JENNINGS: “I don’t think they’re cutting the money. They want to send the money directly to the states.”
O’LEARY: “That’s it.”
JENNINGS: “Respectfully, if this bureaucracy that is in place now at the federal and state level, no matter what state you’re talking about, we’re doing such a bang-up job, we wouldn’t have these terrible reading scores. We wouldn’t have these terrible math and science scores. Something is broken. And there’s one more issue that no one’s talking about, and that is the issue of truancy. We’ve got 30-plus percent truancy rates in some places. Not only can these kids not read, we cannot even find them. The bureaucracy has failed. Failed.”
Allison: “You know who had a program for that? Kamala Harris.”
SELLERS: “Exactly. I would not disagree with either of you all on the fact that we are not preparing our children well enough.”
O’LEARY: “But you want the state to [inaudible]?”
SELLERS: “Absolutely not. And let me tell you why. I want there to be oversight. I don’t necessarily want there to be a blow to bureaucracy, but I — what I do want is every — every child in this country to have an opportunity to succeed regardless, and — and let me just tell you the biggest problem we have in this country, because you said unions. I will push back on you and say that the greatest problem we have is the fact that children are punished in this country because of the zip code that they’re born into. And until you can find me some parity — “
O’LEARY: “Different issue.”
Allison: “No! It’s not, because the school — “
[Cross-talk]
JENNINGS: “You can solve it with school choice.”
PHILLIP: “Hang on a second, Kevin. I mean — “
SELLERS: “The problem is that every choice wouldn’t be there.”
PHILLIP: “I just want to adjust what Bakari is saying, okay? Let’s say that you get rid of the bureaucracy at the Department of Education. How do you ensure that kids are actually being educated and that they’re not just being moved out — “
O’LEARY: “You think at the state level — “
PHILLIP: “No, no.”
O’LEARY: “ — they hate kids — they hate children?”
PHILLIP: “No, no, that they’re not just being — “
Allison: “You think at the federal level they hate kids?”
PHILLIP: “ — that they’re not just being moved out of the public school system because it’s easier to move them out than to educate them?”
O’LEARY: “The one thing about education you can’t deny is the reading and math scores. Unfortunately, that is the metric by which we test.”
PHILLIP: “But do you understand my question?”
O’LEARY: “No. I get it. It’s not dealing with the issue.”
PHILLIP: “But if you take the lowest-performing kids and you just take them out of the system, guess what those reading and math scores are going to do? They’re going to go up. So, how do you prevent school failure?”
O’LEARY: “For them to go up, you need great teachers.”
Allison: “Well, I think there’s also a concept of teaching to the test, which actually doesn’t create critical thinking skills to prepare people to go out and be thriving adults. You can actually have a student go through college and or go through high school or go through, grade school — “
O’LEARY: “I hate to tell you this — “
Allison: “Let me finish. Let me finish. Thank you. And just be taught to the test. And so you literally — you know why I know? Because I had an experience. I will never forget. I was a teacher. I will never forget. We were going to take our regions, and I we were really wanting to make sure our scores, so we were we were teaching to the test. The same night, I went home and watched the episode on ‘The Wire’ and they talked the exact same thing, because they were teaching to the test. We were not preparing my students and I was — “
O’LEARY: “What percentage of your colleagues, when you were a teacher, you know sucked? How many?”
Allison: “I think that — I come from a family of educators. My grandmother is an educator. My aunt was a superintendent. My sister is a teacher. I think teaching is one of the hardest professions.”
O’LEARY: “I agree.”
Allison: “And I think when you wake up every day and you say, ‘I am going to take care of other people’s children and try and advance them...’ — “
O’LEARY: “You’re not answering my question.”
SELLERS: “I will tell you this — “
Allison: “I don’t think — I don’t think every teach — no, no, because I think that it is so easy.”
O’LEARY: “They’re all just great.”
Allison: “I think it is so easy for people to be so disrespectful to teachers. It is a hard profession.”
O’LEARY: “You’re not answering the question.”
Allison: “In every single profession, there are people who are good and there are people who could be better.”
O’LEARY: “Out of 10, how many sucked? How many out of 10?”
PHILLIP: “All right, let me ask a question — “
Allison: “One, maybe.”