Obama Gets It on Education

Barack Obama's education plan must be enacted. Throughout the presidential campaign, Senator Obama has spoken candidly and laid out workable plans to address many facets of our education crisis -- parental responsibility, early childhood education, affordability for college -- but perhaps nowhere is his aim more dead-on than his campaign for recruiting and retaining good teachers.

America's teacher attrition rate is a knife in the heart of positive reform. Despite an ongoing push for increased standardization in schools, classrooms remain fundamentally places of human interaction, places which are dependent on quality, dedicated teachers. In a system that chews up and spits out more than 50% of its recruits within their first five years on the job, something is horribly wrong.

"Alternative certification" programs like Teach for America, which drop high-achieving college grads into high-needs schools for two years are a useful band-aid, and they inject many brilliant, passionate people into the country's teaching corps.

However, idealism and energy burn out if the infrastructure to support teachers is lacking. The induction process into teaching is crucial for the long term sustainability of each teacher. A rookie year as a teacher is a grueling experience of a flavor different than any other. When I joined the New York City Teaching Fellows in 2003, I received seven weeks of summer crash course training before being dropped into chronically underserved school in the Bronx. With similarly overwhelmed colleagues and an antagonistic (obsessed with statistics) school administration, I found myself fighting the idealistic-teacher-burnout nightmare, documented in The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle. I finished the school year and resigned from teaching. (After a year away, I came back to the classroom and I'm now a high school English teacher in Washington, D.C.)

The Teach for America model is too much of a trial by fire. Too many excellent would-be teachers stay away or are turned off by the brutal initiation. Barack Obama has embraced
more supportive teacher residency programs, like the Boston Teacher Residency, which provides recruits with a 13-month (rather than 7-week) course of preparation, partnered with a university and subsidized with a living stipend. Under this model, mentored recruits will have a crucial year of in-school training under their belts before stepping up as full-fledged teachers. Reducing the learning curve and sparing new teachers the scarring crucible that so many rookies face will dramatically improve teacher quality and teacher retention. This, of course, leads to greater consistency in the classroom and higher student achievement.

Senator McCain has offered up an ideological mantra of school choice, vouchers, and a tweaking of No Child Left Behind. His education platform -- taking into account his proposed "spending freeze" -- is a joke compared to the desperately needed insight and innovation of Barack Obama's plan.

Considering our common interest in the future generations of America, Senator Obama has my vote for president.

Dan Brown is a teacher in Washington, D.C., and the author of The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle.

Comments

[elisabethkatlyn]

Dear Mr. Brown,

I am a second year TFA corps member in washington DC. I teach in SE and have 70 energetic fifth graders. I also attend graduate school at American University with 25 other second year teach for america teachers, In one of our classes this semester we read your book... this Tuesday we spent a few hours discussing our feelings on the book and on the state of education today. we would love to continue our conversation with you- we would like to invite you to our grad class (i asked the professor :). I am not sure how to get in contact with you but if you are in DC our class is Tuesday from 6-8... please get back to me and let me know if you will be able to make it! just add @gmail to my user name and you can contact me.

thank you for your time

Elisabeth

[vegas9999]

Speaking of education, this is what your 40 or 50 grand will get youhttp://www.nypost.com/seven/10222008/news/regionalnews/ivy_mag_is_lust_for_fun_134724.htm

[hardesty]

Education is one of the foundation pillars one's life is based on. I don't necessarily believe more money is the answer but I do believe teacher salaries need to be increased but based on achievement in the classroom. Then again, how can teachers be held accountable for a student's progress when that student gets little or no encouragement from the parents. Every child is unique and their education needs to be unique to their talents as well. Obama has it right when he says the parents must step up and accept responsibility for their child's education by turning off the TV and putting away the video games. The trouble is, some parents don't see themselves in this light and their children are the ones who fall behind.

[ICUP]

Both McCain and Obama are missing the real problem with public education, IDEA. This law forces schools to spend massive amounts of money to meet the "needs" of classified children. In my district, for example, we have had to pay over 50k a year for autistic children to attend special schools because a judge ruled that these schools were necessary. We also were forced to pay for a year of prep school for a classified student who did not gain addmittance to the college of his choice.

IDEA also mandates that Special Education teachers must be hired for every x number of classified students. In urban areas, students are more likely to be classified and thus money is spent on essentially useless Special Education teachers rather than on subject area teachers.

[Sparty1]

Sens. Obama and Clinton both had plans for our kids' education from the very beginning. Sen McCain said absolutely nothing about education for months. Then he wants to come up with the same lies as Bush did. The same crap that didn't work the past 8 yrs, he wants to try for another 4 yrs. Nope. We're not falling for the banana in the tailpipe trick again.

[sandpiper1]

McCain, in the last debate stated that Soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afganistan can go directly into the classroom and teach without any training. I guess to him, education is not important, he probably thinks everyone will meet a rich woman/man, marry and live the life of Riley for the rest of their lives.
McCain has no policy or issues besides Bush's failed doctrines, that' s why he's doing so poorly in the polls. Thankfully people have woken up to the fact that there's a real choice out there, someone who has ideas, policies that's inclusive and will benefit all America for the long term, and not just the few.

[Retrofuturistic]

According to Health magazine, the most stressful job in the nation is inner-city high school teacher. The job is so unhealthy for the person trying to do it, that if you don't leave, it must be because you have some kind of a mental problem that involves not being able to say no to things that are bad for you.

For those of you who are bashing the unions, the unions are not at fault. The stated objective of the Religious Right was to get rid of public schools, through vouchers and charter schools Their motive was racism and the fact that they were not allowed to proselytize in public schools. The exact same thing happened in Nazi Germany, where fascists took control of the schools and mandated the teaching of Christianity.

The reason this country is controlled by, and at the mercy of, corporations is because only 12% of people now belong to unions. Do you see any good jobs left here? No. That's because the unions have been broken.

[gabbinjane]

My sister is a Special Education teacher - and a damn good one!! The stories she tells about the ineptitude and complex, redundant and burdensome bureaucratic regulations mandated by no-load administrators, plus the appalling ignorance and mis-education of new teachers, would make your blood run cold. One definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over again, expecting to get a different outcome. Throwing more and more money at a system that is totally broken, expecting the people who broke it to fix it, falls within that definition. (Sounds like the "Bail-Out", doesn't it?)
Without meaningful competition, public schools will only get worse. Don't you think that there's something fundamentally wrong with a system that has to set up Magnet or Charter schools to provide an adequate education? Why can't ALL schools be Magnet/Charter schools? Damn the NEA - full speed ahead!! Vouchers NOW!!

[Ohg]

We live in Punking Center, Missouri. It used to be that our children did not need no education to plow the fields and hunt rabbits. But then my boy went off to college and he came back. Now we have more corn and the pheasants and quail are coming back cause the boy learned how to take care of his field and the critters at the same time. We took a pole and us rednecks in Punkin Center is voting for Obama. ................

http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/21/rednecks-for-obama/

[FirstShirt]

When the teacher's union talks Obama's lips move. Dems might want to ask why it took a republican president to enforce quality in schools that is holding teachers accountable for being professionally qualified to do their job.

[sfmama]

What Republican President would that be? I've been touring schools for my son, who will begin kindergarten next year, and no matter which school I go to, the teachers and principals all say that No Child Left Behind is a complete disaster.And they aren't all progressive, liberal, socialists, either. Bush didn't enforce quality in schools. That program is just one of his many gigantic failures.
One part of Obama's plan that appeals to me most is his focus on pre-K. My son is in a great program, and he will enter school with a considerable head start. Unfortunately, here in CA we voted down universal preschool.

[ICUP]

When will anyone hold parents accountable for their students' performance?

[Pulemerci]

Is that what he proposed on the projec the and Bill Ayers worked on?

[BlueOnBlue]

I'm all for Obama's education programs, but the real battleground for better education is at the state and local level. Republicans, who have been winning seats on school boards and in state legislatures for decades, succeeded in starving needy schools for money and dumbing down the system.

If you want a better education system: VOTE STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC ON NOVEMBER 4.

Obama can''t do it alone.

[FirstShirt]

Parents voted in the republicans for a reason. Democrats had presided over a failing educational system that followed the teachers union instead of the best interests of the children.

[BlueOnBlue]

Can you point to a single school district with a Republican dominated school board which has significantly increased school funding on a per-pupil basis since 2000?

Can you name one Republican-controlled state legislature which has increased taxes in order to increase school funding?

[Retrofuturistic]

No Child Left Behind, the biggest stupidity in recent educational history, came from Washington, not from the teachers' unions.

Parents voted in Republicans because they didn't like desegregation. That is what is behind vouchers and charter schools, and the subsequent dumbing down of America.

[Retrofuturistic]

The schools have indeed been dumbed down. The standards for academics and behavior are so low that they are nonexistent. People cannot even read or do basic math.

I think it started with the whole language approach--- it became taboo to teach phonics and grammar, and you were not supposed to make people memorize math facts. Now people know nothing about how their own government is supposed to work, they are anti-intellectual, anti-evolution, and they know nothing about history or science.

In other words, it's the perfect environment for totalitarianism and government corruption. The less informed you are, the better victim you become.

[georgiaR]

In typical liberal fashion Obama wants to pour more money into education. It is not a matter of money - we need reform. We already spend more money on education then anywhere else.

[txsarah]

I graduated ten years ago with a degree in Early Childhood Education. I taught for a year. It was a stressful unappreciated year that I would never want to repeat again. I am now in the business world with some regrets of not teaching but very few. Its my love of children and working with them as well as a passion for watching them learn and grow that makes me sometimes consider going back. Then I think about the education system and the hurdles I faced as a student teacher and first year teacher that change my mind. I think there are some wonderful teachers out there that have the heart and motivation to do great things in the classroom even with an undesirable school environment. Those are the teachers that should be singled out, rewarded, and recognized. Obama's education plan sounds very suportive and encouraging if he is elected. They are good ideas and should be strongly encouraged by all. I hope if he is elected he is able to accomplish these things for the children and teachers of America.

[Bethab]

I was a teacher for four years with a masters degree in education from a top 10 university. I was an excellent and fun math teacher (according to my students and their parents) and I just bolted from the classroom as well. Hiring great teachers means nothing when they have to work for underqualified, mean-spirited, and energy-dousing administrators. Until they manage to make education a place where new ideas are welcome...teachers will continue to leave for the private sector where their ideas and initiative are supported. If you ask most teachers who have left the classroom why they did so...I would bet that most would say something pretty similar. Good principals are the rarity...not the norm. Fix that first.

[ccwpmarcus]

I see two topics miles ahead of the rest when their impact is considered for our country's future, and education is definitely one of them.

I am a big supporter of early childhood education. From personal experience I think those years, from womb to kindergarten, helped me more than any single teacher, any year after that. I think, by its very nature, early childhood education is synergistic. It involves the education of parents as much as it does children, and can help establish those roots for continued success. I liken this situation it to preventative medicine and the types of illnesses experienced by people who lived an unhealthy lifestyle. I don't care how good the doctor that replaces that failing heart valve is, a person isn't going to have the same quality of life ever again.

I really would like to see a more detailed plan when it comes to early childhood education, bigger subsidies for head start and tax credits for day care facilities that foster environments preparing children for school. I'm not saying that better teacher compensation isn't needed, not at all. I just believe that the biggest bang for your buck can be had by educating parents and helping them provide high quality education to kids before they get to school and along the way.