Barack Obama believes that top-down government regulation is strangling innovation inside schools. For him, Washington’s role should focus on setting good learning standards, tracking student progress and helping states recruit a stronger teaching force. Obama wisely proposes attacking structural constraints that keep highly qualified college graduates from pursuing careers as teachers and spurring a mixed market of diverse schools. Obama emphasizes the phrase “responsible charter schools” to underscore the fact that unregulated, fly-by-night charter schools in states like Arizona have failed and closed, leaving children and parents in the lurch. Obama has amplified his pitch to expand preschools that include working with parents to improve early literacy practices. He said that he would rely heavily on churches and other community groups to run new preschools in order to avoid sluggish school bureaucracies. — Bruce Fuller, University of California at Berkeley professor
Barack Obama’s proposals fall short of John McCain’s call for systemic change in the form of school-choice vouchers and greater competition between the public and private sectors for the delivery of education services. Take Obama’s proposal to better use technology in the classroom. Most people would probably say that technology in the classroom improves student learning and achievement. But the evidence is far from clear. Even Obama’s call for added charter-school funding is problematic. Charter schools are supposed to be local efforts free from bureaucratic red tape. More federal money and the ambiguous “accountability” strings that Obama has mentioned in his speeches could undercut charters’ raison d’etre. — Lance T. Izumi, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
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15 Comments
Arizona found out, “Charter schools tend to be fly by night” schools operated by entrepreneurs looking for new profit centers at the giant expense of the public school system.
You can throw as much money as you want towards the education problems..but until society recognizes the problems that kids are facing in their home situations, nothing will change. How can kids perform well in school when there is no support from parents and they are being raised in dysfunctional environments with role models who haven’t a clue about healthy relationships and effective parenting?
Just look at how many kids have died this year due to parents who are clueless or out of control. For every one that has died at the hands of a caretaker or parent, many more are living in nightmare situations.
Children learn what they live, and the failure we see in our children is only a reflection of what they live day to day.
“He said that he would rely heavily on churches…”
See Barack pander to the right.
Pander Barack pander.
Churches do not care about educating. They care about indoctrinating another generation of people to fill the collection plate.
WHEN is Obama gonna get that the right can not be worked with?
“Churches do not care about educating. They care about indoctrinating another generation of people to fill the collection plate.”
BlueJay, the interesting thing is the same could be said about the educational establishment..ie NEA.
The NEA has been lobbying their policies for YEARS and yet they have not solved the educational mess they helped create.
Here is just one area they have sabotoged. There has been a push to return to phonics at various times. The educational establishment resisted it, saying it is an inferior method of instruction.
I know first hand the results of poor reading instruction having taught special needs children who were barely able to read at the age of 12-15. The highly rated university I attended taught little about reading instruction until I took the special education reading class. Then I was taught how to teach phonics.
Math is another area which is routinely taught poorly in schools today. Many parents I know spend countless hours tutoring their children. Some push their children ahead in classes just to keep them challenged.
I have tutored many children who still do not know their basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts by the time they reach middle school.
Because the NEA has poor solutions to educational problems, I steer clear of any candidates they endorse.
“Most people would probably say that technology in the classroom improves student learning and achievement.”
Actually, from my time as a substitute teacher, technology appears to have worsened student learning and achievement.
Young people in their teen years look at computers (especially boys) as entertainment and are easily bored when utilizing computer technology for mundane things. This is in reference to those math and spelling games they have in some schools.
It also makes for uncaring, uninvolved teachers, in my opinion – as the solution or at least the right/wrong response is given by the computer and this causes some apathy with the teacher to get personally involved with the student.
Then there are the ‘power point’ presenters in the unionized teachers. Talk about hypnotically boring – sheesh.
The key to success for any school is parent and mentor involvement, before, during and after school.
Obama wants to “educate” kindergartners and elementary school students on AID’s prevention and STD prevention.
It is a proven fact that Obama pushed to lower the ages, for this instruction, while in the Illinois legislature!:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzI3ZDUzOTE0ZThlMTU3MTY0MDI4ZTY0MTZhY2I2MGY=
“21st-CENTURY SEX EDUCATION
The bill in question was Senate Bill 99, introduced in the Senate in February 2003. Its broad purpose was to change and update portions of Illinois’s existing laws concerning sex education. (The text of the bill is here, and everyone interested in the issue should take a look at it.)
When the bill was introduced, a coalition of groups including the Illinois Public Health Association, the Illinois State Medical Society, the Cook County Department of Public Health, the Chicago Department of Public Health, the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council and others issued a press release headlined “Coalition of Legislators, Physicians and Organizations Bring Illinois Into the 21st Century with Omnibus Healthcare Package.” It was a three-part campaign; Senate Bill 99, covering “medically accurate sex education,” was the first part, with two other bills addressing “funding for family planning services for women in need” and “contraceptive equity in health insurance.”
According to the press release, Senate Bill 99 required that “if a public school teaches sex education, family life education, and comprehensive health education courses, all materials and instruction must be medically and factually accurate.” The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Carol Ronen, was quoted saying, “It teaches students about the advantages of abstinence, while also giving them the realistic information they need about the prevention of an unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.” The release contained no mention of sexual predators or inappropriate touching.
What, specifically, was the bill designed to do? It appears to have had three major purposes:
The first, as Ronen indicated, was to mandate that information presented in sex-ed classes be “factual,” “medically accurate,” and “objective.”
The second purpose was to increase the number of children receiving sex education. Illinois’ existing law required the teaching of sex education and AIDS prevention in grades six through twelve. The old law read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention, transmission and spread of AIDS.
Senate Bill 99 struck out grade six, changing it to kindergarten, in addition to making a few other changes in wording. It read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.
The bill’s third purpose was to remove value-laden language in the old law. For example, the old law contained passages like this:
Course material and instruction shall teach honor and respect for monogamous heterosexual marriage.
Course material and instruction shall stress that pupils should abstain from sexual intercourse until they are ready for marriage…
[Classes] shall emphasize that abstinence is the expected norm in that abstinence from sexual intercourse is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against unwanted teenage pregnancy [and] sexually transmitted diseases…
The proposed bill eliminated all those passages and replaced them with wording like this:
Course material and instruction shall include a discussion of sexual abstinence as a method to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
Course material and instruction shall present the latest medically factual information regarding both the possible side effects and health benefits of all forms of contraception, including the success and failure rates for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV…”
Obama is a radical on education issues, just like Obama is a radical on everything else!
“Barack Obama believes that top-down government regulation is strangling innovation…”
Libs, did you see this? Obama AGAINST regulation?
“Obama wisely proposes attacking structural constraints that keep highly qualified college graduates from pursuing careers as teachers.”
———————————————-
Sounds like “union busting” to me.
Maybe not so “wise.”
Politicians and the national goverment should stay out of education. We do not need the strings that bind. Why should someone else try to educate my kids by saying, you can’t do this or that and you gotta go someplace else.
Franklin
Posted September 25, 2008 at 9:41 am | Permalink
Obama wants to “educate” kindergartners and elementary school students on AID’s prevention and STD prevention.
It is a proven fact that Obama pushed to lower the ages, for this instruction, while in the Illinois legislature!:
==================================================
You have absolutely no morals at all, do you. You pounce on any and all BS claims made by anyone or anything so long as it tends to put Obama in a bad light. You are a racist POS with the moral backbone of a pedophile, and intelligence of a dead rat.
It is a proven fact Obama wanted k~3 to get education on how to avoid sexual predators. That is it and nothing more. There was also an opt out clause in the same legislation:
An absurd claim about a bill that never passed
Pants on fire!
“John McCain released an ad this week making the accusation that Barack Obama supports sex education for five-year-olds.
Here’s what the ad says:
“Education Week says Obama ‘hasn’t made a significant mark on education,’ that he’s ‘elusive’ on accountability, a ’staunch defender of the existing public school monopoly.’
“Obama’s one accomplishment? Legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergartners.
“Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family.”
Here, we’ll check the claim that Obama wants five-year-olds to learn about sex. We’ve checked what Education Week said in a separate item and found it Barely True.
The origins of this claim go back to Obama’s days as a state senator in the Illinois General Assembly.
In 2003, the Assembly considered a bill to expand sex education directives from grades 6 through 12 to grades K through 12. The legislation required the curriculum to be medically accurate and include information on the prevention of HIV and contraceptives. It also said abstinence must be taught and that students “shall be encouraged to base their actions on reasoning, self-discipline, sense of responsibility, self-control, and ethical considerations, such as respect for oneself and others.”
Most pertinent to the kindergarten allegation, the legislation states that “course material and instruction shall be age and developmentally appropriate.”
Carol Ronen, the now-retired state senator who sponsored the bill, said its main intent was to make sure that teenagers got information that was “medically accurate,” a requirement that wasn’t then part of the school code. A secondary effect was to expand age-appropriate sex education down to lower grades, to allow things like teaching school children to avoid sex predators, Ronen said.
“Barack never had anything to do with it,” she said. “This is a lot of hoopla.”
Obama voted for the legislation in committee on a party-line vote. He was not a sponsor nor a co-sponsor, and the legislation never made it to a full Senate vote. So calling it one of his accomplishments is wrong, since it never became law and it wasn’t his bill anyway.
This isn’t the first time Obama has faced the “sex ed for kindergartners” charge. When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, his opponent Alan Keyes used it. “Nobody’s suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,” Obama said at a campaign event in 2004. “If they ask a teacher ‘where do babies come from,’ that providing information that the fact is that it’s not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that’s going to be determined on a case-by-case basis by local communities and local school boards.”
Obama said that he did not support telling youngsters about explicit information about sex. The bill specifically mentions that instructional material must be age appropriate. It specifically mentions teaching children how to “say no to unwanted sexual advances” and “nonconsensual physical sexual contact.” The legislation was not sponsored by Obama and it didn’t pass, so calling it one of his “accomplishments” is absurd. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!”
Not much interest in Education by posters here.
Can we get a Tiahrt Amendment topic instead? It’s been over a month Brownlee, since you bashed the 2nd Amendment.
Ok, I’ll settle for a bash the NRA Ads topic. Can’t wait to see the Eagle’s in-depth research on that topic!
The lack of interest in this thread about the state of our education system and how we can help our kids speaks volumes.
If you’ve ever been in a public school…how many parents actually show up at the open house? I’ll bet you can count them on one hand, especially in the lower income schools. How can you expect kids to care about education when they’re parents don’t? Apples don’t fall far from the tree.
“If you’ve ever been in a public school…how many parents actually show up at the open house? I’ll bet you can count them on one hand, especially in the lower income schools.”
I’m happy to tell you, Mary, that this is not correct.
Oh I give you, there ARE LOTS of parents who do not get involved. But there was a good turnout at my son’s open house. I can’t say what percentage, but there were a good number.
Remember too the all work all the time country we have become. Some parents are not able to be there.
“How can you expect kids to care about education when they’re parents don’t? Apples don’t fall far from the tree.”
I care very much about education. But you can’t MAKE a kid learn. Been there, do that.
We have a country that ridicules learning and knowledge. THAT is the place to start change.
“You have absolutely no morals at all, do you. You pounce on any and all BS claims made by anyone or anything so long as it tends to put Obama in a bad light. You are a racist POS with the moral backbone of a pedophile, and intelligence of a dead rat.”
Wow!
You could make the same comment about most of the libeerals on this blog when it comes to Palin, except for the racism part.
Thanks Nathan for pointing out the Walker post.
His comments speak loudly about the state of public education.