Race to represent NY in US
Senate coming down to wire
Where
do the candidates stand on education?
Hillary Rodham Clinton:“We have no more important obligation as a community than to provide the best possible conditions in our schools, so that teachers can teach and our children can learn.”
• Vouchers: “I know there are some who believe that vouchers are the way to improve our public schools; I believe they are wrong. We’ve been experimenting with vouchers in some jurisdictions. And from these experiments, we’ve found no evidence that any objective analysis could prove that these have made any difference in student achievement.
“But what they have done is divert the much-needed public funds for (the sake of) the few, and weakened the entire system.”
• Quality: “I have taken positions on behalf of improved accountability and higher standards. In order to achieve our hope that every child can learn, we have to be ready to provide the resources and the support to enable educators to help those students reach those high expectations. We need extended learning time and smaller class sizes.
• Teachers: “There isn’t a more important element than the quality of a child’s teacher. There is no way that we’re going to get and keep those of you in the teaching profession to carry on the tradition of public education, unless you receive the salaries that your important work deserves. We’ve got to make sure teachers have the resources they need.”
• Federal funding: “If we sound the retreat on education in America, we deny the opportunity of pre-school and Head Start to hundreds of thousands of children; we deny tens of thousands of elementary school students the resources they need to improve their reading and math skills; and we deny the opportunity for college to millions by shrinking the availability of loans, making them less flexible and raising interest payments and tuition beyond the reach of many working families.
“I think we should be extending a helping hand, not holding out a stop sign to the children of working families who want to better themselves and build a better future for our country.
Rick Lazio:“I attended public schools. My daughters, Molly and Kelsey, are enrolled in our local public school.
“I know first-hand that every child in America deserves the best education possible, and it is my daughters who drive me to find ways to make our schools and our teachers even better.
“We are sending money directly to our classrooms, buying more computers, ensuring teachers and children feel safe in schools, giving parents more control over school choice, empowering teachers to improve their credentials and making college more affordable.
• Teachers: “In July, the House of Representatives passed the Teacher Empowerment Act (TEA), which is designed to improve teacher quality and reduce class size by providing teachers individual choice in selecting training and by supporting initiatives to keep the best teachers in the classroom.
“TEA provides $2 billion over five years from existing programs for teacher training initiatives and class size reduction. And 92 percent of this money goes directly to the local level. TEA puts more control over public education in the hands of teachers, parents and local school districts.”
Based on his own bill — Empowering Our Educators Act or H.R. 1964 — Lazio proposed an amendment to enhance the Teacher Empowerment Act.
The Lazio Amendment focuses on assuring that quality teachers are in the classrooms by addressing the high turnover rate among beginning teachers.
It calls for state funding of mentoring programs to help all teachers, during their first three years of teaching, with professional advice and support from veteran teachers.
The amendment requires that teachers mentor others in their same field of expertise and that activities are consistent with state standards.
The Lazio amendment makes it easier for professionals to adopt teaching as a second career. It gives states incentives and maximum flexibility to create alternative teacher certification and licensure programs.
The bill passed the House on July 20, 1999. The Lazio Amendment was included in final passage, and the Senate is expected to take up this legislation this year.