Nov. 15 Democratic debate transcript

Richardson: I think the key -- the key -- I want to be the education president.

The key to a good education is a strong teacher. One of the problems we have in this country is we disrespect teachers. We underpay them. I would have a minimum wage for all teachers starting out at $40,000 per year.

And, Chris, I think we need to be bolder with No Child Left Behind. I would junk it. This is a disaster. It's got to go. I would have preschool for every child. I would have full-day kindergarten. America is 29th in science, to the European Union, to Japan. We need to have science and math academies. Hire 100,000 science and math teachers. Have art in the schools.

We need also to have a college education policy that deals with these huge loans that are killing our college students.

What I would do -- and, you know, we are in a great college here.

What I would do is in exchange for two years of tuition, government pays tuition, one year of national service to this country. Those are the kind of creative solutions we want in this country.

Blitzer: Let me -- thank you, Governor. Thank you very much.

I want Senator Clinton to weigh in on the issue of merit pay.

If there's a teacher out there who's doing a great job, should that teacher get merit -- get a bonus for doing a great job, that individual teacher who works really hard, does a great job educating young people?

Clinton: Well, I support school-based merit pay for a lot of the reasons Chris was talking about. We need to get more teachers to go into hard-to-serve areas. We've got to get them into underserved urban areas, underserved rural areas.

But the school is a team, and I think it's important that we reward that collaboration. You know, a child who moves from kindergarten to sixth grade, say, in the same school, every one of those teachers is going to affect that child.

Blitzer: But what if there's an excellent teacher in that team and a crummy teacher in that team, a teacher who's simply riding along and not really working very hard, not really educating those young kids?

Do you give just everybody the merit pay, or do you give it to individual teachers?

Clinton: Well, you need to weed out the teachers who are not doing a good job. I mean, that's the bottom line. They should not be teaching our children.

I mean, what I believe so strongly is that our education system has served this country very well. But we're in the 21st century. We do need to re-imagine it. We've got to get everybody to talk about it.

But what I object to with the Bush administration is it's always talking down. We need to have a collegial collaboration. And the teachers need to be at the table...

Blitzer: All right.

Clinton: ... helping us figure out what the best way is to achieve our goals.

Blitzer: I want to move on to the next question, but I want Senator Biden to weigh in, because I know your wife is a teacher, so go ahead. Should an excellent teacher be given merit pay?

Biden: An excellent teacher should be judged by whether or not that teacher outside of the classroom improves themselves and their teaching skills.

My wife got two master's degrees and a doctorate degree. That's merit pay. She went out there and she earned the ability to be able to demonstrate to everyone that she was an exceptional teacher, because she went out and she gathered this additional knowledge, instead of being -- not just being a good teacher.

Here's the problem with simple merit pay, based on the principle. Who makes the decision, based on merit pay?

Who is the person who...

I believe there should be teaching excellence. I think we should demand more of our teachers in continuing education. I think there should -- and unions don't like that.

I think there should be -- demand more of the teachers, in terms of the participation after school and in school.

But I think you've got to pay them.

And the last point I'll make is, Bill is correct. You have to -- look, the idea you start teachers at $28,000, in most states, where, in the countries we're competing with, they start off and they graduate their -- the graduating seniors are getting the same pay that engineers are getting in those same schools.

My father has an expression -- God love him -- before he passed away. He'd say, "Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value."

I've laid out a $30 billion plan...

Blitzer: Thank you.

Biden: ... over five years to -- 16 years of education is what our kids need. They need to start two years earlier and be guaranteed two years after school.