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Education

AFT Endorses Clinton

By Michele McNeil — October 03, 2007 1 min read
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The American Federation of Teachers becomes the latest big-labor group to endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., for president. Read the Associated Press story here.

But it took the union two tries before getting its endorsement announcement right.

The first press release arrived in EdWeek’s inbox a little before noon, and it focused on the AFT’s decision, with a lot of “thank you” quotes from Sen. Clinton. About 30 minutes later, a corrected version of the endorsement announcement was sent out, with more comments from Sen. Clinton about policy positions, such as that she’ll work to protect collective bargaining rights and pension benefits.

In the corrected AFT news release, Sen. Clinton says she’s “committed to improving and strengthening our public schools, providing support for teachers, and ensuring our education system is able to meet the needs of the global economy and that we have commonsense laws that make that possible.”

The endorsement comes after the AFT, which has 1.4 million potential voters as members, interviewed the seven Democratic front-runners over the summer. Republicans were invited to the question-and-answer sessions, but not surprisingly, none agreed to participate.