EdCircuit StaffTable of Contents
For quite some time now, Election 2016 has taken a dark and lewd turn. Whether it be the aggressive sexualization of women or nasty political rhetoric, media coverage is eating it up and ignoring candidates stances on critical issues that voters need to hear. Education is especially quiet during this election cycle, amongst other issues, both in the media and even in classrooms. Where normally young students are rightfully exposed to civics, the debates are perhaps too inappropriate for young and impressionable minds.
One way to discuss the 2016 Election with students is to keep personal opinions aside and draw attention back to the core issues. Allow open and judgment-free discussion to help students create their own opinions. Make the classroom a safe place, where facts are discussed, and questions are answered.
Introduction | Meghan Keates
BallotPedia provided an overview of candidate’s positions on education, including the Libertarian and Green candidates:
How are you discussing Election 2016 in your classroom?
At a Glance:
- More than half of Americans said that they were disgusted by the Presidential race
- BallotPedia provides a glance at all Presidential candidate positions on education
- There are sharp differences between Clinton and Trump’s plans for the future of education
Around the Web:
2016 presidential candidates on education
https://ballotpedia.org/2016_presidential_candidates_on_education
BallotPedia
Education is one of the quieter issues of the 2016 presidential election. This contrasted greatly with the 2000 election when Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush visited more than 100 schools during the campaign to highlight his plan to expand the federal government’s role in education.
Just four years earlier, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and the 1996 Republican platform had called for abolishing the U.S. Department of Education. Ahead of the 2000 Republican convention, George W. Bush had this platform language removed. Indeed, Bush planned to expand the authority of the Department of Education and hold schools accountable for students’ performance.[1] This shift changed education as a political issue.
Back in 1988, 55 percent of voters who participated in a New York Times/CBS News poll said that Democrats were more likely to improve education compared with 23 percent who said Republicans. When the same poll was conducted in 2000, Democrats still had an edge, but Republicans had gained ground on the issue of improving education. Results showed that 45 percent said Democrats were more likely to improve education and 33 percent said Republicans. In 2015, the Pew Research Center asked which party could do a better job with education policy. This survey yielded results nearly identical to the poll taken in 2000: 46 percent said Democrats could do a better job and 34 percent said Republicans.[1][2]
In 2016, the presidential candidates still press for accountability for students’ performance and debate the federal government’s role in education, but the higher profile education issues are student loan reform and making college more affordable—even tuition-free—for some students.
See what the 2016 candidates and their respective party platforms have said about education below.
To read more visit BallotPedia
Nasty Campaign Rhetoric Puts Parents and Teachers in a Tough Spot
Ana Tintocalis | KPBS
Eighteen years ago, California voters approved the English in Public Schools initiative, Proposition 227, which required schools to teach all students in “English only” unless parents obtained a waiver for their child. The measure emerged at a time when some Californians felt uneasy about the number of immigrants coming into the state and concerned about how English learners — students who speak little or no English — were being taught.
Now the state Legislature is asking voters to repeal key provisions of Proposition 227 by approving Proposition 58, the Multilingual Education Act.
What you’re voting on
Proposition 58 would eliminate the English-only mandate. Instead, school districts could adopt any approach they see fit to teaching English learners, as long as they get community input and ensure that all students master the English language.
To read more visit KPBS
Sharp differences between Clinton and Trump on education
48 WAFF
WASHINGTON (AP) – A quality education for all students, especially young children, is something Hillary Clinton has been talking about for decades. It’s mostly new territory for Donald Trump, who more recently has been touting his education ideas beyond his oft-repeated criticism of Common Core.
The Republican presidential nominee added plans for education to his still relatively thin roster of policy proposals last month, unveiling an effort to spend $20 billion during his first year in office to help states expand school choice programs.
Trump wasn’t shy about his intentions, debuting his ideas at an inner-city charter school in Cleveland as part of a new outreach to minority voters. “There’s no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly,” Trump said at the school, blaming the Democratic Party for having “trapped millions of African-American and Hispanic youth in failing government schools.”
Trump said his approach would create “a massive education market” and produce better outcomes than the nation’s existing public education system. He also wants states to divert another $110 billion of their own education budgets to support school choice efforts, providing $12,000 to every elementary school student living in poverty to attend the school of their choice.
Clinton’s education plans, meanwhile, are firmly rooted in improving the country’s public schools. The Democratic nominee has called for new spending to add computer science programs and refurbish crumbling buildings. “I’ve been in schools in our country and inner cities and rural areas that I wouldn’t send any child to. I mean they are falling apart, there’s mold on the walls, there’re rodents – it is disgusting,” she said this month in Pennsylvania.
To read more visit 48 WAFF
