Fenwick graduation 2012
Ponitz graduation 2012
Cars and Parts Swap Meet
Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > September > 09
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
More blogging by yours truly
FYI, you can now find me blogging on a variety of topics over at the DDN’s Opinion Blog. In fact, if you check in over there right now you can read tomorrow’s editorial about Barack Obama, John McCain and their education proposals.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Obama outlines his education proposals
(Barack Obama speaks at Stebbins High School Tuesday.)
There weren’t a lot of new ideas from Barack Obama Tuesday during a speech in Dayton. The headline was his support of doubling to $400 million the amount of federal aid for charter schools. Otherwise, he mostly emphasized proposals he has made in the past.
Among the initiatives he highlighted:
—Heavier investment in early childhood education. He is pushing to expand federal aid for pre-school programs.
—College tax break. Obama wants to offer a $4,000 tax credit for students willing to commit to community or military service after college.
—New teachers. He wants to recruit new teachers to the profession using service scholarships
—Replacing bad teachers. Obama said there should be a way to remove bad teachers from the profession, but said he was open to a variety of ways to do that.
—Pay for performance. He repeated his admiration for programs, such as on in Dayton, that gives extra pay to teachers who demonstrate high performance.
—Longer school days. He hinted that the U.S. may have to consider instituting a longer school day, pointing to other nations that have it.
—Graduation rate. Obama pledged to make the U.S. No. 1 for high school graduation rate. (I noticed he didn’t pledge to make the country No.1 in the world for test scores.)
—College level courses. He said he wants to increase by 50 percent the number of high school kids taking college level or AP courses.
—Innovative school funds. He wants special funds targeted to support schools trying new ideas.
—New charter accountability. In addition to giving more money to charter schools, Obama called for stricter accountability to shut down bad charter schools.
—After school and summer school. Citing China he said if other nations can offer these programs, the U.S. should find a way to do the same.
—New classroom technology. Obama said he wanted to improve school technology by adding new tools like video “smart boards” and student laptops to classrooms.
—Paying for it all. Obama said all this could be paid for by redirecting the cost of just a few days in Iraq
—Testing. He was critical of “teaching to the test” and called on teachers to be a part of an effort to create “new assessments” for the future.
—Accountability. Obama called for “parent contracts” in which parents would promise to do their part to help their kids in school and promised an annual address to the nation to discuss progress toward education goals.
NOTE: This post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
(Image credit: Jan Underwood, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Obama to tout charter schools, performance pay
I’m here at presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign even at Stebbins High School and they have just released excerpts of his prepared remarks. He is scheduled to begin speaking at 10:10 a.m.
In what the campaign has billed as a major education policy speech, Obama will call for doubling federal support for charter schools as long as strict accountability that closes low scoring charters is part of the package. He also will tout performance pay — extra money for teachers or schools that show strong test score gains — a concept he has long backed.
And he points to China as an example of state-sponsored after school programs that work, suggesting the U.S. should do the same.
Obama has been supportive of the concept of charter schools in the past. But by calling for twice as much federal funding for charters he is nudging his previously moderate support of school choice to a new level.
Here are the speech excerpts:
“For decades, they’ve been stuck in the same tired debates over education that have crippled our progress and left schools and parents to fend for themselves. It’s been Democrat versus Republican, vouchers versus the status quo, more money versus more reform. There’s partisanship and there’s bickering, but there’s no understanding that both sides have good ideas that we’ll need to implement if we hope to make the changes our children need. And we’ve fallen further and further behind as a result.
If we’re going to make a real and lasting difference for our future, we have to be willing to move beyond the old arguments of left and right and take meaningful, practical steps to build an education system worthy of our children and our future.
In the past few weeks, my opponent has taken to talking about the need for change and reform in Washington, where he has been part of the scene for about three decades.
And in those three decades, he has not done one thing to truly improve the quality of public education in our country. Not one real proposal or law or initiative. Nothing.
Instead, he marched with the ideologues in his party in opposing efforts to hire more teachers, and expand Head Start, and make college more affordable. You don’t reform our schools by opposing efforts to fully fund No Child Left Behind. And you certainly don’t reform our education system by calling to close the Department of Education. That would just make it harder for us to give out financial aid, harder for us to keep track of how our schools are doing, and lead to widening inequality in who gets a college degree.
That is not my idea of reform. That is not my idea of change. That is not a plan to help your kids compete with those kids in China and India.
After three decades of indifference on education, do you really believe that John McCain is going to make a difference now?”
…
“Giving our parents real choices about where to send their kids to school also means showing the same kind of leadership at the national level that I did in Illinois when I passed a law to double the number of charter schools in Chicago. That is why as President, I’ll double the funding for responsible charter schools. Now, I know you’ve had a tough time with for-profit charter schools here in Ohio. That is why I’ll work with Governor Strickland to hold for-profit charter schools accountable, and I’ll work with all our nation’s governors to hold all our charter schools accountable. Charter schools that are successful will get the support they need to grow. And charters that aren’t will get shut down. And we’ll help ensure that more of our kids have access to quality after school and summer school and extended school days for students who need it - because if they can do that in China, we can do that right here in the United States of America.”
…
“And when our teachers succeed in making a real difference in our children’s lives, we should reward them for it by finding new ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. We can do this. From Prince George County in Maryland to Denver, Colo., we’re seeing teachers and school boards coming together to design performance pay plans.
So yes, we must give teachers every tool they need to be successful. But we also need to give every child the assurance that they’ll have the teacher they need to be successful. That means setting a firm standard - teachers who are doing a poor job will get extra support, but if they still don’t improve, they’ll be replaced. Because as good teachers are the first to tell you, if we’re going to attract the best teachers to the profession, we can’t settle for schools filled with poor teachers.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Tracking Barack Obama
Obama will talk about education in Dayton Tuesday
The word is Barack Obama will be talking about education policy on a visit to Stebbins High School Tuesday. I’ll have a report for the scene after he speaks.
Daytonians interested in education, and how Obama thinks about it, have been fortunate. When he came here in the summer he gave his education talking points after a question from the audience.
Where does Obama actually stand on education? That is an interesting question.
Is he sympathetic to teacher unions, who want to junk No Child Left Behind? Or his he in the camp of the school reformers, Democrats (especially in inner cities) that favor school choice, vouchers and other experiments. Obama has been vague about where he stands, enough so that both camps are trying to claim him as one of their own.
In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, writer Paul Tough deconstructions where Obama stands on education and suggests some policy ideas he already has (or might yet) embrace.
Tough, who has written some insightful education pieces for the magazine, cites Susan Neuman’s research and her forthcoming book, which says the U.S. must invest much more heavily in early childhood programs. During my sabbatical year at the University of Michigan in 2004-05, I studied under Neuman, a Michigan professor and former assistant U.S. education secretary under President Bush.
Neuman helped craft No Child Left Behind only to later become disillusioned with the law. When I knew her at Michigan, she had a lot of ideas for improving federal education law and was just beginning work on the soon-to-be-released book. In short, she believes effective early childhood programs should be replicated and focused on needy pre-schoolers, rather than mandated for all young children regardless of need. In this way, Neuman believed costs — which can be high for universal pre-school programs — could be better controlled.
Check out the magazine story for more. I’ll try to post an update from the Obama event after he speaks Tuesday.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
