Ken Bernstein is a social studies teacher in the D.C. area who has received numerous awards for his dedicated service. He writes extensively and blogs regularly for The Daily Kos. He is a deeply thoughtful and intelligent person who is passionate about teaching and public service. In this post, he analyzes Hillary Clinton’s views on education and acknowledges that she is woefully out of touch. Although Chelsea Clinton attended public schools in Arkansas, she enrolled in Sidwell Friends when her father became president. That was a full decade before the advent of high-stakes testing introduced by No Child Left Behind. Thus, Clinton has no idea how testing has spun out of control and become the master of education, a giant tail wagging the dog.

Not only her remarks on testing ill-informed, but so are her remarks about Common Core. Clearly she has no idea why opposition to Common Core is bipartisan and why so many parents and teachers oppose it. It would not be hard to find out why, but her education advisors don’t seem to know or haven’t shared what they know. I wish I could sit down with her for half an hour, but I don’t know how to make that happen.

Most puzzling is her insistence that she would have her children or grandchildren take the tests. She must know that she is saying this on an interview on Long Island, where more than 50% of parents opted out. Did she think she would win hearts and minds by belittling the parents who refuse to subject their children to meaningless tests? They are meaningless for reasons I stated in a post a few days ago; they have no instructional value as teachers learn nothing about what children know and don’t know. All they get is a score and a ranking for each child. That is not diagnostic. What is the point of learning that your child “failed” to meet the standard, but no one knows why? Also, some savvy parents have been informed that the passing mark was set so high that 70% of the children are supposed to fail. What parent would find that acceptable?

Her affection for charters is as ill-informed as her affection for testing and accountability. How could she take the endorsement of the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions and at the same time praise non-union charters (more than 90% of charters are non-union)? The biggest funders of charters fund them because they are non-union. Will she, as president, continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the expansion of non-union charters? Someone should ask these questions.

Ken writes:

If by now you have grasped that I am not happy with this part of the interview with Newsday, you are correct. Were education the only issue on which I decided who to support for the Presidency, I might have real reservations — provided there was a candidate who showed a deeper understanding. In fact this cycle there is not, in either party, of ANY of those who were ever in the race.

Further, on almost all of the other issues important to me, Hillary Clinton’s experience, understanding of government and international issues, makes her far superior to anyone else who sought the Presidency this cycle.

I knew I would not be completely happy with her approach to education at the time I decided to support her….

I hope that when she becomes President, as I believe she will, Hillary Clinton will make sure that she includes the voices of teachers in (a) who she picks for Secretary of Education, (b) how her administration shapes it educational policy.

I know from others how good a listener Hillary Clinton can be.

I hope very much that she will apply that skill set and listen to different voices on education, because what I read in this interview with the editorial board was disappointing.