Day: March 12, 2010

The Educational Obama

Daily Agitator

Our children are the future of the US…that is the song being sung by everyone in Washington……and that education is the key to the return of America’s industrial greatness……if all that is true then why is it so low on the agenda?

States and cities are having a bitch of a time coming up with the cash for many needed programs….and education is the most needed and the most overlooked and abused by the very politicians that tell us that education is the number one priority…..schools are closing by the hundreds, programs are being slashed, teachers being fired and the list goes on and on…..

The NY Times is reporting on the new way of looking at education:

The new proposals could transform American education, replacing the patchwork of standards ranging from mediocre to world-class that have been written by local educators in every state.

Under the proposed standards for English, for example, fifth graders would be expected to explain the differences between drama and prose, and to identify elements of drama like characters, dialogue and stage directions. Seventh graders would study, among other math concepts, proportional relationships, operations with rational numbers and solutions for linear equations.

The Obama administration quickly endorsed the effort. Under the Department of Education’s Race to the Top initiative, in which states are competing for a share of $4 billion in school improvement money, states can earn 40 points of the possible 500 for participating in the common effort and adopting the new standards. Under current law, there is no penalty for states that choose not to participate.

All this sounds just ducky…..but I see a few problems….one, who gets to approve the textbooks?  That answer could very well influence everything….second, is this a move to make it easier for students to pass tests?  If it is, then are the children learning or just retaining info until they take the test?

As long as we are talking about it….math and science are excellent choices to focus on…..but there should also be a mandatory introduction to consumer economies and a mandatory Civics class……we want our children to have an education then make it a complete education…….just passing tests as a judge of a student is pure political bullsh*t!  If the student does not retain what is taught then what good was all the money spent?……that would be training the student NOT TEACHING!

It sucks when lobbyists can get influence for their clients and education must wait to see what is left over……crumbs from the budgetary table……IT IS DISGRACEFUL!

Is Education Under Attack?

The news is just horrible!  Education is taking it in the…….ear.  Students are graduating as idiots,  teachers are being attacked on all sides, and the money is drying up, both nationally and locally.

Recently I read a report of a town in Oklahoma where 16% of the seniors could NOT name the first president of the US……another report when asking a honor student to name the 49th and 50th state….and the answer was Hawaii and Puerto Rico…..and in ALL states the budgets for schools is stretched thin, to the point of one state looking at the possibility of a 4 day school week……

Speaking before an audience of business executives at the US Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Obama hailed the decision to fire the entire teaching and support staff at Central Falls High after they rejected demands to work extra hours without pay.

He defended such measures as critical to implementing the national strategy of Education Secretary Arne Duncan to deal with 5,000 of the nation’s “lowest performing” schools, overwhelmingly located in the most impoverished areas of the country. In order to qualify for federal funding, school districts have the option of closing a school outright, handing it over to a charter school or school management company, imposing a longer school day and other attacks on teachers, or firing the staff and rehiring only half back.

This anti-education agenda is being expanded by Obama. His administration is dedicated to carrying through the long sought program of the Republican right to gut the public schools and make decent education a privilege of the wealthy, rather than a right of all.

In order to pay for the Wall Street bailout, the administration is presiding over massive cuts in public school systems across the country, along with reductions in other vitally needed social services.

It is precisely the egalitarian aspect of public education that has long been the target of the most right-wing political forces, including free market economist Milton Friedman, who denounced the public schools as a “socialist enterprise” run by the teachers’ unions. Their repeated efforts to introduce a class-based education system, however, were rebuffed time and again by the population, which Friedman denounced for its “collectivist outlook.”

Education, one of the so-called “give a ways”, is one that the country cannot afford to destroy or underfund….the country needs an educated population….business needs it, science needs it and most of all POLITICS definitely needs it.