Obama's Call to Arms on Education Reform

Obama made one of his now trademark speeches on Wednesday, throwing down the gauntlet on high-stakes testing with: "Accountability does not need to come at the expense of a well-rounded education."

In stark contrast to McCain's continued embrace of No Child Left Behind, and the nightmarish wave of fear and teaching to the test that has come in its wake, Obama again offered a nuanced approach. He didn't discard testing altogether, and it was no surprise that he put teachers first by proposing economic incentives to bring the best and the brightest into the profession. But for those watching education he did something very interesting. He took the national stage to support a specific philosophy of learning -- an integrative curriculum.

The idea of an integrated curriculum (where Arts and Physical Education are as much a part of core studies as traditional subjects like English, History, Math and Science) is well established and supported by research. Studies show that teaching Arts and PE improves academic performance, and new research links teaching social and emotional skills to a significant increase in achievement scores. But when our national priority is teaching to a single high-stakes test, there isn't much time in the school day for these and other innovative programs.

Michael Johnston, the principal of Mapleton Expeditionary High School, the school where Obama gave his speech, figured out a way to get it done. Confronted with a 50% college admissions rate for graduating seniors, he initiated an integrative curriculum and accomplished the staggering task of raising the college admission rate at his institution from 50% to 100%.

Hopefully Obama's speech, and others like it, will create enough traction to begin a national dialogue on education reform from the bottom-up; with people who have found a way to make a difference -- like Johnston, his teachers, parents and students -- an integral a part of the conversation.

Click here for the full text of Obama's speech on education.

Follow Susan Kaiser Greenland on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mindfulmom

Comments

[AdobePhsyko]

Isn't it a coincidence that the "No Child Left Behind" tests are administered and written by a company that has Neil Bush (The sleaziest of ALL the Bushs') as a "Consultant" at around $2 mil. a year ?

[Necron99]

Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence
Three times is enemy action.

Where are we on the scale after seven and a half years?

[Canadiangeezer]

I have 14 extended family siblings and we were all raised in "Narrow Circumstances" to quote an apt euphemism. Our parents were ‘grubstake’ farmers with less than complete secondary school educations. They wanted more for all of us and encouraged us all to apply ourselves in the ‘rural’ schools we attended that were very much into utilizing an integrated curriculum such as suggested by Senator Obama. The schools we attended were not the least bit ‘state of the art’ but were adeqaute physical facilities staffed with good teachers where from grades 1 through 8 the arts and physical education were as much a part of our daily studies as english, history, heath, arithmetic, mathematics and science and then as we went from primary into secondary grades 9-12 we took a continuation of basics and added literature, chemistry, biology, physics, languages, calculus, economics and industrial arts or home economics etc ….

All 14 of us went on to post-secondary education with 10 graduating college/university and the others developing­/acquiring technical or social accreditation credentials. Our children (The third generation here in a Canadian Province) have graduated University with advanced degrees. Mr. Obama has the right ideas for education and with the support of others in the field of education and with adeqaute funding supplied for teachers and school infrastructure then there may be hope for the changes needed ….. From Canada we truly hope that the American public will see that such a wise person is elected.

[KarateKid]

Obama is the only one with specific proposals. Do away with NCLB, stop teaching for the high stakes standardized test, increase pay and incentives for teachers, get back to teaching fine arts, science, history and languages, a more well rounded education that USED to be the norm in American public schools.

John McCain never took his education seriously. He only got an appointment into the Naval Academy because his father was an admiral, and partied his way to the 5th lowest graduate in his class of almost 900. Sound familiar? Just like George W. Bush, who got into Yale because of his grandfather and father, a legacy acceptance. And, of course, we know about his legendary partying, a drunken coke freak who partied his way through college.

It's little wonder education has taken a hit the past eight years and will continue to if McCain is elected. The Republicans responding here have NO leg to stand on. I travel the country for my profession, educational publishing, and have seen the sad state of our school first hand, with my own eyes. These other apologists can only refer to biased documents.

[KarateKid]

HuffPost's Pick

Don't be deceived by those who say NCLB is not a Bush program. IT IS. It was introduced in 2001 to great fanfare, a typical Republican sound bite, with billions touted to fix the public schools.

Google No Child Left Behind and become educated on the topic. The Republicans typically put up so much hurdles that many school districts did not bother applying for it. And it did nothing for the rural areas, whose schools suffer from lack of funding; because those schools don't qualify for the free lunch program, they were not deemed poor enough to qualify.

One superintendent in Flint, Michigan told me that with all the paperwork and requirements, it would take a full time person to administer the RFP (request for proposal) and they didn't have the manpower funding to do that, so they did not apply. Congress also did not fund it, especially after 9/11.

Federal funding for schools has always been a key to properly funded schools; states cannot raise enough property or sales taxes to make ends meet, and this administration has been the worst to fund schools.

Don't be fooled by the Republican apologists. The Democrats did not get enough of a majority in 2006 to override Bush veto powers. I've been in the educational publishing business for 40 years and it has never been as bad as this.

[1will]

Ted Kennedy helped write NCLB. When you leave out something that important it makes your entire post look like bullshit.

[KarateKid]

Rod Paige wrote the program and promoted the concept. He is a Republican. Your rose colored glasses are showing.

[turkeyfish]

Yes, and you seem to forget that your non-BS, BS reply also leave out the fact that the Bush administration never implemented the program with anywhere near the funds that Kennedy and other democrats were led to belive would be invested in the program. Huge amounts are redirected to corporate educational companies to the detriment of the children who were left behind.

As is become a trademark of the bush-wing of the republican party, they only believe in 9 of the 10 commandments, always leaving out the one about "not bearing false witness".

[TedMn]

To repeat, here is the voting on NCLB:

House votes May 23, 2001
-Democrats 197 yea, 10 nea
-Republicans 186 yea, 34 nea
Senate votes June 14, 2001
-91 yea, 8 nea (6 Republican neas and 2 Democrat neas)

For those who can remember, congress enacted NCLB in response to several specific, nation-spanning concerns over public education which had grown in the 1990s. NCLB was not designed to serve the interests of education employees--which is obvious--but to serve the public's interest in having strong education. As to why NCLB came about, Senator Byrd's 1997 "Rainforest Math" speech is illuminating:

http://www.stolaf.edu/other/extend/Expectations/byrd.html

[KarateKid]

This program was passed when the Bush facade of reaching across the aisle strategy was still the plan. It was early in his first term.

The bottom line is that the Republican controlled Congress failed to follow up on their lofty plans by FUNDING it properly. They did this through two methods: first, create enormous hurdles for school districts to qualify - take a look at the enormous RFP that districts had to fill out and all the pre-conditions they had to qualify for; and second, they out and out did not allocate the funds.

As for the Democratic involvement, well, all I can say is that they were duped. They signed on in good faith and Bush tricked them.

As for Kennedy "writing" the NCLB, there is a huge difference between editing it to make it less onerous and writing it. I see the Republican apologists are still defending their actions, or in this case, non action. They are all talk and no action, except to go to an unjustified war. You never hear anything but excuses for WMD. It was this war, and the money spent on it, that has caused public education to be in serious crisis. Anything these hyenas are spouting is pure, unadulterated bullshit.

[KarateKid]

Our educational system is dying. It's about time someone spoke up about it. No Child Left Behind has, and is, a disaster which has fundamentally changed the educational system for the worse.

Something has to be done before it 's too late. It might already be too late. Budget crises are everywhere. Teachers are in crisis mode daily and it is highly discouraging profession. 20,000 teachers stand to be laid off in California.

As a national sales manager for an educational publisher, I see first hand what is going on in the schools and what a disaster George W. Bush has been. It will be more of the same with McCain and the other clueless Republicans, most of whom send their children to private schools.

We cannot afford another four years of a Republican in charge. The Democrats MUST win in November, both the White House and Congress. My children are grown and no longer in school, but anyone with children still in school, especially in rural areas, cannot afford to vote Republican.

Illinois is only one of a handful of states that still require physical education. The schools are so geared to teaching reading and mathematics that other subjects are being neglected. Test prep is a cottage industry in itself. Test scores affect entire communities as good scoring schools attract movement to that community. It is really a sad situation that needs change soon.

[WASanford]

I'm going on 74 years old and I hate to tell you how many campaign promises I've heard and how few of them were kept. You just can't expect to wait for the right candidate to come along to fix these problems for you! Obama is not an educator, He's a lawyer and it's very improbable that he even sends his children to public school. You may as well be waiting for Godot.

No child left behind has failed! It has failed our children and that should be the death of it. I don't care whether or not it was properly funded, it failed! I often write to my senators and my congresswoman asking them to do away with NCLB and to just send the money to our public schools so they can fulfill their mission of educating our children. Please, join me in doing this!

[lorla]

Our education system is broken.
I applaud any educator that takes on the task of educating our children against such daunting odds.
The kids that require the most attention get the least money and supplies. Many teachers buy their own supplies because the system does not provide.
Schools are too big, and class sizes are too large. More time is spent babysitting than teaching.
I also think our system is not designed with boys in mind. In general, boys are more playful, and want to move around more. At the same time, most PE and recess is cut.
At a high school level, you fill classrooms of testosterone ignited boys who are spending half the day trying to get the attention of the girls that spend an hour a day doing their hair and looking their best.
I do not have a solution to the problem, but I do know that if we don't make our kids fall in love with learning at an early age, much of a high school thacher's job is an exercise in futility.

[1will]

Good post.
One thing I would add is our education system is a government beauracracy and many of those involved in running this beauracracy are more interested in getting ahead than educating kids.

[Bladernr1001]

Never thought I would hear it uttered on this message board...."­government bureaucracy". And you are right it is now about getting "theirs" more than educating kids. I blame this on teacher unions. When I went to school in the 70's I don't remember teachers being in a union.....it is a professional position. If my teachers were in a union then it certainly was not emphasizing a collective bargaining role.

In those days it was well known that teachers were not considered to be highly paid. But we always seemed to get enough to do the job anyway. And the education was good. I felt I received an excellent education.

Now teacher salaries are much higher but are we educating kids better....I say no.

So what has been the purpose of the teachers union?.........It certainly did nothing for the children.

[whatever2]

I agree that schools are too big and class sizes are too large. I think you can blame that on the population who refuses to fully fund schools and school administrations that wants to build bigger and bigger centralized schools that keep getting further and further away from the neighborhoods where kids live.

We need to scrap No Child Left Behind completely. Like almost everything else Bush did, it was a mistake. Time to admit that and do something to correct it.

I thought getting rid of music and PE was a mistake. I would disagree with boys needing to move around more. That was traditionally done during P.E. which was scrapped. Bring it back and impose some of the discipline that some of the kids aren't getting at home.

I think teen boys have always spent half the day trying to get girls attention and girls have always spent a lot of time on their looks. I'm not sure you can change that one very much.

[TedMn]

NCLB is not a BUSH program, never was. The president supported it, of course, and his wife (a former teacher) sure did. Education need not be a partisan issue as much as a motivated few would peg it. The record:
House votes May 23, 2001
-Democrats 197 yea, 10 nea
-Republicans 186 yea, 34 nea
Senate votes June 14, 2001
91 yea, 8 nea (6 Republican neas and 2 Democrat neas)

The core problem has long been lack of funding which dried up shortly after NCLB was approved by congress and before it was implemented in early 2002. The other side of the problem has been the education establishment itself (unions for worker protection and a particular ideology held by education academic) which opposed key aspects of NCLB from the start.

A constructive view of NCLB by the education unions and academics would sure help. 100% goals are fantasies if noble, and some language ("sanctions", "failure") should be changed. Standards and testing remain important, however, as is public reporting.

The bottom line is that NCLB is intended to serve the public, and it appears to me that my own legislators at the state and federal level thought of nothing else but public service. Their motives (bipartisan without question) were excellent in 2001, and funding can sure help make it more successful now.
This one-sided demonization of NCLB by education unions has got to be surprising to Democrats who thought (correctly) that NCLB serves the public interest. It still does.

[lorla]

I think it is unrealistic to school males and females separately. It is not how the real world operates, and we are trying to teach our children to excel in the real world.
I have heard of one school in my area that has a unique idea, that can be analyzed to see ir it has any positive impact. In the freshman year of high school, the 9th graders are taught in all male and all female classes. In the 10th grade, they flow back into regular male, female classes.
I found it interesting, because they were not in separate schools, and allows the first, transitional year, to focus on the different ways each gender learns.
I just heard about it about a month ago, but I think it is worth studying , to see if it helps to retain more boys to the point of graduation.

[TedMn]

Repealing/­overhaulin­g NCLB is very high on the NEA and AFT agendas, and eliminating testing is close to the top. AFT endorsed Hillary Clinton, not NEA; I belong to both, and I see their talking points above and everywhere else when education employees complain about NCLB.

No, not all teachers and education employees are against NCLB. I'm not, I know many others not opposed in principle to NCLB, and I've not heard deep hostility about anything but weak funding. NCLB + inadequate funding is the problem. I've not heard of any school in my region dropping arts, humaities, PE, or anything else because of NCLB. It is the funding.

Perhaps the public in Minnesota is a bit less hostile to the idea of academic standards and objective testing because we have seen these touted "alternative assessments" implemented in the form of The Profile of Learning, a trendy "research based" fiasco that was hated almost equally by teachers and the public. In comparison, standards + once-a-year testing is is clear (based on concrete academic standards), useful (results are actually used by teachers and schools), and does not create a workload. I'm not aware of NCLB promoters who think that the point of an education is to pass tests, that a passing score defines a sufficient education, or that arts, humanities, and PE are uneeded frills. Testing is a constructive measurement proven to be useful toward improving education.

[hhkeller]

Obama plays the crowd.
He still supports NCLB and the diverting of public school tax money to private schools that his church runs.
.He's got to be joking.

[1will]

Didn't Obama's good buddy, Ted Kennedy, help write NCLB?

[heal57]

Yes, he did and it's a lousy program. We all make mistakes.

[BatedBreath]

You need to work on your listening skills. I hope you're not a teacher

[heal57]

The public schools are unfit in many areas. I went to catholic school many years ago; yes, discipline, uniforms, etc. but I got a super education and we had small classes. The schools are a mess in some areas going back 40 years; YES I SAID FORTY YEARS! It gradually got worse every year. Every person I know over 55 is better educated at high school level that many graduated from college today. We need a massive rehaul of our schools.


Independen for Obama '08

[lorla]

I think every child in this country should have the same dollar amount spent per year to educate them.
Some get $7000.00 and others get double that.
Every child deserves the same resources, regardless of where they live.

[Bladernr1001]

Here, I will start the conversation:

Let's close down the Department of Education at the Federal Level. Whether you are tlaking about NCLB or any other education edict from on high none of it has been effective. Ergo pick up your marbles and go home.

Public schooling is a local function. It used to be funded soley by local property and sales taxes and that worked great for many generations. I say let's go back to that model. It seems to me the state level is even to high up and too far removed to be an effective manager of public schools.

Oh, and another thing. I hope we are all over the fuzzy touchy feely concepts that spawned the "whole" language and "whole" math movements. Had the decentrailized model still been in place this insane approach to education probably would have not infected so many school districts accross the country. It is ok to try new things but make sure they actually work before they get "rolled out".

[turkeyfish]

America's educational system needs more than warmed over philosophical arguments advanced by republicanism and libertarianism, which are essentially euphamisms for letting everyone fend for themselves, so I don't have to pay or take any responsibility.

Education needs national funding and national support for technology infrastructure that all but the wealthiest local school districts can not afford. Kids today are not merely competing with other kids in their neighboring communities. They are competing with kids around the world, who are learning concepts and technologies that weren't even invented 10-20 years ago. If you go to Japan and examine a junior high school math text, you will note that introductory ideas of differential calculus are presented. Such ideas, even in the best US schools are presented in the 11th or 12th grades, if at all. It is but one measure of just how far we have fallen behind.

Unfortunately, America can not afford to readopt a system that worked well for a largerly agricultural and manufacturing communities. Technology and the pace of research and development has made such models obsolete and non-competitive. This doesn't mean they uniformly bad or that they don't contain good ideas, but rather that education has become much more complicated. Schools and eduction needs to reflect the complexity of challenges students of today face.

What is whole math? Is that like the difference between natural or counting numbers and positive integers, which include 0?

[dadw5boys]

WELL THE NCLB ACT WAS NEVER FULLY FUNDED!

ONLY ENOUGH FUNDS FOR OFFICES AND HIGH SALARYS FOR THE POLITICALLY CONNECTED STAFF!!!!!!!!

[WASanford]

No, the money goes to the testing companies. Those tests are expensive!

[turkeyfish]

Perhaps thats part of the solution. Allow the schools to make money developing and administering standardized test, that must me national standards developed by and for the schools and their students. Except, for teacher pay, which must be increased to attract better quality teachers, get the ridiculously big profits for testing out of the system. Put that money to work for students not chimpy's brother and his cronies.

[robinrp]

So glad that Obama is bringing attention to this...as a parent of school age children I have been increasingly concerned about NCLB. This idea of teaching toward a test is a far cry from a well-rounded education; the preoccupation with tests often limits the creativity of both teachers and students and ironically leaves behind many students who struggle with the inherent restrictions of standardized testing.
In fact, I know of struggling students who were not invited to summer programs that specialized in reading or math because it was deemed that their expected rate of improvement was not great enough to merit giving those students extra help. Instead, less deficient students were chosen with the hope that their improvement would be greater and thereby boost the schools' overall test scores. I'm sure this was a budget decision, but if that is not the definition of leaving a child behind - I don't know what is...

[midwesthousewife]

If only we hadn't squandered so much money on the Iraq War, Obama could consider proposing a subsidized college education to all financial need students who qualify academically. When such an offer has been made to at-risk children in the past by local benefactors, the drop-out rate has dropped significantly and the grades have improved. When a child believes such a possibility is in the cards, they have an excellent reason to apply themselves to their studies. When they have no hope of a college education, school seems pretty meaningless.

[SaltySaltillo]

Actually, I think WE have to make this investment in education BECAUSE we squandered so much money on the Iraq War. The only way that money can get repaid is if we continue to create cutting edge jobs that fuel economic growth... you know, knowledge jobs, the kind that you get when you have educational training. Otherwise, our economic growth wont keep pace with the ever-increasing debt-service payments that are our burden for the Iraq crime.

[altohone]

I like the speech.

I would like to see provisions for those kids who fall outside the mainstream for one reason or another... provisions where kids can opt out of requirements unnecessary to their success.

Individual education plans makes more sense for them than trying to squeeze them into anything standardized.

Nothing in the speech rules that out, but it wasn't mentioned either.

[dadw5boys]

Individual palns make the student responsible to plan their furture.

[DennyCrane]

This is why Obama appeals to so many of us. He gives nuanced answers. Complex problems demand complex solutions. But most of our elected officials give the simple soundbites. They sound good at first, but later you realize how flawed they are. Take Bush's big push for more accountability. It sounds good because that's what we want. But look at how he's gone about it. Standardized tests that force teachers to teach not what kids need to know to succeed in the world, but just what it takes to pass. And the price they pay is they give up things like the arts and PE. It's no wonder our kids are so fat. When schools are cutting PE programs to free up funds to pay for teachers to teach towards a test, then of course our kids will be out of shape. It's nice to finally have a candidate who's not afraid to give the complex answer. No more dumbing down things for a dumb Americans. Talk to us like we're adults, something McCain and Hillary are incapable of doing.

[indypete]

Like you, Denny, I'm impressed by the nuance. Unfortunately, it has been proved over and over that a lot of the voters don't "get" nuance. What they "get" (and therefore what they are fed) is loaded questions, hobson's choices and quick-fix promises. Unfortunately the ones who "get" these things most efficiently vote republican and that's why we're in the mess we're in.

[aofh]

So a lot of voters are poorly educated. That is the real problem with our education system, and one that needs to be addressed most seriously. I haven't read the speech yet, but it sounds like he is providing a definition of what it means to be educated. Parents and the rest of us have to see education as more than a score-card brought home at the end of a quarter. And we need to be able to recognize when we are given hobson choices and quick-fix promises. People need to understand that education is not confined to the classroom.