Hillary Clinton called out Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, Mike Pence, on his stand on education. The Democrat unleashed her attack on the Republican during an assembly with the teacher's union Monday.
Over 3,000 delegates from the American Federation of Teachers in Minneapolis listened as Hillary Clinton blasted Mike Pence. She called the Indiana politician as "one of the most hostile politicians in America when it comes to public education," per Politico.
Hillary Clinton cited that Mike Pence cut millions of funding meant for higher education in his term as the governor of Indiana. He also allegedly denied funding that would have helped improve preschools to accommodate more children from low-income families.
However, in raising the candidate's track record, Hillary Clinton might have actually highlighted Mike Pence's strong, albeit controversial, choices when it came to education, per The Wall Street Journal. The news outlet cited that Pence's track record was even better than his running mate, Donald Trump, who has no clear education platform.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence could be Trump's VP: Here's his record on education policy https://t.co/8ERhl0l2xC
— Chalkbeat Indiana (@ChalkbeatIN) July 11, 2016
Mike Pence removed Common Core from Indiana's school standards in 2014 and replaced this with its own standards. This received a lot of criticisms and disapproval from his constituents, but the governor defended the change in an op-ed piece on the Indy Star. He wrote that Indiana's unique education standards would help the students become competitive in both national and international scale.
After some delays in the decision, Mike Pence approved the expansion of Indiana's public pre-schools and has committed support for vocational education as well, per Forbes. He also approved teachers' merit pay.
While Mike Pence has shown strong support for private religious schools, charter schools, or schools publicly funded but privately managed, actually grew in numbers in Indiana under his term. The institutions also became top-ranking among other charter schools in the United States.
Mike Pence also pushed the growth of voucher schools, or private schools accepting publicly-supported scholars. The governor helped these institutions grow by removing qualification caps and included middle-income families, aside from low-income families. But this is what Democrats like Hillary Clinton have issues with as Mike Pence stifled funding for actual public school improvements.
What's your take on Mike Pence's education record and Hillary Clinton's statement about it? Share your thoughts in the comments section!
