The nation's two largest teachers unions are in the thick of their 2016 presidential endorsement processes, having met with the three major Democratic candidates who have announced their candidacies.

On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders – an independent from Vermont running for the Democratic nomination – and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley met with Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association. Both the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers – the nation's largest teachers union after the NEA – now have heard from O'Malley, Sanders and front-runner Hillary Clinton at a time when the party each hopes to represent in the White House is divided over how to improve K-12 education in America.



"We are asking the tough questions that get to the heart of the issues that educators, their students and families are facing every day. They see what is happening in their schools and communities. They know that all students deserve the support, tools and time to learn," Eskelsen Garcia said in a statement. "But are politicians willing to commit to the success of every student regardless of his or her ZIP code? That is the key question that educators will ask over and over again."

So far, all three candidates have focused on framing education as an economic imperative that creates the clearest path to the middle class. They've also put a focus on the needs to reduce standardized testing in schools and empower teachers – desires the unions share – while staying away from more controversial topics such as teacher tenure and evaluation systems, school choice and Common Core.

Sanders is the only candidate so far to focus on problems with No Child Left Behind in his remarks to the unions, according to excerpts provided by the NEA and AFT.

Sanders, who serves on the Senate education committee, said there are few others as opposed as he is to the sweeping education law – which Congress is attempting to update – and to "this absurd effort to force teachers to spend half of their lives teaching kids how to take tests."

"If I have anything to say in the coming months, we would end [No Child Left Behind]," Sanders told Eskelsen Garcia.



National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García speaks with former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on Thursday at the association's headquarters in Washington.

Courtesy NEA Public Relations

Both candidates also made the overuse of standardized testing a focus of their NEA remarks.

Sanders said it's important to "look at the whole child," and to give teachers more flexibility to work with their students.

"Teaching kids just to take [a] test in my view does not go far enough," Sanders said.

O'Malley, too, said there needs to be a more holistic approach to teaching.

