Not a whole lot of substance in this one, folks. I stomached 5 questions in 1 hour. I will try to get some of the key points out before the paper gets it to you (probably next week sometime). The format was a bit weak. Two of the candidates sitting at a long table, facing the audience, with the moderator in the middle. It was not much of a townhall meeting but more of a Q+A. That leads to a lot of prefab answers to basic questions. I didn't hear a follow up question though there were plenty of opportunities. Follow up would have pushed the candidates to actually say something of any substance.
The first question was on education by the Director of Steeping Stone. She wanted to know about how they felt about changes in the Commonwealth's role in education, increases in funding and access to preschool.
Drucker --- "We must do everything we can to improve education" Yawn!!! Increase state funding to school districts. Equitable tax system seemed to be the catch phrase of the night. "Can't start preschool early enough"
Ciarrocchi --- "The state should do no harm" by imposing and more testing. No child left behind is a failure. Fair and balanced taxation with the money being put to its best possible use. It appears he is supporting some kind of performance based funding (which is ironic since he doesn't seem to like testing).
A good follow up would have been on the issue of school vouchers (whether they are for or against) and what impact a full scale school voucher program would do to already under funder school districts.
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