Hillary Clinton, the the presumptive Democratic nominee, laid out her education agenda for teachers at the National Education Association’s annual Representative Assembly on Tuesday. She focused on issues she’s been campaigning on, such as raising teacher pay, increasing teacher training, and improving the quality of education for students “no matter what zip code they live in.”
But she also touched on new issues she hasn’t discussed recently or at length, such as increasing pay for school support staff, the role of standardized testing, and the dangers of the GOP’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
Raising Pay Beyond Teachers
Clinton called for higher teacher pay, as she did during a speech for the New York State United Teachers in May, asserting that teachers shouldn’t need to get a second or third job to support their families. Research shows that teacher pay is fairly low compared to professions that require similar educational levels.
“We need to be serious about raising your pay,” Clinton said.
But she also emphasized the importance of increasing pay for school support staff, such as food service workers. Her attention to those workers comes as teachers unions and adjunct professors are working with the Fight for $15 campaign, which began as a campaign to increase wages for fast food workers and expanded to many other professions. Fast food workers joined Chicago teachers when they staged a one-day strike in April and last year, while the Service Employees International Union started a campaign on behalf of pay parity for adjunct professors called “Faculty Forward.”
Improving, Rather Than Rejecting, Standardized Testing
Clinton also called for “fighting the right balance” on standardized testing. There were widespread boos from NEA members in the audience when Lily Eskelsen García, president of the NEA, mentioned standardized tests, but Clinton advocated for improvement, not abandonment, of standardized testing. After the growth of the opt-out movement last year, a group of parents and teachers who support kids opting out of standardized tests, the subject has gained controversy.
Clinton took a moderate approach and acknowledged teachers who are worried that standardized testing prevents them from having the space to teach students important lessons outside of what they need to know for the tests. But she also made sure to note that she thinks standardized testing is vital to measuring student achievement and understanding school progress.
“Tests should go back to their original purpose — giving useful info to teachers and parents, so that you know and parents know how our schools are doing and how we can come together to help them improve. But when you’re forced to teach to a test our children miss out on some of the most valuable experiences they can gain in the classroom,” Clinton said.
According to a report from the Center for American Progress released in January, states and schools need to improve communication with parents and could cut down on the instructional time spent on standardized testing. (Disclosure: ThinkProgress is an editorially independent site housed at the Center for American Progress.)
Taking On Trump University
Clinton took a number of shots at rival Donald Trump during her speech. She focused her attacks on Trump University, the for-profit “university” that promised students would get rich off of Trump’s real estate advice, which claimed instruction would come from hand-picked experts. The teachers were not hand-picked, it turns out, the school was not accredited, and the staff were encouraged to use a prospective client’s fear of economic insecurity to convince him to buy seminars or CDs. The now defunct university has many ongoing lawsuits against it.
“If you want to know how Donald Trump approaches education, look at his so-called Trump University. It’s hard to believe, but they took advantage of vulnerable Americans and encouraged them to max out their credit cards, empty their retirement savings, and destroy their financial futures. It’s no wonder Donald Trump is being sued for fraud,” Clinton said.
Clinton then brought up what has been called the “Trump effect” — or an increase in bullying of marginalized groups Trump has targeted in his attacks, such as Muslims, immigrants, and children of immigrants. A Southern Poverty Law Center and Teaching Tolerance report released in April surveyed teachers and found that at least 1,000 comments of 5,000 comments from K-12 educators mentioned Trump’s campaign as one factor that may contribute to increased harassment and intimidation of those groups.
“A mother in Wisconsin wrote me and said her adopted son had turned to her and said, ‘If Trump becomes president, he is going to make me go back to Ethiopia.’ That is the kind of fear Donald Trump is creating in the heart of a 10-year-old American boy,” Clinton said. “What do kids take away from his racist attacks on a federal judge or when he encourages his supporters to punch protesters in the face and offers to pay their legal bills? We cannot tolerate that behavior in our classrooms.”
Clinton said she is also worried about Trump’s claims that he will — at the very least — significantly cut the Department of Education. The department is responsible for providing Pell grants and providing resources for disadvantaged students, Clinton pointed out. The department is also responsible for monitoring states that are breaking civil rights laws, providing data on educational achievement, and investigating universities for mishandling sexual assault cases.
“Donald Trump would leave out our most vulnerable students and let them fend for themselves,” she said.