Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Scott Brown’s Misguided Response to Mike Capuano’s MTA Endorsement

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As our next U.S. Senator, Mike Capuano will fight to:

1) Provide more funding for our schools

2) Roll back the failed policies of No Child Left Behind

3) Allocate adequate funding to higher education grant programs to increase opportunities for students to attend college

MTA endorsed Mike because he gets it. He was one of the only members of Congress to stand against the No Child Left Behind Act. He has seen the burden that falls on municipalities when school systems are underfunded from his time as Mayor of Somerville. He knew that No Child Left Behind would not deliver on its promise.

Scott Brown should take a closer look at Massachusetts educational system to see what No Child Left Behind and eight years of a Republican administration has really meant for our schools.

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Comments

  1. or his position on anything for that matter.  He doesn’t have an Issues tab on his website.  

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    p>Great, so now we have his 3 sentences that read like they were a cut/paste job from a GOP handbook.  

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    p>Does Brown want to post or quote his accomplishments on Education?

  2. Chalk that up as one more reason I’ll be voting for Capuano.

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    p>I’m happy to see he was one of the Congressmen with enough foresight to vote against No Child Left Behind.

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    p>Not only is NCLB tremendously underfunded, it’s a failed, misguided program. NCLB shoots for accountability and universal standards, but completely misses the mark. Instead we end up with a system that obsessively relies on standardized testing as a benchmark for learning. Schools are forced to teach to the test or lose their funding. Focus is moved from analytical and comprehension skills to rote memorization of facts. The program reduces education to a game of Trivial Pursuit. It’s shortchanging our schools and our students.

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    p>Capuano’s record on education is by far the strongest of the candidate’s, and he’s proven he’s willing to stand up for progressive policy despite the scale of opposition. He certainly has my vote.

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    p>

    • NCLB was based on the so-called “Texas Miracle” that didn’t actually exist and was actually FRAUDulent.

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      p>How many ways we were snookered by the Bushies. I myself am leaning very heavily Capuano, and stuff like standing up against NCLB is why.

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      p>I don’t know if Coakley or anyone else will stand up for the progressive principles they say they want to espouse; I believe they espouse them for the most part (except that Celtics guy, of him I am skeptical), but how will they FIGHT?

  3. did Scott Brown just blame the failures of our education system solely on the teachers?

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    p>

    “I support and respect teachers, but I think our next U.S. senator has to be in favor of high standards, choice and accountability in public education. That means testing, charter schools and reforms that make it easier to weed out bad teachers and reward the good ones. That is my education platform and I pledge that as the next U.S. senator from Massachusetts I will put the interests of kids first.”

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    p>While every piece is needed to complete a puzzle, teachers work with what they have, and in order to do good work they need adequate funding. I cannot think of a group who may know more about educating our children than the MTA. It may make some people uneasy that they are a union, but their main goal is to further the education and development of young people in Massachusetts. We have to supply them with what they need to get the job done.  

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    p>Mike Capuano is the only candidate in this race who has dealt with education policy on both the municipal and federal levels. He has worked extensively, first as the Mayor of Somerville and then for the past eleven years as a Congressman in Washington, to improve the quality of education for our children. He knows what the smaller communities need from their government in order to succeed, but also understands the needs of our country as a whole.

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    p>I am confident that he will not pander to the needs of this union, but instead will work with them to find out their wants and needs and translate that into effective legislation.
     

    • They like to suggest that teachers are perfectly happy with the status quo and are only in it for themselves.  Anybody who is in it for themselves learns quickly that teaching won’t make you rich.

    • I support and respect teachers, but I think our next U.S. senator has to be in favor of high standards, choice and accountability in public education.

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      p>Translation:  I like teachers, but they aren’t on the right side of the issues.  I favor high standards, but teachers favor low standards.  I favor choice, but teachers don’t.  I favor accountability, but teachers are an unprofessional bunch who don’t want to be accountable for what they do.

      <

      p>

      That means testing, charter schools and reforms that make it easier to weed out bad teachers and reward the good ones.

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      p>Translation:  Teachers hate testing kids and they hate innovation.  Also, they hate reforms to make it easier to dump them.  They’re just a lazy bunch of hacks.

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      p>

      That is my education platform and I pledge that as the next U.S. senator from Massachusetts I will put the interests of kids first.

      <

      p>Translation:  My education platform is to pander to those who favor privatizing public education and to shit on public school teachers.  Oh, and I think that puts kids first.

      <

      p>Scott Brown is a loon.

  4. “Roll back the failed policies of No Child Left Behind,” do you mean the whole thing, or just certain aspects?  If so, which ones?  

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    p>Many of them Kennedy supported and in fact insisted on: the notion of testing, of holding schools accountable for disaggregated results, etc.  

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    p>Kennedy’s biggest lament was that Bush only increased Title One and special education spending by 50% over Clinton.  

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    p>Kennedy had expected more, evidently, as part of providing his support.  

    • Ted Kennedy originally co-authored it, but he certainly did not “author” the parts that the Bush administration threw in there that essentially made it an unfunded mandate — not giving states enough money to cover the burdens federal government once against placed on them. Plus, just because he agreed to compromises in the original bill, that doesn’t make them things he actually supported — so you can’t make it seem like the parts of the bill that fits in with your agenda make him some champion of your agenda. That’s just BS.

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      p>You’re really just rewriting history in your attempt to make it seem like this was a big Kennedy victory, what the Bush admin did to that bill was clearly one of the things Kennedy regretted, as he had basically said so many times himself. If he had known what Bush would do, he never would have made those compromises (which you probably love) to begin with. Sheesh.  

      • Rye, I disagree.  

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        p>Kennedy thought exactly what I attributed to him…because my source are simply his own 2008 writing.  

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        p>He thought results of NCLB were mixed.  He LIKED the key idea of requiring states to test, and his biggest concern was $.

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        p>In the 2008 Washington Post:

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        p>

        On the plus side, the law demands that all children must benefit — black or white, immigrant or native-born, rich or poor, disabled or not. Before its enactment, only a handful of states monitored the achievement of every group of students in their schools. Today, all 50 states must do that. Across the country, schools are poring over student data to identify weaknesses in instruction and to improve teaching and learning….

        Most of all, the law fails to supply the essential resources that schools desperately need to improve their performance.

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        p>What more Kennedy endorsement do you want him lauding that “all 50 states” MUST test kids – the essence of NCLB?  

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        p>And how am I in any way off target when I write money was “his biggest” lament where Kennedy says “most of all”?  

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        p>*

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        p>Sure he wanted tweaks to testing and reporting.  

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        p>But Ted Kennedy broke with several Democratic interest groups that DID NOT WANT required testing for all 50 states.

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        p>Moreover, George Miller, the House chair of education, sees things the same way.

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        p>Expect to see NCLB reauthorized next year with some changes – but with the basic notion of required testing and required state action on failing schools intact and possibly expanded.  

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