When I was superintendent of Denver Public Schools, I saw the potential of some of our best and brightest students cut short, punished for the actions of others - kids who had grown up and done well in our school system, and kids who know no other home but America. This is unacceptable.
I say we have not even had the decency to maintain the assets that our parents and grandparents built for us - our roads, our bridges, our wastewater systems, our sewer systems; by the way, those weren't Bolsheviks, those weren't socialists that built those things for us - much less build the infrastructure we need for the 21st century.
There is simply no way we are going to make progress on the enormous challenges we face without making hard choices. It's impossible.
Listen, I, I did vote - I did cast a vote for health care, and I also said that I thought the process was horrible. The status quo before we passed health care was also horrible.
I am most interested in the outcomes at schools and school districts and ensuring that all kids are prepared for college and a career in the 21st-century job market.
I've focused on making sure we have talented teachers and principals in our schools through proposals like the GREAT Teachers and Principals Act and the Presidential Teachers Corps.
To get enough of the teachers we need, teaching has to be a great job where talented people are supported and rewarded.
My time at the Denver Public Schools taught me there is no harder, or more important, job than being a teacher.
Ensuring all kids have access to an effective, talented teacher needs to be a national priority.
Teacher compensation isn't the only factor in cultivating great teaching. Other important priorities include changing how we measure student performance, providing more flexibility to teacher-preparation programs, and improving how we train and support principals.
Often times, political games prevent senators from even beginning to debate some of the most important issues.
If teaching isn't rewarding and challenging, we're going to continue to lose our best teachers to work in other fields.
To me, the burden of proof isn't on people looking for ways to improve our schools; it's on people who want to keep things the same. Our current system isn't working, and too many kids are being left behind.
I'm not a career politician, so the ways of Washington may be a little obscure to me.
Fixing our schools must begin with reforming the way we attract talent to teaching.
We don't have to settle for disgraceful politics. We don't have to settle for being as terrible as Donald Trump.
Anyone who thinks they're a progressive should be interested in making progress.
Before I was in the Senate, I was a superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, and before that, I was in business.
