Appealing to Union, Hillary Clinton Calls Teachers ‘Scapegoats’

Hillary Rodham Clinton at an event in Hampton, N.H., on May 22.Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/04/appealing-to-union-hillary-clinton-calls-teachers-scapegoats/

By Maggie Haberman

Hillary Rodham Clinton made an appeal for an endorsement from the American Federation of Teachers this week, suggesting in a private meeting with union officials that critics have turned teachers into “scapegoats for all of society’s problems.”

“From what I’ve seen, all of the evidence, and my own personal experience, says that the most important and impactful thing we can do for our public schools is to recruit, support and retain the highest-quality educators,” Mrs. Clinton said before a question-and-answer session with teachers, according to the union, which released her remarks.

“It is just dead wrong to make teachers the scapegoats for all of society’s problems,” she said. “Where I come from, teachers are the solution.” Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were first reported by BuzzFeed.

Mrs. Clinton, as well as two other Democratic presidential hopefuls, former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, appeared at the union’s executive council meeting this week. But even allies of Mr. O’Malley and Mr. Sanders acknowledge that Mrs. Clinton is likely to earn the federation’s backing.

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