes standardized tests have been proven to harm Black and Brown children, adults, schools and communities. Curriculum is narrowed. Their results purport to show that our children are failures. They also claim to show that our schools are failures, leading to closures or wholesale dismissal of staff. Children in low income communities lose important relationships with caring adults when this happens. Other good schools are destabilized as they receive hundreds of children from closed schools. Large proportions of Black teachers lose their jobs in this process, because it is Black teachers who are often drawn to commit their skills and energies to Black children. Standardized testing, whether intentionally or not, has negatively impacted the Black middle class, because they are the teachers, lunchroom workers, teacher aides, counselors, security staff and custodians who are fired when schools close.

 

Standardized tests are used as the reason why voting rights are removed from Black and Brown voters—a civil right every bit as important as education. Our schools and school districts are regularly judged to be failures—and then stripped of local control through the appointment of state takeover authorities that eliminate democratic process and our local voice—and have yet so far largely failed to actually improve the quality of education our children receive.

 

Throughout the course of the debate on the reauthorization of ESEA, way too much attention has focused on testing and sanctions, and not on the much more critical solutions to educational inequality.

As the Senate got close to a final vote on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Democrats pushed to restore a punitive accountability system, much like NCLB.

Edweek reports:

“In the afternoon, senators voted on and rejected one of the most high-profile amendments the chamber has considered in its six days of debate—a proposal from Democrats to beef up accountability measures in the underlying bill to rewrite the No Child Left Behind Act, the current version of the law.

“Among other things, the amendment would have required states to establish measurable state-designed goals for all students and separately for each of the categories of subgroups of students. It also would have required states to intervene in their lowest-performing 5 percent of schools and those that graduate less than 67 percent of their students.

“NCLB said a lot on this issue, and most of it wasn’t helpful,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the principal author of the proposal. “But the amendment we’re offering takes a very different approach. This is an education bill, but it’s not a worthwhile bill unless it’s also a civil rights bill.”

“As we wrote Tuesday, Democrats weren’t expecting the amendment to pass. But they were hoping to cobble together 35 or more votes to show that strengthening accountability is a top priority going into conference with the House on its version of an ESEA overhaul.

“That way the Democrats, along with the dozen or so Republicans they anticipate voting against the bill no matter what, would be able to block final passage of a conferenced bill should it not include stronger accountability language.

“But the National Education Association threw a bit of a wrench in their plan when it came out in opposition to the amendment and urged senators to vote against it.

“The 3 million-member union argued that the amendment would “continue the narrow and punitive focus of NCLB and overidentify schools in need of improvement, reducing the ability of states to actually target help to schools that need the most assistance to help students.”

“In a letter to senators, the NEA wrote that it agreed with the intent of the amendment, in that states should be required to specifically factor subgroup performance into their system of school identification. But that overall system, the letter stated, should be decided by the states, not the federal government.”

The Democratic Senators apparently don’t know that state takeovers mean privatization (a la ALEC), that charters do not get better academic results than public schools, and that the root cause of low scores is inequity, not “bad” schools. State takeovers have not protected the civil rights of under served children. Privatization has created profits for the charter industry.

Here is the roll call on the amendment offered by Senator Mike Lee to grant parents the right to opt put without penalty to their school, district or state.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&session=1&vote=00235

S.Amdt. 2162 to S.Amdt. 2089 to S. 1177 (Every Child Achieves Act of 2015)
Statement of Purpose: To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 relating to parental notification and opt-out of assessments.

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs —32

Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cotton (R-AR)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Ernst (R-IA)
Fischer (R-NE)
Grassley (R-IA)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnson (R-WI)
Lankford (R-OK)
Lee (R-UT)
McCain (R-AZ)
Moran (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Perdue (R-GA)
Risch (R-ID)
Sasse (R-NE)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Toomey (R-PA)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

NAYs —64

Alexander (R-TN)
Baldwin (D-WI)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Burr (R-NC)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Capito (R-WV)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Coons (D-DE)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Flake (R-AZ)
Franken (D-MN)
Gardner (R-CO)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Hirono (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Manchin (D-WV)
Markey (D-MA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murphy (D-CT)
Murray (D-WA)
Peters (D-MI)
Portman (R-OH)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rounds (R-SD)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Not Voting – 4
Graham (R-SC)
Nelson (D-FL)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sullivan (R-AK)

Emma Brown reports in The Washington Post that the Senate turned down an amendment that would have allowed parents to opt out of federally mandated tests without penalty.

 

The lead author of the Senate bill said that this decision should be left to states.

 

The chamber voted 64 to 32 against the amendment, proposed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) amid a backlash against mandated standardized tests. “Parents, not politicians or bureaucrats, will have the final say over whether individual children take tests,” he said.

 

But Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) — the Republican co-sponsor of the carefully crafted bipartisan bill — spoke forcefully against the proposal, saying it would strip states of the right to decide whether to allow parents to opt out.

 

“I say to my Republican friends, do we only agree with local control when we agree with the local policy?” said Alexander, who has framed the bill as an effort to transfer power over education from the federal government to the states.

 

I have great respect for Senator Alexander but his argument is not logical. The federal government mandates the tests, but it leaves to states the power to decide whether parents have the right to opt out. Why is the federal government mandating any tests? Why is this not a state responsibility? If he were being consistent, he would leave the testing and the right to opt out to the states. I would just remind the Congress that the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 was a resource equity act, not a testing and accountability act. It was meant to send money to schools and districts that enrolled students who lived in poverty. It was No Child Left Behind that turned the ESEA into a testing and accountability act in 2001-02. And it was the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994 that first proposed that states create their own standards and assessments.

 

No matter what the Congress does, no matter what the states do, parents can opt their children out of testing if they believe the tests are neither valid nor reliable.

 

If anyone has a list of Senators who voted for or against the amendment, please send it.

 

The American Federation of Teachers sent questionnaires to all the candidates. Three responded: Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, and Bernie Sanders. I previously posted Sanders’ responses. Here is Hillary’s.

Candidate questionnaire: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Today, almost 50 million students attend our nation’s public schools. Along with their parents, communities, teachers, paraprofessionals and other school employees, these students have been forced to live under test—and-punish policies that include sanctions and school closings, high-stakes assessments, and federalized teacher evaluations that are counterproductive and have taken the joy out of teaching and learning.
Q. What is your view of the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also
known as the No Child Left Behind Act)? What changes, if any, would you make to the law, and
why? Please include positions on:
• The federal government’s role in ensuring equity and access to resources for all children;
• The role of standards, assessments and accountability in public education;
• Ensuring that all students have access to a broad curriculum that includes art and music,
as well as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM);
• Professional development for school staff; and
• Community schools.

HRC: I have been working to improve and support our public schools for decades. Throughout my
career I have worked to ensure that every child reaches his or her full potential, and I know a
quality education is essential to reach that goal. When I was First Lady of Arkansas, I chaired
the Arkansas Educational Standards Commission where I worked to raise standards for
Arkansas’ schools, increase teacher salaries, and lower class size. I continued in this effort as
First Lady of the United States and as a Senator, working throughout my career to provide
dedicated resources and support to teachers and to recruit, support, and retain more outstanding
teachers. We need to attract a whole new generation to teaching because it is critical that our
students have well-prepared and well-supported teachers.

When the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted, I viewed it as a historic promise between the
federal government and educators. I hoped that it would lead to a greater sense of shared
responsibility for our schools’ success. Unfortunately, that promise was largely broken because
schools struggled to meet the mandates imposed by the law and the implementation at the federal
level was problematic.

I applaud Senator Patty Murray and Senator Lamar Alexander for coming together in a
bipartisan fashion to unanimously pass the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 out of the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee to reauthorize NCLB. I believe this bill
addresses some of the real challenges with NCLB while retaining our commitment to high
academic standards, and to assessments that give parents and teachers the information they need
to know how students are performing and if and where they need help to improve. I believe that
this bill will correct for some of the real challenges that schools and communities experienced in
implementing the law and will ensure that principals, educators and local communities are lifted
up as full partners and innovators in improving public education. I also applaud the forward-
looking investments in education contained in the bill, including a new commitment to improving
early learning.One of the issues that I am most concerned about is testing. Tests are intended to provide parents and educators with an understanding of how well kids are learning. Having that
understanding is crucial. And it is important to remember that testing provides communities with
full information about how our low-income students and students of color are doing in
comparison to other groups so that we can continue to improve our educational system for all
students.

But I understand the frustration many parents and educators feel about tests. Teachers and
parents alike are concerned about the amount of time being spent on test preparation, and worry
that children are missing out on the most valuable experience in the classroom– a teacher
sparking a student’s curiosity and love for learning.

So I am mindful that we need to find the right balance—and that starts with bringing parents
and educators back into this conversation about how we ensure a robust and engaging
curriculum that engages students in the love of learning rather than narrowing our schools to
focus primarily on test preparation.

I do think that Senators Murray and Alexander struck the right balance in the Every Child
Achieves Act by continuing to maintain the federal requirement for annual statewide testing in
grades 3-8, but ensuring that accountability for improving schools will be based on multiple
measures of performance. And I think it will be critical for states and communities to continue to
strike the right balance and not layer test upon test. There must be room for invigorating
teaching and learning in the classroom.

Q. Do you support any of the current reauthorization proposals under consideration in the 114th
Congress?

HRC: I applaud Senator Patty Murray and Senator Lamar Alexander for coming together in a
bipartisan fashion to unanimously pass the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 out of the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee to reauthorize NCLB.

Q. What role do you think the federal government can play in providing access to early childhood
education? What specific policy proposals would your administration pursue?

HRC: I believe we need to improve access to quality child care and early learning opportunities for all
children. Every child, regardless of parental income, deserves access to high-quality pre-K. I
think any discussion of improving our public schools must include universal access to pre-
kindergarten. I believe we can start to close the achievement gap by investing in programs that
increase children’s school readiness and academic preparation while making it easier for
parents to balance their responsibilities at work with their responsibilities to their children. We
know children’s brains develop more rapidly at this time in their lives than at any other and that
high quality interventions make a real difference in the outcomes of children from low-income
families. . In the months ahead, I look forward to laying out a significant agenda to improve
early learning in our country.

I have been highlighting the importance of early childhood education for more than forty years.
As First Lady of Arkansas, I helped bring the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool
Youngsters Program (HIPPY) to Arkansas. As First Lady, I hosted the first White House
conference on early learning and the brain, championed the program “Prescription for
Reading,” in which pediatricians provided free books for new mothers to read to their infants as
their brains were rapidly developing, and supported the Administration’s work to create Early
Head Start, which reaches children from birth to age three throughout country. As Senator, I co-
sponsored the Education Begins at Home Act, which expands the Parents as Teachers program
and other quality programs of early childhood home visitation. As a leader at the Clinton
Foundation, I led a national initiative called “Too Small to Fail” aimed at supporting parents to
improve vocabulary and brain development in the early years to close the “word gap” and
better prepare children for school. As President, I will continue my lifelong work to expand
early childhood and parent education programs.

Q. What are your views on private school vouchers, tuition tax credits, and charter school
accountability and transparency?

HRC: I strongly oppose voucher schemes because they divert precious resources away from financially
strapped public schools to private schools that are not subject to the same accountability
standards or teacher quality standards. It would be harmful to our democracy if we dismantled
our public school system through vouchers, and there is no evidence that doing so would
improve outcomes for children.

Charters should be held to the same standards, and to the same level of accountability and
transparency to which traditional public schools are held. This includes the requirements of civil
rights laws. They can innovate and help improve educational practices. But I also believe that
we must go back to the original purpose of charter schools. Where charters are succeeding, we
should be doing more to ensure that their innovations can be widely disseminated throughout
our traditional public school system. Where they are failing, they should be closed.

Access to an affordable and high-quality system of public higher education is critical to the
health of the nation—both to ensure that students reach their fullest potential, and to
enable the United States to continue to develop as a just society, a vibrant democracy and a
land of economic opportunity.

Q. Escalating tuition and fees are leading to a growing number of students leaving college with
overwhelming debt from student loans. This burden of rising costs and rising debt makes access
to higher education increasingly difficult for many students and their families. What is the role of
the federal government in ensuring that higher education is affordable and accessible?

HRC: First, too many young people are struggling under the burden of student debt and too many
families are struggling to pay the rising cost of college. Second, too many students are starting
but never completing college, which means they leave with debt but no degree. I will be offering
my own ideas for how to make college more affordable, how to make sure no one graduates with
crushing debt, and how to hold colleges accountable to help more students graduate. Among
other things, we have to do more to link student loan repayments to income and to help people
refinance their loans. And we have to think about both four-year colleges and community
colleges. I support President Obama’s free community college proposal. I will be talking about
ways to reduce the burdens on those entering four-year colleges too, as well as those who are
out in the world trying to start a business or a family. I intend to introduce significant proposals
on these subjects in the weeks and months ahead.

Q. There has been a nationwide pattern of disinvestment in public higher education such that per-
student funding dropped 26.1 percent between 1990 and 2010. What would your administration
do to remedy this?

HRC: State budget cuts are a primary cause of tuition increases at public universities and reversing
this trend is key to making college more affordable. That’s why I will make incentivizing
increased state funding of higher education a priority, and explore ways to make sure that the
federal government is actively partnering and working with states to address the problem of
college affordability.

Q. Career and technical education programs help ensure that postsecondary credentials and skills
are accessible to all—a necessity in today’s economy. In your view, what is the role of the
federal government in supporting high-quality CTE programs?

HRC: In the months ahead, I will lay out my ideas for a comprehensive proposal to train millions more
workers over the next decade. I am exploring a number of options to incentivize GTE programs
and help provide grants to train workers for the 21st century economy.

Q. What is the federal government’s role in requiring appropriate transparency and accountability
of for-profit institutions?

HRC: We have to do a lot more to protect students and families from unscrupulous institutions and
abusive debt servicers. There are a lot of non-traditional students who want to go back to school
to improve their lives, but don’t have access to much information or support to figure out how
best to do that. Money and time are both tight, with a lot of them trying to juggle family, jobs,
and school all at the same time. So they’re particularly vulnerable to exploitation and
deception.

All students need more guidance in making decisions about where to go to school. We should
protect them from institutions that will almost certainly not serve them well. The government
should stop funding colleges where almost no one graduates and where most students
accumulate a lot of debt but can’t get the jobs that would allow them to repay their loans. In the
months ahead, I will be laying out specific ideas and proposals on how to increase
accountability in the for-profit sector.

Having a high-quality healthcare system in the United States is a moral imperative, an
economic necessity and a fundamental right for all. Underpinning this right is a healthcare
system that reflects the needs of the patients, providers and community.

Q. What are your views of the Affordable Care Act? What changes would you make, if any, to
the ACA, including the excise tax on high-cost plans and the provisions on shared responsibility
for employers?

HRC: Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more than 16 million Americans have gained new coverage.
The reduction in the uninsured rate across the country has been staggering, down to roughly
12% for adults.

These statistics translate into real change in people’s lives. Families who no longer have to face
the threat of bankruptcy because of catastrophic health care costs. Parents who now have health
care when only their children were covered before. Women can no longer be charged higher
rates solely because of their gender. People with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied
coverage. Americans can make the leap of changing jobs or starting a business without
worrying about whether they’ll still be able to buy insurance — because now they know they can
purchase it on the marketplace. So this is a real accomplishment we should be proud of

As with any piece of major legislation, it’s not perfect and would benefit from updates and fixes.
One area of the ACA that I am examining is the so-called “Cadillac” tax. As currently
structured, I worry that it may create an incentive to substantially lower the value of the benefits
package and shift more and more costs to consumers. As President, I would work to ensure that
our tax code appropriately advances the health care interests of lower-income and middle class
families.

We also need to take steps beyond the ACA. We should crack down on the drug companies that
charge too much and the insurance companies that offer too little. And we need to tackling
rising out-of-pocket health care costs for consumers across the board.

Q. Do you support initiatives designed to move health insurance coverage away from an
employer-based model? If so, what would you propose as an alternative to the current system for
covering working adults?

HRC: I’ve long believed that progress on health care is only possible if there is a principle of shared
responsibility among every major actor in our health care system. Employers have always
played a critical role in ensuring working families have access to coverage — in fact more than
96% of firms with 50 or more employees already offer health insurance.

Q. Many licensed healthcare professionals, particularly RNs, are leaving hospital service
because of difficult working conditions, including excessive and unsafe workloads, understaffing
and mandatory overtime. What would you do to address these problems and to improve
recruitment and retention of nurses and other healthcare professionals?

HRC: I know that we must address the nursing shortage in this country and give nurses the training,
education, and support they need to provide the care patients deserve. We need appropriate
nurse-to-patient ratios in order to improve patient care and working conditions for nurses.
I have a history of working for America’s nurses. As Senator, I was proud to champion
provisions in the Nurse Reinvestment Act that provided significant resources to recruit and train
nurses, and I introduced the Nursing Education and Quality of Health Care Act.

I believe it is important that all American employees are safe and protected where they work In
particular, I believe that we need to consider the effects of ergonomic hazards in order to quickly
and effectively address musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace. I know that this is a problem
for nurses, who often suffer from back-related injuries as a result of having to move and lift
patients.

Q. Merger and acquisition activity continues to consolidate the U.S. healthcare system into the
hands of a few corporations, many of which are for-profit. What would you do to ensure
competition in the healthcare industry is fair and protects the American consumer?

HRC: The federal government plays a critical role in evaluating and enforcing health care mergers to
ensure that they do not stymie competition, burdening consumers with fewer choices and higher
prices. Anti-competitive and costly market consolidation in health care or other markets should
not be permitted. While the Affordable Care Act created incentives for providers to better
coordinate care and pass those savings onto consumers, we need to make sure that acquisitions
and integration of health care stakeholders will ultimately lower cost growth and increase
quality of care. To that end, in addition to providing necessary guidance to health care providers
about appropriate and beneficial ways to better integrate their services, the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) should be funded and directed to be ever-vigilant in halting anti-competitive
health care arrangements through robust enforcement.

Q. What would you do to ensure that communities have access to public health services?

HRC: I believe we must take full advantage of the movement from volume to value purchasing of health
care to encourage much more of a focus on the value of prevention and the imperative of
population health. My record shows my dedication to this issue. As Senator, I led a bipartisan
coalition to fight for legislation to combat childhood obesity, helped pass legislation to provide
extra funding for flu vaccine and proposed legislation that would raise public awareness and
speed up production of the vaccine, and proposed legislation to combat diabetes, asthma and
HIV/AIDS. As the chairperson of the Superfund and Environmental Health Subcommittee of the
Environmental and Public Works Committee, I held the first-ever congressional hearing on
environmental justice, bringing much-needed attention to the fact that certain environmental
conditions cause health problems, which is often the case in low-income or underserved
communities. Following the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, providers are being more
appropriately rewarded on their success in ensuring wellness and good health and not on
unnecessary, wasteful, expensive and, all-too-frequently, dangerous health care interventions.
By focusing on prevention and the necessity of population health, we have a real opportunity to
finally make long-overdue inroads in the public’s health.

An administration’s economic policy has far-reaching implications for the United States
and the world. It also says a great deal about a president’s priorities and general
philosophy about the federal government’s responsibility to its citizens.

Q. What are your priorities for revitalizing the economy, strengthening the middle class,
creating jobs and ensuring fair taxation? How would your plan help restore funding for
education, healthcare, transportation, public safety and many other services provided to our
citizens?

HRC: I want to make being middle-class mean something again. I’m going to take on four big fights in
this campaign: (1) building an economy for tomorrow, instead of yesterday; (2) strengthening
our families and communities; (3) fixing our broken political system; (4) protecting our country
from threats.

I will lay out a number of new ideas over the course of the campaign, including helping small
businesses create jobs, making college more affordable, raising workers’ wages and reducing
cost pressures on families, balancing work and family, helping workers get the skills they need to
get ahead in a changing economy, and making sure all our kids have the chance to live up to
their God-given potential.

Q. The United States has a $3.2 trillion infrastructure deficit according to the American Society
of Civil Engineers—and that’s just for repairs. What are the mechanisms (e.g., public, private,
infrastructure bank) through which we can fund the rebuilding of this country, including the
necessary renovation and modernization of our public schools, hospitals and public buildings?

HRC: Ordinary Americans can’t afford failing to invest in our infrastructure. If we don’t repair our
roads and bridges, and upgrade our infrastructure for the 21st Century, it’s harder for
Americans to get to work, and for our businesses to grow and compete. It’s time for us to invest
in America. That means Congress must make the investments we need in our roads and
highways and that means leveraging investment by the private sector as well. I will be laying out
my own proposals on how to leverage both public and private sources of funding and creative
financing mechanisms to address America’s infrastructure needs.

Q. What would your administration do to build and strengthen retirement security for all
working men and women, including protecting employees’ pensions? What is your plan for
sustaining and strengthening Social Security and Medicare?

HRC: Let me start by saying I’ve fought to defend Social Security for years, including when the Bush
Administration tried to privatize it. We need to keep defending it from attacks and enhance it to
meet new realities. I’m especially focused on the fact that we need to improve how Social
Security works for women. I also want to enhance benefits for our most vulnerable seniors. We
need to reject years of Republican myth-making that claims we cannot afford it and that the only
solution must therefore be to cut benefits.

I will continue to oppose Republican efforts that seek to privatize or gut Medicare.

We need a broader strategy to help Americans with their retirement security. I will have ideas
on that.

Q. What are your views on the privatization and contracting out of public services, including
school services and state and local government services?

HRC: I do not believe that we should be contracting, outsourcing, or privatizing work that is inherently
governmental in nature, including school services and state and local government services. In
the Senate, I helped secure a measure that became law that blocked the Bush administration
from downsizing the Federal Protective Service. I cosponsored legislation to protect city and
rural letter carriers from having their work contracted out by the U.S. Postal Service to private
firms and individuals. Lastly, I was an original cosponsor of the Honest Leadership and
Accountability in Contracting Act.

Labor unions give workers a collective voice in the workplace and are integral to the social
and economic health of our country. AFT members are interested in knowing your views
on the role of labor unions.

Q. Current federal laws and policies encourage and promote collective bargaining through the
National Labor Relations Act. What are your views on collective bargaining for the private and
public sectors? What is your view regarding agency fee and so-called right-to-work laws?

HRC: The right to organize is one of our most fundamental human rights. I believe that unions are
critical to a strong American middle class. Throughout my career, I have stood with all workers
as they exercise their right to organize and bargain collectively and was an original co-sponsor
of the Employee Free Choice Act. I’m talking to a lot of labor leaders and labor economists
about what the next president can do to support 21′ century organizing and collective
bargaining.

Q. As president, what would you do to: (a) prevent employers from intimidating and harassing
workers who support union representation, (b) ensure that workers are free to organize and
bargain in the workplace, and (c) protect the rights of American workers?

HRC: Throughout my career, I have stood with all workers as they exercise their right to organize and
bargain collectively and am an original co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. I actively
opposed anti-collective bargaining provisions contained in the Department of Defense’s
proposed National Security Personnel System and have voted in favor of collective bargaining
rights for TSA screeners. It is also vital that we modernize basic labor standards. Worker
protections and basic labor standards have failed to keep pace with changes over the past half
century. We need to raise wages and reduce poverty among working families, including raising
the minimum wage, eradicating wage theft, promoting collective bargaining, updating overtime
protections, ensuring that employers do not misclassify, true employees as “independent
contractors” to skirt their obligations, and leveling the playing field for women and people of
color.

Q. The federal government has direct responsibility for setting labor standards. There has been a
growing call for changes to those standards, including paid sick days, paid family leave and
higher minimum wages. What changes, if any, would you prioritize?

Experience shows that policies that are good for middle-class families are good for everyone—including businesses. These policies are pro-growth, and pro-family, and that’s a pretty good
twofer.

HRC: It is long past time for the U.S. to join every other nation in the developed world in having paid
leave, which is critical to ensuring that workers do not have to choose between caring for their
family and keeping a job. I’m not under any illusions that this will be easy. We had to fight for
years to pass the unpaid Family and Medical Leave Act, and the day my husband signed that law
was a day I’ll never forget. I look forward to talking about how we move forward on this.

I have fought to raise the minimum wage for many years, and I strongly support the fast food
workers and others who are out there asking for a living wage and a fair shot at success. A
higher minimum wage doesn’t just help those at the bottom of the pay scale, it has a ripple effect
across the economy and helps millions of American workers and middle class families. As we
work to raise the federal minimum wage, we should also support state and local efforts to go
above the federal floor where it makes sense to do so.

Q. More than 8 million public employees in 25 states currently have no OSHA protection or
entitlement to a safe and healthful workplace. Do you support universal OSHA coverage for all
public employees?

HRC: I believe it is important that American employees are safe and protected where they work In the
decades since OSHA has been enacted, we’ve made great strides in strengthening the safety of
work environments for our workers. But there are improvements that need to be made. In
particular, too few workers are protected by OSHA. That’s why in the Senate I was an original
cosponsor of the Protecting America’s Workers Act, which would extend OSHA protections to all
federal, state, and local public employees.

The AFT and our members are champions of fairness; democracy; economic opportunity;
and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their
families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through
community engagement. Our members are interested in knowing your views on the
following important community issues:

Q. What policies would your administration pursue to ensure that all people—regardless of who
they are, where they live or where they come from—are able to climb the ladder of opportunity
and participate fully in our economy and democracy?

HRC: Today, there are nearly 6 million young people in America who are out of school and out of
work The unemployment rate for this rising generation is double what it is for the rest of the
population. It wasn’t like that in 2000. Young people were getting jobs, they were climbing the
ladder of opportunity. Millions more of our young people are underemployed because the jobs
that are available just aren’t sufficient. They don’t offer the kind of income and growth potential
that should be more broadly accessible. For young people of color things are even harder. And
if you don’t have a college degree or didn’t graduate from high school, most doors just aren’t
open, no matter how hard you knock.

That is why education at all levels — from birth through higher education — is so important to
helping all people climb that ladder of opportunity. I have worked hard throughout my career to
make sure that every child gets a chance to develop his or her mental capacity by developing
their brain from the very earliest age, because if your vocabulary is so far behind by the time
you’re five years old, through no fault of your own but because the adults in your life are so
busy, so stressed or don’t know how you build brain cells, by talking and singing and reading to
babies, then you enter kindergarten having heard 30 million less words than a child from one of
our families. And that’s very hard to overcome. It’s not that when you’re 18 you’re not trying,
it’s when you’re five you were already left behind.

Q. In your opinion, what are the elements of comprehensive immigration reform? How would
your administration’s stance on immigration reform fight back against inequality, promote
economic justice and increase wages for all workers?

HRC: I support comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) and a path to citizenship not just because it’s
the right thing to do, but because it strengthens families, strengthens our economy, and
strengthens our country. I was a strong supporter of CIR as a Senator, cosponsoring Senator
Ted Kennedy’s 2004 bill and supporting the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in 2006
and 2007. In 2003, 2005 and 2007, I cosponsored the Dream Act in the Senate. I also support
President Obama’s DACA/DAPA executive actions. And if Congress continues to refuse to act,
as President I would do everything possible under the law to go even further.

Q. What are your views on campaign finance reform? Do you support a constitutional
amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision?

HRC: We have to reduce the influence of big money in politics. As I said recently, I support a
constitutional amendment to get unaccountable money out of politics.

Q. What would your administration do to ensure that voting in elections is free, fair and
available to all Americans? Do you oppose policies that restrict access to voting and voter
registration?

HRC: As I said recently, the assault on voting rights threatens to block millions of Americans from fully
participating in our democracy. We need to fix the holes opened up by the Supreme Court’s
ruling. Congress should pass legislation to replace those portions of the act that the Court struck
down, and as President I would work to ensure that all citizens have the information and access
they need to fully participate in our democracy.
Conclusion

Q. What do you think this nation’s priorities should be during the next decade? How would your
presidency advance those priorities?

HRC: I am committed to being a champion for everyday Americans and American families. That’s
what I’ve been devoted to my entire adult life, starting with my first job out of law school when I
went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund, all the way through to the work that I did as
Secretary of State promoting women’s rights, promoting the rights of people who would
otherwise be marginalized or left on the sidelines. And I know that although we have begun to
move forward again, it is still hard to imagine exactly how we’re going to get to the point where
people are not just getting by but getting ahead again and staying ahead. Because the deck is
still stacked in favor of those at the top.

We have to be focused on how we’re going to bring about the changes that will ignite
opportunity for everybody willing to work hard for it again. We have to build an economy that’s
innovative, sustainable, and producing good jobs with rising wages. We need to actually reward
workers with increases in their paychecks for the increases in productivity and profitability.

It’s also imperative that we give people the tools through education and job training, so that they
can make the most out of their own lives. And for me that starts at the very beginning. I have
been a child advocate and a child development proponent for my entire adult life, because it’s
what I really care about and believe in. Then we have to make sure that we are doing all we can
to empower our educators, to make sure that they have the support of parents so that they can do
the job they have been trained to do to help prepare our kids. And then we’ve got to make sure
that college is affordable.

One of the biggest stresses in anybody’s life is healthcare. I’m going to support and defend the
Affordable Care Act, and I will work to fix those parts of it that need fixing. But, we have made a
great step forward as a nation to provide a mechanism for people to get access to healthcare,
some for the first time.

We also have to address the unaccountable dark money in politics. I think the Supreme Court
made a grave error with its Citizens United decision. And I will do everything I can do to
appoint Supreme Court Justices who will protect the right to vote and not the right of billionaires
to buy elections.

Finally, we have challenges around the world. But we have to be confident and strong in
understanding that there are many ways to approach the problems that America will be
confronting in the world, and we must do so in cooperation with our friends, our allies, our
fellow democracies around the world. I am convinced that the 21st century can once again be a
century in which the United States leads and helps to set the values and standards.

– See more at: http://www.aft.org/election2016/candidate-questionnaire-hillary-rodham-clinton#sthash.vHjkBIqu.dpuf