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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > July > 26
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Barack Obama, education and me
(Barack Obama with his then 6-year-old daughter Malia after his election to the Senate in 2004)
I am pleased to announce that I will be part of a group project launched by the Education Writers Association to track the education positions of the candidates for president over the next 18 months. EWA, an organization of hundreds of journalists across the country who report on education that I’ve been active in for about 10 years, is seeking to raise the profile of education issues in the campaign. The group is hoping to get the candidates to submit to interviews with education reporters to discuss their education views.
I have volunteered to contribute to a group blog, in which a handful of education reporters from around the country will each be following the education statements and views of a presidential candidate.
I have been assigned to keep tabs on Barack Obama, the Democratic Illinois senator. I would be grateful for any help GOTB readers could provide. If you see news anywhere about Obama and his education positions, please alert me via e-mail at selliott@daytondailynews.com.
I’m getting started by reading Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, but I also noticed a little dust up last week, thanks to education blogger Alexander Russo, which had people asking is Barack Obama really in favor of sex education for kindergarteners?
It looks like the answer is yes, and no, depending on your definition of sex education.
Apparently, Obama supported a bill in the Illinois legislature that called for “age appropriate” sex education to be taught, even to kids as young as kindergarten. But what, exactly, is Obama advocating?
Not much, Obama says. He told a newspaper in 2004 that what he really intended was that kids be given accurate information. In his example, you don’t tell a kid who asks “where do babies come from” that they are delivered by a stork. What exactly do you tell the kid who asks that question? That, he said, should be decided case-by-case at the local school board level.
Still it seems Obama has staked out a position that tilts toward “comprehensive” sex education and away from “abstinence only” programs favored by the Bush administration, which emphasize the virtue of abstaining entirely from sex until marriage.
(Image credit: AP)
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