President strong-arms educators
by linking $4-billion package to reform
WASHINGTON - President Obama is leaning hard on the nation's schools, using the promise of more than $4 billion in federal aid — and the threat of withholding it — to strong-arm the education establishment to accept more charter schools and performance pay for teachers.The pressure campaign has been underway for months as Education Secretary Arne Duncan travels the country delivering a blunt message to state officials who have resisted change for decades: Embrace reform or risk being shut out."What we're saying here is, if you can't decide to change these practices, we're not going to use precious dollars that we want to see creating better results; we're not going to send those dollars there," Obama said in an Oval Office interview Wednesday. "And we're counting on the fact that, ultimately, this is an incentive, this is a challenge for people who do want to change." ...
5 comments:
Obama is a disgrace and will surely lead this country into devastation. How dare he speak about public schools when his own daughters go to a private school. This is not the forum but Americans better wake up and start fighting.
You are correct, here, the fact that Obama sends his children to private school is quite relevant.
President Obama once had my vote, but as an educator who has heard every gag possible, reform can only happen when parents want a decent education for their children. The recipe for school reform must hold parents accountable, too.
What do you say to that, moderators?
I generally have a positive view of Obama's policies, particularly considering the mess he inherited. Unfortunately, it is in education policy where I tend to depart from him the most.
He seems to have aligned himself with the general ideas behind the Education Equality Project of Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich. The group focuses on closing the achievement gap, which is a correct idea, but it tends to place all of the burden on teachers to get it done while inferring, too strongly at times, that failure to close gaps is solely because educators lack the ability or inclination to do so.
My philosophies are more closely aligned with a group that calls for a Bolder Broader Approach. If America is to increase the percentage of highly educated Americans (which we must if we are to maintain global economic primacy and the lifestyle that goes with it) and close achievement gaps (also critical to social justice and future economic strength) then it will require a more comprehensive approach - one that includes family issues such as housing, healthcare, adult education, language spoken in the home, safety and all those things that have supported our most successful students.
Remember, achievement gaps were closing until Reganomics removed many social programs.
But under Obama, the distance between Republican ideas and Democratic ideas is about two inches. The free market notion that opening the system to charters will stimulate creativity and produce better schools is experimental at best and so far shows no signs of producing better results than presently exist wihtin the public system. It produces good schools and bad schools. There is no magic here.
Obama seems not to have considered the likely disequalizing effects of charters either; or is simply willing to risk that.
His push for national standards and better data systems makes more sense to me.
The major factor here is the amount of money being put into the effort - billions not millions. That's important for driving his program and getting states to do what many, like Kentucky, would prefer not to.
But in the end, it seems to me that charters are not so onerous
that Kentucky shouldn't get in line, take the money, and run.
Where the president's children attend school is of little consequence to me, particularly given the extreme security issues that exist. Have any presidential children attended public school since Amy Carter, or (m)any before?
"lead this country into devastation"...
I may be a little slow..but exactly what part of country wasn't devastated, or if not completely devastated, then exactly which part of our country wasn't already nose diving to devastation as of January 1, 2009?
It is no secret that our country was falling on hard times prior to January 1, 2009. What we must now look at is the tremendous amount of debt that we adding to our bottem line and our children's futures that most agree are not helping our economy. Sure things will be great if you like all of your rights taken away. By the way, based on the activity of this website, I doubt many want to lose any rights. Most here are fighting to be heard and as government grows bigger and bigger your voices will grow softer and softer.
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