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Federal Elections 2008

Federal Elections 2008  

What do the candidates say about Teacher Compensation?

The Federal Elections Commission will not let us use our open, public web page to announce federal election recommendations. That's why this page about the Presidential race and any Congressional races require member-only login.

Open federal seats this year in Delaware include:
U.S. President
U.S. Senator (Biden's current seat)
U.S. House of Representative's (Mike Castle's current seat)

Keep an eye here for information on how you can participate in the DSEA recommendation process and in candidate races.

Members volunteer for Biden in Iowa

DSEA's leadership team, plus Executive Board member Tom Chapman of Seaford and DSEA Executive Director Howard Weinberg all went out to Iowa to help the Biden campaign. We are disappointed that our recommended candidate is no longer in the race and proud of what he stands for and the messages he delivered during his campaign. By the way, he is up for re-election this year for his Senate seat.

Oct 15, 2007.... DSEA Executive Board recommends Joe Biden for President

Mary Jo Faust and Mike Hoffmann stump for Biden in Iowa.At its October 15 meeting the DSEA Executive Board voted unanimously to recommend U.S. Senator Joe Biden for President. Citing his stellar voting record (consistantly over 90%) , his positions on education issues; his opposition to the core issues in the No Child Left Behind Act that we oppose, and his acessibility and responsiveness to DSEA and its members, the Board gave the nod to Delaware's Favorite Son.

As several board members repeated, "Joe has always been a friend to us. It's time we were a friend to him."
The Biden campaign issued a press release two days later, clearly happy with the endorsement. The Biden Campaign is making a realistic push to encourage voters to vote for the people they favor, not the people they think will win.
"We hope we can add to his credibility as a viable candidate who will act in the best interest of public education, our students and the people who make our public schools great," adds DSEA President Barbara Grogg.
If people would look at his specific plans and ideas, as opposed to his polling numbers, Biden believes he can break through.

Diane Donohue and Barbara Grogg stump in Iowa with Joe Biden's wife, Jill. In November, President Grogg and Vice President Diane Donohue spent a week stumping for Biden in Iowa. They are pictured here (from left, Donohue, Biden, Grogg).
Then in December, the other half of the DSEA Leadership Team shown in the photo above, spent a long weekend doing the same: Mary Jo Faust, NEA Director (a teacher in Capital), and Mike Hoffmann, DSEA treasurer (a paraeducator in Colonial).
Biden points to his plan to bring peace to Iraq through a federalism approach to dividing and governing that country; a plan that was given a thumbs up in the U.S. Senate recently by both Democrats and Republicans. Biden not only understands that major changes need to be made to NCLB, he has a plan to bring saneness to the federal government's role in improving public education.

He believes that the federal government should amend the No Child Left Behind Act to allow schools greater flexibility in evaluating students, and that the federal government should fully fund its mandates. At present, NCLB is underfunded by $72 million.

He also believes that we should move from a 12-year to a 16-year education system, with two years of pre-school and at least two years of post-secondary education. Class size is also part of his education platform.

He is just one of four co-sponsors of a bill (S.2122) to amend Title V of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to reduce class size in grades K-3 to an average of 18, by hiring and training an addition 100,000 highly qualified teachers. The prime sponsor is Sen. Patty Murray (WA). The other co-sponsors are Senators Barak Obama (IL) and Bernard Sanders (VT). The current House version of the NCLB reauthorization omits class size considerations.

Check out the details of his education plans.

An Education President like no other

Recently, he has talked about his desire to be a real Education President. The Associated Press out of Boston quoted him recently as saying that he plans to be an "... education president unlike any president has in American history. The reason I say that is I believe, absolutely positively, that education is the key to our security - economic, militarily and politically."

In his news release about this DSEA recommendation, he said, ""We know what we need to do," continued Biden. "First, stop focusing just on test scores. Second, start education earlier. Third, pay educators more. Fourth, reduce class size. Fifth, make higher education affordable."

Teacher Compensation: what do the candidates say?
Check out these statements compiled by the Education Compensation Institute.

 

 

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