Education and the Presidential Debate

Watching this year's first Presidential debate on October 3, I was more than a little surprised at the lack of decorum and respect for moderator Jim Lehrer the two candidates showed. For example, when Lehrer tried ending the first segment to move to another topic, Romney interrupted with a brazen, “I get the last word of this segment.”

Later in the debate, Lehrer told the president,“Two minutes is up, sir,” to which he snapped back, “No, I think I had five seconds before you interrupted me,” and went on to finish an answer that took well over five additional seconds.

It seemed clear to me that Jim Lehrer had lost control over the debate, and I was very put off by the behavior of both candidates. I was not alone. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook blew up with similar sentiments being expressed about Lehrer being bullied by the two politicians. One person in my network liked Lehrer to the character Milton from Office Space, changing his "Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler" quotation to "I believe you have taken my debate."

ABC news also ran a political blog calling Jim Lehrer the biggest loser in the debate.

I disagree. To me, the biggest loser was public education.

In a debate where every segment ran over its allotted time, it seemed that the one and only time Lehrer made a stand to continue to the next topic without letting the two men continue with their last words was when the candidates were discussing education.

There had been so much discussion of health care, jobs and the economy that there was simply no time for education. That's right, the one factor that impacts all those other important topics and how they will play out in our nation's future, that was the topic that could be glossed over and pushed aside!

I was saddened, but not surprised to see education cast aside. We have widespread confusion about the issues in education in our nation, caused by some who wish to label our public educational system as failing, others who believe they know everything about education because they have been to school (I've been to the doctor's office, but that doesn't make me qualified to treat illness...), and still others who want to help, but do so with misguided attempts to overhaul an already stressed system and set teachers and students further behind, with less time to learn content.

Whenever I hear someone label our schools as "failing," I read between the lines, "There is a lot of money to be made by privatizing our public schools, so let's make sure the public thinks they are doing poorly."

I would have liked to hear the candidates talk about providing teachers more time to help students master the content and less time teaching to standardized tests. I would have liked to hear how Paul Ryan's education overhaul in Wisconsin would look on a national scale. I would have liked to hear how Barack Obama would change our system of assessment for schools and teachers. I wanted to hear more than a few brief sounds bites.

There simply wasn't enough time.