Democratic Candidates Participate in The Strong Public Schools Presidential Forum

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Houston: Ten Democratic presidential candidates underwent the equivalent of an oral exam by teachers nearly ten thousand of them whose top concerns were supporting public schools, increasing pay, decreasing the number of standardized tests and getting Betsy DeVos out of the Department of Education.

The forum was the firsts of its kind by the National Education Association, the country’s biggest union.

“Teachers are on the front lines fighting for our kids,” said one of the candidates, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. “This is about teachers who are going to lead that fight. Let’s put a teacher in the White House.”

The NEA, with 2.7 million members, said it doesn’t plan to make an early endorsement in the crowded Democratic primary campaign. During the last presidential election, the union gave Hillary Clinton its support over Bernie Sanders in October 2015.

 “We are not here at this point in the campaign promoting a candidate, what we are doing is promoting our agenda,” said the union’s president, Lily Eskelsen Garcia.

The other candidates who spoke and answered questions included former Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee, former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Ohio Representative Tim Ryan.

Harris has aggressively sought support from the teachers. She was the first candidate to issue an education policy for kindergarten through high school.

Her plan has already received praise from Randi Weingarten, the president of the second-largest teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers.

Another Democratic candidate has followed suit by calling for higher pay. Warren has promised that her secretary of education would be a former public school teacher and on Friday several other candidates including Biden, who also supports bolstering pay, joined the call.

Harris promised that in her administration, “the person who is nominated will be someone who comes from public schools, and I also promise you that you will be at the table to help me make that decision.”