For all of the rhetoric about change and a new generation of leadership, the Democrats continue to promote the same Bush bromide of the past eight years when it comes to education.
The meme of higher teacher pay and more accountability is a prescription that has failed for over twenty years and failed miserably. But the evidence is always ignored because the political payoff is in pounding the same old drum.
The public loves tough guy talk. Politicians can never be too tough especially when it comes to Muslims and children. Anything goes.
Teachers haven't been underpaid for years. Their combination of salary, benefits, time off, and pensions are solidly middle-class and considerable. The old time poor mouth rhetoric has never changed though and tax payers who are much poorer for the Bush ride now resent and can no longer afford higher taxes to support teacher lifestyles no one else is accustomed to anymore.
Accountability is Washington special interest code for business as usual. This means the funneling of millions of dollars into the coffers of standardized testing pirates and the theft of learning opportunities for children.
Bill Richardson was the lone Democratic candidate that made sense about education and sadly Obama chooses to listen to the hucksters. This means more years of close-minded and corrupt education practice. Parents and urban teachers will continue to be America's education whipping boys until a true reform agenda emerges.
Democrats are better than this policy and they need to reassess this stuff before November. What is currently advocated is unacceptable.
The party that gets my vote will need a better education grade than this.
7 comments:
So, do you have a grade LOWER than "F" for John McCain?
Bob,
I plan to grade McCain as well but I must caution you that conservatives (as opposed to Bushcovites) Hate NCLB as well as progressives and liberals do.
Obama's stand on this issue is inexcusable and makes lots of people in education nervous. NCLB is an unmitigated disaster and absolutely must end.
I love Ted Kennedy but NCLB is an abject failure that no amount of personal sympathy can excuse.
The second group of supporters for NCLB are some misguided get-tough big city, slick politicos who don't deserve to be in office (and you know we have an unfortunate few of these on our side of the aisle).
For me and thousands of marginalized educators trying to correct the system, Obama's stand is insult and injury. The evidence is clear that NCLB is a wholesale fraud.
If Obama cannot change his mind based on the empirical evidence of NCLB's failure then he is unfit to be president.
I can wait four years to elect a Democrat who gets it and can change.
Sorry, I know that's not what you want to hear.
- krasicki
No, I don't expect you to tailor your answer to "what I want to hear", but I do ask you to look into Obama's stance on NCLB.
The idea of the testing is a good one, but not having ANY Federal funding for it was the big problem. Obama has stated repeatedly that he'll work to get the funding in place when he's president. Keep in mind that as long as Bush is in the White House (along with McCain), education will get NO help.
And if you think you can wait through another four (or EIGHT) years of disastrous Republican leadership to get someone more to your liking, you're being way too narrow in your thinking.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/
Bob,
Let me respectfully disagree.
The idea of the testing is a good one, but not having ANY Federal funding for it was the big problem.
There is nothing wrong with standardized testing that has an intelligent purpose. The NCLB testing is a fraud. It compares apples to moon rocks and makes no sense at all. In fact it is a harmful waste of school time and effort.
Not another tax dime should be spent on this bullshit. Taxpayers don't need it, kids don't need it, and parents don't need it.
It needs to end.
Education will get no help under Obama. What is missing is intelligent curriculum innovation and that will remain outlawed as long as NCLB is funded. More funding means more totalitarianism in the school.
The Democrats need to wake up. This is an important issue and mud-slinging the Republicans won't change the conversation.
And let me tell you, I am sick of Bush but we need real change, not phony change.
Not to belabor the point, but I just checked McCain's website, and his basic answer to the education problem is to issue vouchers and let parents pull their kids out of those nasty public schools and send them to more suitable private institutions.
Tell me, how that will help the problems you describe? Maybe McCain will start a program called "MSLB".
"Most Schools Left Behind".
OK, maybe I belabored the point a bit! LOL!
If we're honest with ourselves Public Schools Left Behind is the new game.
In Hartford the bright kids are cherry-picked out of the public schools and moved to the eternally brand-new other schools that become showcases for "success".
The public schools get no refurbishment and left to hang as are the inner city teachers.
This is a great cycle for the corrupt politics of our time. Inner city mayors keep bilking the State tax coffers for more building projects (more disposable schools) under the auspices of reform.
Meanwhile Perez continues to invite illegals into Hartford exasperating the public school dilemma that good people are trying to solve.
It is a self-perpetuating nightmare that honest teachers, parents and children get flogged mercilessly for.
And the Democratic response? Throw more money at it.
Unacceptable as a citizen, as a tax-payer, as a human-being sickened by a tsunami of corruption, false promises, and false flags.
NCLB must end.
Fair enough. I'll await your rating of John McCain's vision for education reform before I comment again.
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