Obama and His National Education Plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10educate.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin
With the election soon approaching it was important for me to see where education issues stand for presidential candidates. In this article, the focus is on Senator Barack Obama and his national education plan.
This article starts off by stating that Senator Obama has learned how hard it can be to solve America’s national education problem. It says that with his experience in Chicago, where a decade ago his drive to solve the education problem, he spent $150 million on Chicago’s troubled schools and barely made a dent. Presidential Democratic nominee, Barack Obama is campaigning on a plan that promises $18 billion a year in new federal spending on early childhood classes, teacher recruitment, performance pay and dozens of other initiatives.
Another important factor to this education crisis happening in America is the issue of President Bush’s- No Child Left Behind law. Senator Obama will retain the emphasis on this law but “he would rewrite the federal law to offer more help to high-need schools, especially by training thousands of new teachers to serve in them, his campaign said. He would also expand early childhood education, which he believes gets more bang for the buck than remedial classes for older students”.
What i found to be fascinating is when the article stated “In the two decades since Mr. Obama arrived in Chicago, its public schools have undergone a sweeping turnaround, from an education wasteland to a district that, while still facing major challenges, is among the most improved in the nation”. The turn around that he can do to a city in education trouble is remarkable. The city of Chicago has closed many failing schools and reopened them with new staffs, making this problem a success.
There is no doubt thier is a problem with education in this American system. Many schools are failing and teachers are loosing thier jobs. I believe the government needs to do a better job because schools are where the elite are developed and neglecting schools will create a burden to the future of this country.
October 7, 2008 at 1:41 am
I was glad you found an article on the educational plans of one of the candidates. I am glad to hear that Chicago has made a difference in their school system; that’s hopeful. But I don’t think that throwing money at the problem is the answer. I feel that America needs to take the best of the best among its educators, in other words teachers of the year from every state and have them share their successes and plan a curriculum for each grade level in K-12. These are the creative, talented people that should be called on to shape our educational future, not a bureaucratic group who has been in Universities and not on the line in education in the public school system.
October 7, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I found a similiar article that said Chicago school’s have appeared to move forward after hitting bottom ten years ago. It went on to say that Senator Obama along with other State Represenatives created an initiative to help put an emphasis on education. We need more politicians paying attention to the problems in our schools.
We have many qualified teachers unable to find a job because of reductions in taxes and cut backs in education. We’ll still build more weapons of mass destruction but paying for schools always takes a hit. That is one of the reason the United States is falling behind the rest of the world. Education is the best weapon the free world can have.
Tony
October 27, 2008 at 1:03 am
I am very skeptical toward both candidates plans. Though I do like the statistics that follow from Obama’s work in Chicago, I do think he, along with all the wealthy elite, are ignoring underlying problems that are helping our system fail. So far as I have seen, there is way too much emphasis on how to correct the problems in the secondary schools. I do think they have their own share of problems, but in my experiences working with students, I feel there should be a greater push to correct problems with the elementary education system. I also think they need to create more incentives to lure more qualified teachers back to the education field. In all honesty, teachers(on average) are very underpaid for the work they put in. With the ever increasing tuition costs of college, I think prospective teachers are deterred from choosing the field in favor of something more financially rewarding.
Then there is the issue of accountability. Students and parents are both guilty in this area. Too many students are being passed from grade to grade without learning the material adequately. This is due to them either not being able to handle the material, or they are not putting forth any effort because they know they will pass anyway. Similarly, something needs to be done to get more parents involved in their kids’ educations. Nonetheless, I hope one of these candidates isn’t just talking out of both sides of their mouths and actually does something to rectify the problems in our system.
November 29, 2008 at 3:58 am
There is no doubt in my mind that the education sysem is in need of reform. What most people don’t understand is that the parents and children are just as guilty as the teachers themselves. If a teacher assigns homework and the student doesn’t complete it is it the teacher’s fault?
At the same time the eucation system is in need of reform. I like Obama’s idea of starting from the ground up. Rather than paying for remedial classes let’s not let the kids become remedial. Let’s work to give the students every chance from a young age. Let’s not let any kids slip through the crack because the kid is a pain. These might be steep ideals but it would be a great way to reform the education system.