schools cannot fire teachers simply because of tenure and the teachers union. not quite that simple. i think all teachers are underpaid here in america. and i think that if we start valuing teachers more culturally and placing them as a top priority, then we can change that a little bit. good luck, though. because you got the very, very powerful teachers union which has traditionally backed the democratic party and in a very large way and they re standing there saying hold it, we re doing this for the kids. i think that to ask really important questions about the unions such as we need to look at tenure and we need to look at how we reward the teachers that are knocking it out of the park. this teacher over here is knocking it out of the park. this teacher is underperforming and right now, we don t have a good way it different shiate between the two. this evaluation and rewarding of good performance is key. we talk about children are our future. we need to put the best possible t
and if we look at what the countries that have outcompeted that outcompete us do is that there s a huge investment in teachers as well as looking at accountability. account jacket, absolutely essential. accountability to the bottom to the top. but it s not the whole story. be specific then, michelle. in washington, d.c., you closed schools, you fired teachers. there was a lot of controversy around that. randi, do you believe in accountability, what happened in washington, michelle, you start, when you did fire teachers and closed down schools that weren t performing? we certainly got a tremendous amount of pushback. i think the superintendent bobb knows this as well. people are uncomfortable when you change what is currently in place. and so what we looked at over the last 3 1/2 years, for example, we closed 23 school in the first year. we ve closed several schools after that because we cannot continue to pour the same amount of resources into a faulty system. we were shrinking i
there s a huge investment in teachers as well as looking at accountability. account jacket, absolutely essential. accountability to the bottom to the top. but it s not the whole story. be specific then, michelle. in washington, d.c., you closed schools, you fired teachers. there was a lot of controversy around that. randi, do you believe in accountability, what happened in washington, michelle, you start, when you did fire teachers and closed down schools that weren t performing? we certainly got a tremendous amount of pushback. i think the superintendent bobb knows this as well. people are uncomfortable when you change what is currently in place. and so what we looked at over the last 3 1/2 years, for example, we closed 23 school in the first year. we ve closed several schools after that because we cannot continue to pour the same amount of resources into a faulty system. we were shrinking in terms of the number of schools that were coming to school but we never downsized the numb
be specific then, michelle. in washington, d.c., you closed schools, you fired teachers. there was a lot of controversy around that. randi, do you believe in accountability, what happened in washington, michelle, you start, when you did fire teachers and closed down schools that weren t performing? we certainly got a tremendous amount of pushback. i think the superintendent bobb knows this as well. people are uncomfortable when you change what is currently in place. and so what we looked at over the last 3 1/2 years, for example, we closed 23 school in the first year. we ve closed several schools after that because we cannot continue to pour the same amount of resources into a faulty system. we were shrinking in terms of the number of schools that were coming to school but we never downsized the number of schools that we had. the results of that was that we were spreading our resources way too thin. and we were the citizens and the students weren t feeling the amount of money tha
by wall street. i m not going to be taken advantage of by what they did. the proof is in the pudding. we have got districts all over the state, i m sad to say that are having to fire teachers, having to go to four-day workweeks. the denver public schools is in the best fiscal shape that it s been in in years, as a result not just of the deal, the refinancing that we did, but also having to make some very hard decisions around closing and consolidating schools and other things. year after year after year, the district cut its budget and today in very good financial shape as a result of the work we do. your primary opponent, andrew romanoff was on here yesterday and this is what he said when it came to why he was challenging you and why he was upset, particularly when it came to health care and the public option. . mr. bennet made a lot of money off a promise he didn t keep, to fight for the public option during the reconciliation