Obama Education Plan: $4 Billion Proposed, Will Be Used To Pressure Schools For Reforms

The Washington Post:

President Obama is leaning hard on the nation's schools, using the promise of more than $4 billion in federal aid -- and the threat of withholding it -- to strong-arm the education establishment to accept more charter schools and performance pay for teachers.

The pressure campaign has been underway for months as Education Secretary Arne Duncan travels the country delivering a blunt message to state officials who have resisted change for decades: Embrace reform or risk being shut out.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post

Comments

[HST]

The GOPers will respond by first claiming it's too expensive and then they will say we have the best education system in the world and finally they will hand out a blank 3 page pamphlet of "their" plan.

[chedet]

how on earth a country with bad elementary and high schools managed to have the most top-notched colleges in the world?

[birchtree3]

Because there are A LOT of really excellent elementary, middle schools and high schools in this country. We hear how horrible our education system is and how bad the teachers are. We need to have the spotlight focused on the excellence sometimes because there IS excellence.

[Tazru]

Sure, if we only see the exceptionally good, then the fact that the average is so low will go unnoticed.

[mrskorn]

A few points:

If they support charters so much, why did they stop the DC voucher program?

Is this money going to be going through Americorps? That is Teach For America. If you look at what Duncan did in Chicago, he closed lots of schools, turned them into charters and put in untenured teachers. Also read about Kipp schools.

I don't trust this money will used properly.

Also, if charters are so great....why not use the same principles in public schools...doesn't that make more sense AND wouldn't that be more cost effective?

I don't trust this at all.

[mypov123]

If they support charters so much, why did they stop the DC voucher program?

Because the teachers' unions are controlling the Democrats' policies on education. I agree that they should not have stopped the voucher program, especially when the majority of them are not sending their own children to public schools.

[AndyWright68]

STOP spending our money! What is wrong with this government? Why do they continue to spend when we are broke?

[chedet]

It's for education, nothing wrong with that. Why do you people hate education so much?

[Tazru]

It is much easier to control people when they have pride in their ignorance, and hold strong beliefs that can not be proven. Hence the term "sheeple"....I hear it originated in the UK.

;)

[AndyWright68]

What is for education? Money we don't have? Look at the mess the federal government has made of education so far. Why would you want them to spend more? If you paid someone to tutor your child and your child failed and the tutor asked you for more money would you give it to him/her? Think logically.

[OkieIntellectual]

Hey Andy, I replied to your insane prattle over on the "Tazered man catches fire" article. Feel free to respond if you are fond of making yourself look like an even bigger fool.

[birchtree3]

The only problem I have with merit pay is that, as a teacher, I do not have total control over whether my students learn or not. I am an excellent, experienced and dedicated teacher and I work my tail off every single day I am in the classroom. But, no matter what I do, I can't totally erase the effect of when my five year old kindergartners come to school tired because they have stayed up until midnight watching My Blo o dy Valentine or have come to school 45 minutes late because Mom couldn't get out of bed, or they didn't have dinner the night before because the money went to buy m e t h, or they witnessed Dad beat Mom that morning and it is all they can think about, or there was no breakfast because the parents are out of work. My students learn in spite of these obstacles but do they reach their full potential and make standard.............sometimes not. I have total accountability for their learning but I don't have total control of their readiness to learn when they walk into the classroom. And, if my paycheck is based on everyone making standard (which not everyone will because we are talking about human beings) and I don't control all the variables no matter how hard I work, that is unfair.

[mrskorn]

Everyone should step into an innercity classroom for one year, including the Pres and Arne, and come back and revisit the issue.

[birchtree3]

And I don't work in an inner city classroom..............................these issues are found in most every classroom in the country.

[mickeyfrombuffalo]

I also am a hard working teacher, in a title one (poverty level) public school, and our scores are excellent. There is an old story about judging dentists on a similar scale - one dentist works in a wealthy area where the patients get regular care, another works in a poverty area where patients come only when they are in pain. Even though the dentist works heroically in the poorer area, her patients don't have the dental health the other dentist has. Who is the better dentist? The same thing would happen with teachers. What if you are the teacher who gets the emotionally disturbed student, making teaching almost impossible some days? What if "troubled" students are placed in your class and it takes a good seven months to get them properly identified as to their disability so they can start getting needed services. What if you have legitimate concerns over a student, but your principal doesn't see it your way, and you have to go toe to toe to get that student help. Will he or she rate you lower because you're a pita on behalf of a student? As a teacher who gets the good scores, at a school that gets the good scores, I can still see this area fraught with dangers. The question is always who judges, and based on what?

[birchtree3]

Exactly. If a doctor were paid based on how many patients he saved or lost (when he has no control over how sick a patient he is allowed to see), merit pay would not be so attractive nor would it be fair.

Who judges a teacher's merit is also a huge question. The administrator of the school , the feds, the state? How can a standard be set for every situation. Not all human beings are going to do anything at the same time in their lives......we walk, talk, run, grow at different rates all through life and the only thing you can count on all humans doing at some point is dying and even that we don't do at the same time.

Merit pay IS fraught with complications and yes, dangers and I don't say that because I am afraid of working harder. I say that because I can't work any harder than I already am..

[Tazru]

Merit Pay is a very bad idea, just for the office politics involved. Finding a decent, fair and effective metric will be very difficult.

Appreciative Inquiry.

Systems Theory

Society for Orgainzational Learning :

http://www.solonline.org/

[dperino]

Wow, a whole $3B for us? Why, thank you!

[community1]

Obama Improves U.S. Image Abroad: Poll
http://www.sefermpost.com/sefermpost/2009/07/obama-improves-us-image-abroad-poll.html

[mrskorn]

he needs just work here.

[Cognitive Dissonance]

The methodological origins of standardized tests can be traced to Francis Galton’s 19th Century work in Britain. Employing a social Darwinist, evolutionary hypothesis, he firmly believed that superior intelligence ran in upper-class families. America’s Carl Brigham, the originator of the SAT, wrote a book in 1923 called "A Study of Intelligence" echoing this eugenic model.

America’s preoccupation and culture of obsession with standardized tests, tests that tragically replicate our system of class stratification and inequality, is damaging to our kids. To base teacher's salaries on these tests posits an epic immorality and folly.

[Tazru]

Indeed! Good post.

[lainey]

As a former schoolteacher, I am all for merit pay. It was one of the reasons I left the profession--the strongest one. One should be compensated according to their ability and not their years of service. I loved the children and watching them grow, but too many staff members were content with being tenured and really didn't put much effort into teaching. Competition makes our hearts and minds a great deal stronger and that is what our children deserve...hard working, well paid teachers. It is a win-win situation for all.

[mrskorn]

I disagree. Most teachers work hard and want the best for their kids. What can happen is that they get frustrated by the corruption and lack of support from higher ups.

[Endersdragon]

I disagree. Most teachers I have ever had an have ever worked with are content to just teach the textbook 19/20th of the time, with the other 20th being watch a movie.

[Tazru]

If you were to read anything about Dr. Deming's work, or Systems Theory you would not hold that position. When you look at the bigger picture and see how things interconnect, it changes the solution set that you find.

[Jaybot]

Even should Obama and his thuggish SoE manage to strong arm these policies into place, it wont have much effect on the state of education. It wont be any more effective than NCLB. The problems with education in the US aren't systemic, they are cultural.

[Sepulchre]

It is hard to get rid of the mentality of a lot of kids in school that learning is uncool, and to make fun of or otherwise harass kids who actually try to learn. It has gotten worse and worse through the years.

[Tazru]

I agree! I noticed the trend start in the early 1980s. My High School used to be very progressive and interactive for the students, in the mid-1980s they became apathetic. We have a lot of recovery before we are out of the Dark Ages induced by the Ayn Rand crowd.

[Mikeeee]

I don't understand the states problem with education. It should always be a federal responsibility anyway to set guidelines, curriculum's and agendas. It's ludicrous to have 50 bureaucracies spending scarce dollars doing the same thing.

[Endersdragon]

Read the Constitution sometime, especcially the 10th Amendment. But beyond that, are you going to try to tell me that someone in New York City learn the exact same stuff in the exact same way as someone from Clear Lake, Iowa? I am all for making it as locally controlled as possible, for that very reason.

[1088]

The President is dragging everybody in the 21st Century, kicking and screaming. I don't really recognize this Country anymore, for people are so lazy to think bold and big. We are satisfied with not doing anything at all, because of fear.

[desertjim]

Tazru - I have to agree with you on the merit pay issue. I worked in schools with a badly administered merit pay system back in the 1960s. The principals administered the program to reward their buddies. It was bad for teacher morale and did nothing to improve education for the students.

However, charter schools are still public schools. Vouchers do not enter into the picture. In Chicago, where Arne Duncan's served as CEO of the public schools, charter schools offer alternatives within the public school system. The problem is, there is not much research available yet to indicate whether the charter schools are actually improving education. They have to be considered experimental at this point.

However, charter schools may well be an experiment worth funding. If effective new teaching techniques are developed in such schools, they will then spread to other schools in the system.

[Endersdragon]

Yea, I have met so many people who have had such positive expereience with charter schools that for me its hard to say they are a bad idea. Imagine, being a twice exceptional student, who is put into special education... there are charter schools popping up for such students. Imagine your the type of student that just wants to study the arts, same difference. I could go on and on here, but it certainly is an experiment worth considering, even if teacher's unions are deadset against them.

[Tazru]

This sounds backwards to me. Why are we going to push charter schools and "merit pay"?

To me Charter Schools means Vouchers, which means Parochiad is coming back like in the 50s and 60s Tax money will go to "religious education"

Merit Pay is problematic since the process has a negative effect on morale, not matter how good the metric used.

When I read the headline I was happy thinking we will finally get our School System out of the Dark Ages it has been in for almost three decades. I was hopeful we could begin teaching Science and Critical Thinking again.

Oh well......maybe we CAN rehabiltate the "Charter Schools", but I really doubt it.