Peter Camejo on Education Reform Party nominee for Vice President; previously Candidate for CA Governor

Privatization is hidden agenda of high school testing

CAMEJO: I think so. I'm nervous about the mania we have now on testing. The problems are often blamed on the teachers. The teachers cannot solve social problems from society as a whole. We have to have a holistic approach to judging the work they are doing. Where I think this is going, with all of the testing, is to say that public education is not working and we'll privatize. The testing mania is hurting us in the way that the teachers have to teach. We have to fight this. There is a hidden agenda behind the mania for testing everyone to use that goal as a criteria, instead of a holistic criteria.

Use a holistic approach instead of high school testing

CAMEJO: I believe that that is complex. I think that you have to look at a school by school situation. The language issues, all of these different issues necessary for making judgments. We have to have a holistic approach. We are making headway. But we still have a long way to go. Testing is not the way we're really going to judge it in the end.

Davis appropriately increasing education spending

HUFFINGTON: I have to disagree here with praising Gray Davis. The governor is continuing to fight a class action suit brought by the ACLU to represent underprivileged students in the state. Our governor is spending $18 million of our money fighting that lawsuit.

Pay teachers more than prison guards

A: The educational system really can turn into institutionalized racism because of the heavy concentration of African Americans and Latinos. The solution is to reclaim a place to have equal funding. One thing is that teachers should get increase pay. They should get more than what prison guards get. I would try to shift the money out of the education bureaucracy and to the front lines.