Near Silence on Education at First Democratic Debate

None.

Null.

Nada.

That's how many questions CNN anchors asked presidential hopefuls about America's public schools at the first Democratic Debate.

Imagine if Anderson Cooper and the company had remained silent on Climate Change. The candidates would have brought it up anyway. Bernie Sanders mentioned the environmental threat when asked about national defense.

Imagine if moderators had no questions about gun violence. Candidates competed with each other to demonstrate which took a stronger stance against the National Rifle Association.

Imagine if no one asked about finance reform. At that stage, each candidate tried to position himself or herself as the new sheriff of Wall Street.

But when it comes to one of the most important issues of the day—our children's struggling schools—the media apparently thought the viewing public was uninterested.

Admittedly, Hillary Clinton and Sanders briefly brought it up when asked about other things.

Clinton said we need universal pre-kindergarten and good schools, but she neglected to describe what those good schools would look like.

It's almost like saying nothing at all. Everyone wants good schools—even dunderheads like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Donald Trump! However, their ideas of good schools differ greatly from those of most parents, teachers, and students. McCarter schools for the poor and Cadillac campuses for the rich aren't exactly what real progressives have in mind.

And universal pre-k? Great! But that's kind of the flavor of the month. Who disagrees that we should help toddlers prepare for school? It's like asking, "Who wants ice cream?" in a room full of little kids on a hot day. EVERYONE wants ice cream - even the kids who are lactose intolerant!

Sanders took a second in his diatribe about social services to mention the need to fund schools. However, he didn't say a thing about equity or whether that funding would have strings attached. President Obama talked about funding schools, too, when he ran for president in 2008. Once he got into office, those education dollars came at the cost of accepting untested and developmentally inappropriate Common Core State Standards. Equity meant closing poor schools to save them.

I wonder if CNN would have felt more pressure to ask even a single token education question if the largest national teachers' unions had not already endorsed Clinton. The American Federation of Teachers, representing 1.5 million members, and the National Education Association, representing 3 million members, have both backed Clinton.

Well, leadership has. Member outreach, polling, and even voting by the organization's largest representative boards have been almost entirely absent.

But now that teachers have been pigeonholed in Clinton's camp, what's the point of asking education questions? In the public eye, educators have already chosen their candidates. Why would they need to hear Clinton's thoughts on education policy? Why hear her opponent's thoughts? Their minds are made up.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to run roughshod over teachers' concerns. For 7 years, education professionals from all walks of life have complained about the administration's failing school policies and its buffoonish education secretary Arne Duncan. But now that Duncan is leaving, the President replaces him with John King, an ex-New York State Commissioner of Education who enraged parents so much that he ran out of the state on a rail.

The media just doesn't care about public education. Nine times out of ten if they even print a story about schools, it's a puff piece spin doctoring a school reform policy that isn't working, never has been working and is - in fact - making things much worse for our nation's students. Otherwise, it's an expose of how teachers can't make these horrendous policies work, so it's their fault. don't even glance at the ballooning child poverty rate - that's completely irrelevant to the issue of all these lazy teachers who can't be fired because we'd have to prove they're bad first.

And what of the candidates? Do they care about public education?

The Democrats say they do and then zip their lips. They might make positive noises about preschools or universities, especially regarding funding, but they have next to nothing to say about K-12 schools. When the issue arises, they deflect to toddlers or the college campus.

Meanwhile, Republicans can't contain their glee about mentioning teachers during debates and stump speeches. They want prospective voters to know that conservative types like them want to punch teachers in the face. During the first Republican debate, at least half of the candidates in that crowd boasted how much they stood up to the teacher's unions.

And so there you have it, folks. That's what passes for a substantive Democratic debate of all the day's important issues. Now, voters can make an informed decision in the primaries. There will be a few more debates, but they'll probably be no different than this one.

And if you care about public schools, if you have children in the system, or derive your livelihood from it, or even if you just don't want to live in a society of uneducated dummies - you'd be better served using Tarot cards to determine where the Democrats stand on this issue.