By Anthony Cody.
A couple of weeks ago, Anderson Cooper asked Hillary Clinton a challenging question. Here is what he asked, followed by her answer:
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, you’ve been endorsed by two of the biggest teachers’ unions. There’s an awful lot of great teachers in this country. It’s an incredibly difficult job, one of the most difficult jobs there is but union rules often make it impossible fire bad teachers and that means disadvantaged kids are sometimes taught by the least qualified. Do you think unions protect bad teachers?
CLINTON: You know, I am proud to have been endorsed by the AFT and the NEA, and I’ve had very good relationship with both unions, with their leadership. And we’ve really candid conversations because we are going to have to take a look at — what do we need in the 21st century to really involve families, to help kids who have more problems than just academic problems?
A lot of what has happened and honestly it really pains me, a lot of people have blaming and scape-goating teachers because they don’t want to put the money into the schools system that deserve the support that comes from the government doing it’s job.
COOPER: So just to follow up, you don’t believe unions protect bad teachers?
CLINTON: You know what – I have told my friends at the top of both unions, we’ve got take a look at this because it is one of the most common criticisms. We need to eliminate the criticism.
You know, teachers do so much good, they are often working under most difficult circumstances. So anything that could be changed, I want them to look at it. I will be a good partner to make sure that whatever I can do as president, I will do to support the teachers of our country.
As I pointed out at the time, we need to know precisely how she would “eliminate the criticism.” We do not have a crystal ball to foretell how she will go about this, and I am not sure anyone will have the prescience to ask her for a clear answer. But I have been thinking lately about the Clinton’s record, and there is an eerie way that this “eliminate the criticism” phrase resonates with previous policy choices that the Clintons have made.
Remember what the major criticisms of Democrats were prior to Bill Clinton’s presidency? Ronald Reagan pilloried Democrats for being soft on crime and generous with welfare handouts. Clinton attacked these two issues, in order to “eliminate the criticism.” He supported tough crime legislation that expanded the death penalty and encouraged states to lengthen prison sentences. Hillary Clinton actively lobbied for this legislation, saying:
We need more police, we need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders. The three strikes and you’re out for violent offenders has to be part of the plan. We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets.
There was a similar project to “eliminate the criticism” that Democrats were responsible for generous welfare benefits. As a result of the “welfare reform” championed by the Clintons, welfare was given a five year lifetime limit, and work requirements were imposed. This has had a significant effect on levels of childhood poverty. According to this article in The Nation, “Whereas welfare benefits lifted 2 million children out of extreme poverty prior to 1996, this was true for only 629,000 children in 2010.”
Democrats have also been accused of being soft on terrorism and reluctant to flex the United States’ considerable military muscle around the world. Here again, Hillary Clinton has done what she could to “eliminate the criticism,” as evidenced by this speech last fall. Salon reported:
She vowed that in dealing with Iran, she will be tougher and more aggressive than Reagan was with the Soviet Union: “You remember President Reagan’s line about the Soviets: Trust but verify? My approach will be distrust and verify.”
Thus the basic outline is clear. One eliminates a criticism by essentially adopting the policy solution that the criticism demands.
So how might Hillary Clinton “eliminate the criticism” that teacher unions protect bad teachers? I think this is a question that must be answered.
lauren
she needs to address the criticism by simply pointing out that due process is all that teachers have. she needs to talk about who’s scapegoating teachers rather than poverty, and why.
Sarah
We’re you by chance teaching in South Central Los Angeles in the 80’s? Do you know about the crack wars? first hand? Do you put that context into these writings because I do know why three strikes went into place. I do know the rate of murder and mayhem around 93rd street school, on the block with the highest muder rate for fifteen years. See la times for that data. I’m not saying that made tough crime laws a great idea, I’m saying within the context of the times that flowed from raging gang crime. Kids were dealing in my class of fourth graders at high risk of death. Parents when I met any and I rarely did said the police came an hour after a call most likely to avoid being shot. The laws obviously jailed the leaders of these crime groups. Not to appear to know much. I was a deer in headlines seeing it and I was there. I thought the Clinton’s were wrong on welfare cowing to a Republican congress that tied things in knots and I hold the voters responsible for that congress, but they were far better to be living under as a teacher than what was before or after.
I took her comment so differently. I think you project too much. I took her to be saying that with more information, better understanding of teaching we could eliminate jumping to the bad teacher scenario.. Educate folks as to how this works to ask better questions and design a different form of talking as it was really about Anderson’s lack of preparation and knowledge on public education, which led to logical fallacy within that question.. I felt Clinton was addressing that. But you want to see this as ominous and you want tone flaming.
Bernie sanders will not be prepared and ready on education. He will enter with ideas and we will see if he solves the deep underlying issues that create notions of bad teachers, poverty schools, different class systems, and so on.. So far his voting record reads glowing praise on Arne Duncan during his nomination and yes on the authorization of Every Kid a Winner. His rhetoric is sure don’t teach to tests and preschool and college. That’s not as direct as Trump’s getting rid of Common Core in some way..It sounds basically like you think those few words from Clinton are a holy grail to be deciphered.
Too much interpretation..
Why not ask her for an interview or get to her people as you did with Gates, do the same with sanders and trump.. Ask better questions. Ask her what that meant. You have national presence. Get her to talk to it all..
Anthony Cody
Sarah,
If Clinton wanted to contradict the flaw in Cooper’s premise, she had the chance to do so. She did not. In saying that we need to “eliminate the criticism,” in my opinion, she accepted the premise, and indicated that we need to do something — we know not what, to quiet the critics.
I never did get an interview with Gates. I challenged him relentlessly, in much the same way that I am challenging Hillary Clinton, and someone at the Gates Foundation reached out to me.
Hillary Clinton could clarify this, and I would be happy to find that my concerns in this regard are unfounded. But we discovered with President Obama that we need to look very closely at the policy directions candidates suggest. I am not willing to give her much benefit of the doubt, given the track record she and her husband have left behind.
rbeckley58
Something to chew on.
Billy Hileman
Well, for one thing, Hillary could just say it. TEACHER UNIONS DO NOT PROTECT BAD TEACHERS. Teacher unions protect educators’ due process rights. It is one of the most important responsibilities of unions — to protect against arbitrary and capricious actions against teachers. Teaching is one of the most difficult and stressful jobs. The demands on teachers are growing while the propaganda against their unions intensifies. Teacher unions have an obligation to hold the employer accountable, i.e., to abide by the rules they have established for teacher evaluation and to treat teachers with dignity. There is a lot more violation of that going on, than there are bad teachers. Every employee on the planet should have a right to speak before disciplinary or performance action is taken. The decisions should be based on evidence — not subjective favoritism or making room for someone else the boss wants to hire at a lower rate. Say it, Hillary and Bernie: Teacher unions don’t protect bad teachers. And by the way, we don’t want to. We want the best for our students, in part because we want a world where those students, when they are in the workforce, will be treated fairly.
Susan Lee Schwartz
I was a successful and celebrated NYC teacher after a career spanning 4 decades. In my last tenure, I was chosen as the NYC cohort for the REAL New Standards research from Harvard (funds by Pew in a national project on LEARNING, not teaching). MY work was studied for 2 years, and at the end of that time, I was one of 6 teachers nationwide whose PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE met all the PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING. My work toured the nation, and was studied by staff developers at the LRDC seminars.
The union utterly failed to support me as the threw false allegations at me , one after the other, ending up charging me with incompetence, eve as NYSEC (New York State English Council) awarded me the EDUCATOR OF EXCELLENCE AWARD.
It is a vast conspiracy to move the professionals from the institutions. If they did this in a a hospital, it ,too, would fail.
I wrote this in 2004
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
rbeckley58
Tackling the issue of weak teachers requires a multi-pronged approach.
1. Set high standards to enter or exit teaching programs. Oregon, for example, requires a 3.25 GPA to apply, while Texas only a 2.5.
2. Foster mentoring. Our district-wide “curriculum committees” worked together on a new teaching goal each year. It immediately became clear who was weak, so they either quit on their own or improved through team support.
3. Train administrators. Good teachers get targeted for bringing up issues weak administrators don’t want to deal with – guns, gangs, etc. Meanwhile, weak administrators ignore the weak teachers because principals and VP’s aren’t competent to conduct professional evaluations. No joke, we’d do a bang-up job at my school and all we saw on our evaluations were comments like “dresses professionally” or “keeps students under control”. But I’ve also seen weak teachers fired with union cooperation if the administrator took the time to document problems and counsel the teacher – which is their job. Yet many administrators have little or no classroom experience, which means they don’t know how to support instruction.
Maybe the reason “VAM” was instituted was, once again, to come up with an easy, one-size-fits-all solution. But there is no such thing. Let’s not throw out good teachers or shut down public schools just to get at a few bad apples. Also, human nature being what it is, I bet charter schools have just as many personnel problems.
Susan Lee Schwartz
Now That is a great question. Considering that Podesta is her campaign manager, and that charter schools are his meat and potatoes,and they thrive when teachers are demonized and removed from schools so the school will fail… I don’t have much hope that Hillary will oversee anything but th end of public education, and the demise of the teaching profession.
Susan Lee Schwartz
Here is a good teacher, and her testimony for the documentary Lawless. Here is the reality of the WAR ON TEACHERS.
Producer Bill Windsor of Lawless America: “Cold Interview” of Lorna Stremcha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGMBKF2UMq4&feature=em-share_video_user
DON’T MISS IT, or her book which nails the tragedy for the teachers, not just for the schools.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/background-information-bravery-bullies-blowhards-lorna-stremcha
It made me cry, because I experienced so much of the same attitude but not this extreme, because I was a famous NYC teacher. http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html