Secretary Clinton pledges to close 50% of US Schools

[philosslayer]

[TwilightGardener]

1. Welp...good luck with that.

[CorporatistNation]

31. Funny, I Put Up The SAME Thread Last Night And A Jury LOCKED IT.....

The Video Tells The Tale... So We can just let her get away with Bullshitting about key issues ... Making "policy" statements where she has not calculated the consequences.... Then when you point out that her policy is OUTRAGEOUS... That is mean and hurtful? That's why we need Bernie Sanders!

[CorporatistNation]

32. Total Number Public Schools in Nation 2012 is about 98,000

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84

Thus If half the schools are NOT above average and Hillary states "That she would close ANY schools that were NOT Above Average... " Then within the context of the math, Hillary would close Half the frigging schools in the country. She said it... It IS on the video.

She just did not know the context and consequences of her statement when she was making it i.e., BULLSHITTING THE AUDIENCE TO PERSUADE PEOPLE IN IOWA TO VOTE FOR HER... BTW, How many people were in the audience?

[reformist2]

42. Her attitude is disturbing. Why does she want to shut *any* schools down, and not help them???

[CorporatistNation]

47. From The Looks of the Coverage Hillary had about 200!

Camera people were being careful about their margins... No more than 2-250 TOPS...

How many did Bernie get the other day?? 1800!!!

[PowerToThePeople]

2. Good catch.

And over time, decay to one school that is average.

(Edit. I know this is just lobbed jokingly. I hope she does not truly mean what she said.)

[rock]

3. So you'd rather have bad schools than no schools

Or do I misunderstand?

[NorthCarolina]

5. No, for me I just want

every American to have access to a quality education regardless of their financial means or personal identity. That's why I support Bernie. "He touches our humanity" ~ Cornel West

[Kentonio]

25. I'd hope anyone would prefer bad schools to no schools.

It's the same dumb argument that the right use against government. "Hey, the government isn't working perfectly, lets destroy it and all fend for ourselves!".

[Ken Burch]

29. No...it's about making the bad schools better.

Nothing is ever improved just by closing schools. And you don't have to close schools(OR take away job security from all teachers...if a teacher is truly not teaching, they can be fired for cause) to make schools better.

All HRC's approach is achieving in Chicago is preventing thousands of kids, generally poor kids, from getting much of ANY education.

The "Looking for Superman" approach has been shown to be a complete failure.

[CorporatistNation]

48. Actually, Hillary's position would be To Privatize a Solid Half of the Public Schools...

That she would close... Can anyone say CHARTER?

[questionseverything]

54. exactly...she means privatize

my own kids neighborhood school is a "failing" school because of low test scores but

the only reason we are "failing" is the teach to the test crap and that we have lots of low income kids,plus all the non english speaking kids get shipped to us...hard to pass a test if you can't read the question

and yet my school is full of wonderful,caring teachers that look for creative,fun ways to actually teach and still pass the idiot tests

[EndElectoral]

39. Can the federal government close schools?

What would be the logistics of closing half the schools in the country? Would this mean larger classrooms in other schools? Would this set in motion an entire new charter school push? How many teachers would be laid off? How does one compare average? For example, a school may be showing improvement in a very poor area yet still be below average? Are Indian schools included? How do students from a closed school get to an acceptable one? Who picks up the costs? What would be the average commute times?

She makes these pronouncements without any reflection of the consequences. It is the argument Sanders and O'Malley were making about regime change during the debate. These are political platitudes w/o an examination of the how or consequences of doing such a thing.

[GeorgeGist]

4. Is she running for Mayor of Lake Wobegon?

where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

[still_one]

6. She did nothing of the sort. Nice distortion.

[philosslayer]

7. Good grief lighten up

Yes, she said it. Did she mean it? Of course not. I'm not "distorting" anything, just passing along a mildly humorous gaffe from the campaign trail.

[Renew Deal]

8. If "she didn't mean it"

Then you are distorting. You just admitted it.

[philosslayer]

9. Does the idea of "humor" totally bypass you?

She said it. It came out of her mouth. Chuckle and move on. sheeeeesh

[still_one]

17. I saw the OP where it said, "pledged and 50%", and took it literally, because those specific words

were not in the video.

"...this school district and these schools throughout Iowa are doing a better than average job.
Now I "wouldn't keep any school open that wasn't doing a better than average job"
If a school isn't doing a good job than that may not be good for the kids
but when you have a district that is doing a good job, it seems kind of counter productive to impose
financial burdens on it"

and you're right, I need to lighten up.

Sorry I was on a different wavelength

but, I will give you dollars to donuts, you are going to get responses that won't understand the humor

[oasis]

23. No link to back you up. We're supposed to swallow this?

[FarPoint]

27. We have Trump Trolls .....

I always keep that thought in mind.

[philosslayer]

35. A video isn't good enough?

[oasis]

41. No, not when it doesn't back up the OP. I'm sure you can dig up a link

from somewhere if you really tried.

[mikehiggins]

10. Oh, c'mon. I hold no truck with HRC but this is ridiculous.

Hopping on every syllable the comes past her lips just makes US look silly. She wasn't calling for schools to be closed, just to do a better job.

[FarPoint]

26. Exactly

This video clip is the cherry pick of the day clip. Typically seen on Faux Noise News.....we all know better. It's a Trump mentality that can not see this campaign propaganda.

[treestar]

30. I agree it's like every word she says

has to be studied for possible ways to interpret in some absurd way.

[peacebird]

11. Look at the faces of the people behind her... They exude enthusiasm, don't they?

[Vinca]

12. That's the problem in the general.

I don't see her getting people to the polls. It'll be like a midterm election and you know how they go.

[okasha]

13. They look like they're paying serious attention

to what she has to say. That's good.

[peacebird]

14. Body language 101 - interested & engaged people lean forward, disinterested slouch back in the chair

Their expressions are not engaged, they look totally bored.

[okasha]

16. See whatever you want to see.

Perhaps you're unaware that those kids actively campaigned to get Hillary to their school, which was threatened with closing despite its above-average performance.

Your canned responses are not meaningful.

[Motown_Johnny]

15. Bwahahaha! If you close the below average schools the average changes.

Then you need to close more below average schools. Then more and more until there is only one school left and it will be it's own average.



People honestly think she is brilliant? Unbelievable!

[Squinch]

53. Watch the link. She actually didn't say anything like what the OP says she said. But this is DU, so

we can all carry on with the threads that senselessly bash Democratic candidates.

[anigbrowl]

18. Averages do not work this way!

School A quality: 60%
School B quality: 60%
School C quality: 60%
School D quality: 20%

60+60+60+20=200

Average 200/4 = 50%.

Now, that's a little misleading because there are actually three kinds of mathematical mean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean) but most people take 'average' to refer to the arithmetic mean, as shown above. Of course you'd be better off to distinguish between the mean and median, but unfortunately most people's eyes glaze over as soon as it starts to sound like a statistics class. I can't blame any politician for some statistical vagueness at a town hall or voter rally, people don't come to those for math lesson.

[Motown_Johnny]

20. Then please explain what her policy is?

She wants to close below average schools. Presumably the average is based on the standardized tests and the schools that perform below the average would be closed.

What would she then do with those students? Do they no longer get to go to school? Do we overcrowd the above average schools with them?

Just WTF is she suggesting???

[anigbrowl]

21. No thanks, I was just pointing out a math fact to the OP

I don't know what Hillary's exact education policy is, and there is zero chance the federal government is going to intervene in individual school districts. What she said here doesn't make much sense but that's inevitable when things are dumbed down for a town hall audience.

Her website is a bit vague on the topic, and that might be deliberate, since the US seems to chase education fads the way some people engage in an endless search for the perfect diet. As a European standardized testing just seems like a normal part of education and I am somewhat perplexed at how controversial it is here in the US. I am sure she doesn't intend to abandon students but rather to see management changes at failing schools. I'm not going to try to extrapolate policy from a town hall remark though.

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/k-12-education/

[CorporatistNation]

49. IF You Actually Go To The Article Where This Video Comes From It States

http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/22/hillary-clinton-if-elected-president-ill-shut-down-50000-public-schools/


"According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, there were just over 98,000 public schools in the U.S. as of the 2011-2012 school year, the most recent year for which complete data are available. Under Hillary Clinton’s proposed education plan to shutter all average and below average schools, that would mean that nearly 50,000 schools would have to be shut down, assuming that the median and average national school performance were roughly equal.

Nearly two-thirds of those schools targeted by Clinton’s proposal–over 30,000–would be elementary schools.

Iowa has more than 500,000 students enrolled in public K-12 schools in the state, according to estimates by the National Education Association (NEA), a national teachers’ union. The NEA estimates that 35,000 teachers are employed by the Iowa public school system.

During her remarks, Clinton did not state which specific performance metrics she would use to determine whether a school was performing adequately, nor did she say where children who had been attending average or below-average schools shut down by her administration could go for their educational needs."

Hyperlinks are in the article for documentation.

Summary: As the saying goes, "Words Matter!" Hillary has a penchant for spouting off BS to an audience virtually any of which in her mind is too thick to figure out that she is Bullshitting. Did it here as well as in the debate the other night.

[Warren Stupidity]

37. Privatized charter schools.

The post Reagan Democrats are all about scrapping public infrastructure and replacing it with private enterprise parasite operations that extract tax revenue from us through their agents in the government.

[PowerToThePeople]

28. Without data

I would postulate that the distribution is more of a bell curve.

80
60 60
40 40
20.

You would indeed lose 50% of schools by closing below average ones.

[dsc]

34. without data I would postulate

isn't a legitimate method of deciding how many schools would close.

[Warren Stupidity]

38. how about "it would close a lot of schools"? nt.

[please_read]

19. Lol..

Thr crowd looks insanely bored.

[CoffeeCat]

22. Look at their expressions...

They look like they're listening to their dentist explain what's going to happen during their upcoming root canal.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

50. oh dear!

LOL!

[Hekate]

24. Thanks for the completely unfunny, distorted, and divisive post.

Good grief.

[dsc]

33. actually she didn't

even if you assume she meant average literally. If a data set is skewed left (a few very low scores the rest in a smallish band) then the average (mean) is lower than the median (the point at which half the schools are even or better and half are even or worse). To take a very simple data set to illustrate. 0,80,80,80,80. Average is 64. The 0 would be closed, the 80's would remain open. She would be closing 1/5 of schools.

[Warren Stupidity]

40. Over a data set of something like 100,000 schools, a lot, thousands, probably tens of thousands,

of schools would be closed.

[dsc]

45. I am not saying that isn't true

but the OP makes a very specific, checkable, claim. The OP is wrong, plain and simple.

[NCTraveler]

36. This is how fine the line is right now.

We are using small areas where a candidate possibly "misspeaks" for attacks on that person. Considering Clinton is up enormously, the writing on the wall is clear considering this is how small separation is.

Seeing Clinton this far ahead, Sanders firing and suspending campaign staff, and this is the direction of attack; folks, we have a winner.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

51. Not exactly

she's actually decreasing re polls today

[ViseGrip]

43. I saw this earlier and then saw it locked. Glad to see someone else put it up.

[ViseGrip]

44. PS. The 'alerters' must be babies to alert and get locked. Here she IS in HER OWN WORDS.

This is telling. As the corporations should love her too, will they all be replaced with Charter Schools for profit????

[Karmadillo]

46. At least we can take solace in the fact she's not telling the truth. She knows she wouldn't

and couldn't close every school that wasn't "doing an above average job." She probably just said it because she was caught up in the wild enthusiasm of the audience behind her. Feel the CHill!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

52. THe problem is most of the poor performing schools are probably in the inner cities

Many of the schools in Baltimore City are poor performing when compared with the leafy suburbs and counties of Maryland. I expect she would want to close them all. Where would the children go?

[valerief]

55. Every school must do a better than average job of what? How do you

determine average if they're all supposed to be better than average?

Of course, the obvious question is why not fix the schools instead of closing them?

[Historic NY]

56. "I wouldn't keep any school open that wasn’t doing a better-than-average job," she said.

"If a school's not doing a good job, then that may not be good for the kids."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/23/hillary-clinton-may-want-to-close-every-public-school-in-america-according-to-math/