The event begins @1:30 with six candidates for governor. Only major candidates missing are Dubie and Markowitz. I’ll be live blogging as best I can though I can’t find a power outlet so I can’t promise I can stay online for the whole session.
This is not an attempt at journalism. I have direct connections with the organization hosting this event, both personal and professional. I make no claims at being objective about these issues or any candidate. If you feel as though I am not doing you, your issues, or the candidate you support justice, you are welcome to attempt your own live blog.
Rather than updating this entry as it goes on, I will conduct the live blog in the comments.
…before the event has even begin, I’ve had very young men approach me trying to sign me up for their candidate’s campaign. I haven’t done one of these before– I usually attend events for specific candidates, but I’m not used to being courted like this. One of the organizers for the event just told me that one candidate’s people tried to help set up and suddenly another candidate’s people were directed to do the same and all of a sudden she had 15 helpers :).
Everyone’s saying basically boilerplate stuff. Matt Dunne’s more dynamic than I remember him being from last time I heard him speak and is standing out in terms of his ability to connect with the audience here and is the only one who’s been interrupted by applause.
Okay, now Dennis Steele is reading off of a sheet of paper and taking on a distinct monotone, but did get interrupted by applause when he made an anti-war statement. Shumlin got applause by getting his kid to stand up, but Dunne got applause by mentioning his 2-week old so I think the getting interrupted by applause measure is kind of a wash.
“What are your experiences and interactions with early childhood educators.”
Honestly, none of these responses have been particularly strong until we go to Shumlin. Racine was able to bring up his work with the poverty council which I think is very important work. Steele is continuing to read from a sheet of paper.
Shumlin presented genuinely direct experience with early childhood education and was able to draw in very strong with his other issues by mentioning single payer. This is the first time I saw someone interrupted by applause on an issue relevant to the conference and of all the candidates, his response was the best received by far of any.
(I just lost my internet connection for a moment, I can’t promise this will hold– sorry).
Dunne’s echoing Shumlin’s pledge to support single payer and is trying to one-up him by saying he’s the only candidate who’s voted to support it. Now Racine’s on the health care bandwagon as well and is talking about restructuring funding to free up resources for early childhood. Shumlin’s all in for funding early childhood and shows a real understanding of the issue from a regulatory perspective. This is a very powerful statement from Shumlin, talking about tough issues and pushing them when they’re not easy and comfortable.
So I’m making an administrative decision here. This is my point of view and mine alone, but I only see three candidates here whom I’m taking seriously. Typing this much is complicated and takes a lot out of my physically, so I’m going to restrict my reports (and, as a result, the batter life on my machine) to commenting on Shumlin, Racine and Dunne. They’re the three candidates who are actually answering the questions and demonstrating a real comprehension of the issues at hand. As I said before, this isn’t journalism. Anyone who wants to live blog about other candidates is welcome to create their own live blog or to comment on this one.
The moderator just kind of slapped a few people down by telling them to please restrict their comments to early child care 🙂
This is the first “tough” question anyone’s asked because it relies on a real understanding of regulatory issues. Racine isn’t as familiar with Stars as I’d like but he’s handing this question fairly well, admitting that he doesn’t know as much about the details as he should but is showing real support for professional development which, I think is a solid answer, but lacking in depth.
Shumlin actually knows what the Stars program is (I can explain it, but I don’t have time right now), but is talking about the importance of funding resources for providers and is taking a strong stance against “No Child Left Behind” which I can’t help but love.
I’m going to reverse myself: Bartlett is actually giving a fairly solid answer to this particular question, so I’ll give her credit for that. She doesn’t seem to know a lot about Stars, but she’s not unaware of it.
Dunne refers to Stars as a “good start” and is echoing Shumlin’s comments and called the standardized tests in NCLB “dumb.” Provided great example of how a national teacher of the year from Vermont had to have letters sent out to parents saying they were taught by an unqualified teacher. Dunne doesn’t seem to know a lot about Stars itself, but has good solid ideas about it and I’m impressed by this answer.
Shumlin: fair funding; health care; cooperation in professional development. Bring providers into his office to see what’s inhibiting them from doing the best work they can do.
Dunne: “I feel your pain” — talking about paperwork and how ridiculous it is to have to mail forms back and forth to various agencies while waiting for regulation. Used the term “right-sizing” twice, which is the sort of jargon that always makes me itch. Talking about support systems for internal business processes. Decent answer. A little wonky but in a good way.
Racine: very pro-small business, pretty much a different take on “I feel your pain.” Much more in his comfort area than last two questions; knows his stuff very well with respect to small business. Believes in having state be “customer-friendly.” — “what is your interaction with state government and how can we improve?”
And Dubie said nothing – that is NOTHING. That is his campaign strategy – say nothing and no one will know what you say. Thus, you can not be misquoted or attacked for saying something. Brilliant! Who is starting the sign-up sheet? If only I knew how to do such a deed.
Act 62 is pre-K funding (http://education.vermont.gov/new/html/pgm_earlyed/prekindergarten.html).
Shumlin: supports it and wants to go further and redirect money to the system from other areas. Good answer focusing on money and funding; for every dollar spent on early childhood care, we save $10+ down the line.
Dunne: when you do early childhood education, you save money in the next 2-3 years on special ed. Is getting into specifics about how it can happen, talking about freeing up resources. Dunne is talking about foundations and is talking about how small the number of children in early childcare ages really is and how easy it would be to find the resources to fund them all well.
Racine: “when one of is Governor, the cap will come off” “Where does the money come from? That’s a tough question in this economy. I’d love to promise you that next year we’ll have a perfect system. It’s not going to work that way. But I can tell you that it can be a priority.” (that may not be a perfect quote). Racine knows his stuff on this question and is less willing to make a promise than the other candidates, but is talking in ways I really respect– it takes all of us, not just a governor who supports it. Job #1 is to improve the economy and then we can make early childhood a priority.
Will you support the right of early childhood educators to find a union – all say “yes.” (the woman asking this question is a republican and asked Dubie to come and he said no)
was typing when he started this question– my apologies for that– this is very important.
“What will you do to stem the reality of incarcerated children being made to be treated as ‘troublemakers'”
Dunne: “My father was a civil rights activist.” Good, real story about blatant racism in Vermont that his father had seen. “Minstrel shows are not okay as of 1978.”
Racine: “Leadership. We need a governor who’s willing to talk about these issues… and to challenge Vermonters to look in their hearts and say ‘who are we as a state?'” Very open about us not being there yet. Wants to ban the word “tolerate” and replace them with welcoming and accepting.
Shumlin: We’re not only losing the battle on tolerance and diversity, but allowing more young people of color to be locked up disproportionately. It’s a state disgrace. Will lead the discussion about us caring about one another “I have a record and I will deliver on it.”
Answers to this question are solid in all three cases.
Question clarified about consolidation of regional district offices and using technology to consolidate the offices. I can’t go into real depth about the background on this– I’m very familiar with the topic but it’s too complicated to explain so I’ll be explaining more about this later if I find time. This is a huge deal.
Dunne: keep your eye on the difference between being efficient and just being cheap. This is a perfect explanation for this. Dunne’s clearly familiar with this particular issue and knows his stuff, which is great given that he’s not even in office. This is a brilliant answer with specific examples of what went wrong with Challenges for Change.
Racine: isn’t giving my favorite answer here, but I get where he’s coming from. He’s a supporter of keeping the local resource and referral agencies intact and is basically punting saying — we’ve restored funding for a year and next year we’ll have a new governor.
Shumlin: judge me on rhetoric not record. Says he worked to change Challenges for Change to make it better. Wrote the Amendment that got us the extra year that Racine referenced.
I’m likely to miss the next question, as I need to take a quick break. Sorry about that. Will catch up again in a few.
“What is it in your character that tells me you’re not Sisyphus”
Dunne: I’ve had the opportunity because of the community that brought me up. Look at the record of delivering. Pushing through legislation is one thing.
Racine: I’m really proud of the state of Vermont. I don’t think when we’ve failed to achieve a perfect world it’s sisyphian. All of you folks know that kids do better in Vermont than they do in most other states.
Shumlin: what you seem to be asking is how do you know I’m not just a talking head? Talks about personal experience and being told he’d never amount to anything. Nice personal answer.
Racine: supports restrictions on access to firearms for children. Believes we can respect hunters and citizens right to bear arms while still protecting the safety of children.
Shumlin doesn’t think this sort of legislation will save lives. Believes in education as a primary solution.
Dunne: questions the amount of unsupervised time children have and is talking about the importance of providing good places for children to go that are healthy and of value.
I’m very happy with Racine, Shumlin and Dunne’s performance in this. Any of them could very handily face off with Dubie on this issue, since I’m convinced he doesn’t know the first thing about the topic.
I’ve been doing this for more than two hours now, so I’m going to stop at this point. If questions pop up I may respond later today or tomorrow, but I’m done for the moment.
…is terrific stuff. Thanks for doing it.
Both Racine and Shumlin made a fairly important omission when discussing Challenges for Change– they talked about putting resource and referral agencies back in for another year, but they forgot to note (and I didn’t catch this at the time– it was mentioned to me after) that they didn’t restore funding for these organizations. So yes, they bought everyone some time, but they bought it on advance credit, which isn’t quite the same thing as coming to their rescue.
I want to put out that it’s very possible that I was unfair to Bartlett here. I haven’t been impressed with her to date and she’s done a few things I seriously dislike, but I suspect this colored my ability to interpret her today.
I hope whoever the dem nominee is hammers Dubie on his lack of ability to stand up and say what he believes. From a complete lack of attendance at these events to his website which has one page on issues that’s only about the economy and basically says: Vermont is bad for business, our taxes are too high, we spend too much, our regulations are too strict, and a small blurb on green energy. Of course NONE of these include any specific ideas its just mindless anecdotes and opinion, demonstrating a complete lack of innovative thought.
did ANYBODY talk about what is right about Vermont’s educational system and how one would go about expanding on what is definitely working?
Thanks so much! I was in N.H. on Saturday, so I missed the live-blogging; but
I feel I got so much from your report. Even when one has the opportunity to hear the whole thing, live or recorded, there is value in getting a distillation from someone who is attempting to assess the whole in a fair and balanced way. Great job!
Julie, just wanted to say thanks for doing the live blog. It’s great to get different perspectives on the forums. – Doug