Rating The Democratic Candidates Based On Their Education Policy

This post is to grade the Democratic Presidential candidates based on their education policies. Obviously,  Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, and Cory Booker get a  failing grade for their support of charter schools and their cozy relationship with education reform organizations..

Bernie Sanders:

Bernie is pro public education and wants to increase teacher pay and wants to fully fund our traditional public schools while putting a freeze on new charter schools.  Moreover, he wants existing charter schools to be held accountable as traditional public schools are.  Finally, he also wants the charter schools to have the same studnt demographics and percentage of high needs students as the neighborhood schools.

GRADE A

Elizabeth Warren:

Ms. Warren has similar education policies as Bernie Sanders, except she is somewhat vague about how she would implement her education policy which gives her wiggle room if she becomes President which is somewhat concerning.

GRADE B

Peter Buttigieg

Mr. Buttigieg's education policy is influenced by his husband who is a middle school teacher in a private school and wants to raise teacher pay and ban for profit charter schools.  Unlike Sanders and Warren he is silent on publicly funded charter schools and as Mayor he supported some state voucher programs but claims he is against vouchers now.

GRADE C

Amy Klobuchar

Amy Klobuchar's education policy wants to increase teacher pay but supports charter schools as long as they don't steal funding from traditional public schools.  She voted against a federal voucher system as a Senator.

GRADE  C-

Andrew Yang:

Andrew Yang's education policy is ill-defined but because of his autistic son, he is sensitive to Special Education and wants public schools to be fully funded.  He supports charter schools but has not spelled out his complete education policy.

GRADE D

Joe Biden:

Joe Biden has a long track record on education and as Obama's Vice President he supported the Obama administration on attacking teachers and supporting charter schools.  He also supported the teacher evaluation system that unfairly blamed teachers for student academic growth.that resulted in many teachers getting terminated nationwide. He gets support from education reform organizations. He is trying to distance himself from Obama on education but who can trust him?

GRADE F:

Cory Booker:

Cory Booker's education policy is ome of the worst as he is a strong charter school supporter and many of his donations comes from hedge funds and Wall Street.  He is the favorite of education reformers.  He would get my lowest grade with the exception of Michael Bloomberg.

GRADE F

Michael Bloomberg:

Michael Bloomberg's education policy resulted in over 150 schools to close in New York City,giving money to charter schools while under funding traditional public schools and despised the teacher union.  He once suggested at MIT that he supports doubling class size and reduce the teaching staff by half.  He was the darling of the education reform organizations.  Finally, he ignored parents and community leaders when it came to education issues.  See my posts Here.


GRADE F

Tom Steyer:

Tom Steyer's education policy is unknown, except he wants to give every student an equity opportunity but doesn't explain the specifics so he gets no grade.