Obama Pushes States to Shift on Education
Holding out billions of dollars as a potential windfall, the Obama administration is persuading state after state to rewrite education laws to open the door to more charter schools and expand the use of student test scores for judging teachers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/education/17educ.html?_r=1&hpMuch more work needs to be done. Many public schools have been failing for decades despite ever-increasing sums being allocated to the public education system. We think it’s vital to bring competition into that system by introducing more charter schools, by allowing parents to enroll their children in the programs they think best, and by providing tax credits and vouchers to parents of children in failing schools.
What's the difference? This is outright blackmail to get more charter schools and testing. They are blatantly trying to control the STATES' education direction.
In SC, the Republican legislature and Sanford(2 distinct entities) have ground down the public school system while pushing for charter schools and vouchers. Instead of an agressive effort to fix the public school system, they have let it go so they can point out how awful it is.
Look at states' budget cuts. What is in the first group of items to be cut? education
Even when times are not so dire, education is always on the firing line. How do you expect it to ever get better?
If they were to try this same process to get states to set up competitive health care systems, the protests would make the ones we have just seen look like starter kits for rallies.
The RW has pushed the idea of charter schools and testing as hard as they can. This is manna from heaven to them, and they will give Gawd and Jeebus credit for changing minds.
As someone pointed out, unions are great. They support us. EXCEPT the teachers' unions. I don't get it.
A lot of people like to minimize the work teachers do. Do you know why?
Because a lot of people think it is easy, and that they could walk into a classroom and take over with no problem.
If you have never taught, then volunteer to be a teacher's aide for a while. I won't even ask for you to try to be a teacher. Just work in the schools and help deal what comes up.
People rant about the bad teachers they had. I know there are bad teachers because I taught with some. Hell, I'm sure I was a bad teacher to some kids. I hope I didn't ruin too many lives.
However, do you remember a teacher who really helped you? Someone who went out of their way to give you a hand?
BTW the second paragraph above was taken from Mark Sanford's SC Governor's website.
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