Can President Obama "Reform" Public Education?

[Smarmie Doofus]

Last edited Tue Feb 12, 2013, 08:52 AM - Edit history (1)

*Should* he?

Is there anything in his background to suggest that he would even know where to start?


>>>Let’s go back in time. It’s 1971, young Barack Obama has just moved back to his native Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn (“Toot”) and Stanley Dunham. Barack has just completed 4th grade in Indonesia and has left his mother and half-sister behind in Jakarta. “It was time for me to attend an American school.” ( Dreams from My Father, p.54).>>>


SNIP


>>>>People in the trenches…. there are exceptions but not many…. will tell you that this does not work and in fact *exacerbates* all pre-existing forms of school dysfunction and corruption. People remote from the situation, especially. the high command of the school “reform” movement, don’t want to hear this. Or see it. So they don’t.

And you can’t get much more remote from a situation than the leaders of the modern school “reform” movement are from public education . The president, for example, is “batting a thousand” in this regard. Not only did he reach adulthood without having ever set foot in an American public school, he made certain that his own kids escaped that hideous fate as well. ( Until 2009, both Obama girls attended the private and exclusive University of Chicago Lab School ; in DC they are tucked away at Sidwell Friends, along with their peers, the children of the Washington political and economic elite.) But the president is far from alone. Last year in the New York Times (4/17/11) , Michael Winerip rummaged thru the bios of a dozen or so of the nation’s most prominent , self-styled school “reform” experts, none of whom whom had ever set foot —not as student , not as teacher; not as consumer, not as provider — in a single public school classroom. >>>>>>>>>

The rest: http://paulvhogan.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/pass-the-remote-obama-and-education/

[MichiganVote]

1. He's really not interested and neither is the rest of DC.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. True. Sad, demented and sick. But... alas.... *true*. n/t

[liberal_at_heart]

6. exactly.

[ananda]

3. That word "reform" is so loaded and Orwellian.

Perhaps our governments: national, state, and local would do better to simply SUPPORT the free public education that every student should be getting.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. Lots of assumptions ... many demonstrably false... built into it.

The chief one being US public ed sucks. Debunked by international comparisons using metrics that control for poverty, income disparity, etc. Most upscale leafy greens are more than happy w. their PSs.... thank you very much.


The problem is the "performance" of *urban* schools. The schools that urban KIDS attend. But how's the president going to "fix" these if he has absolutely no familiarity w. them? ( He doesn't.) And apparently doesn't even *know* anyone who has any familiarity with them? ( If he DID he could hire 'em to tell him what to do!)

I really wish the president had gone to ps when he came back from Indonesia. ( Of course... he probably would never have been president had he done so. I'll give ya that: fancy prep $chool$ give one a HUGE advantage in life in the USA. Both side can agree on that.)



>>>Perhaps our governments: national, state, and local would do better to simply SUPPORT the free public education that every student should be getting.>>>

They say that's too simplistic; it's merely "throwing money" at the problem. There must be a "better" way.

There must be something WRONG w. those teachers. ( "Who would take such a crummy job in the first place?", one can almost hear them thinking.)

[LWolf]

5. Of course not.

If he had any real intention of supporting public education, he would have appointed an actual educator as SOE.

I don't think there's any room to doubt that he's been a deformer from the beginning. I listened to him during the '08 campaign, when he told FOX news that Republicans did education better than Democrats, and that teachers weren't going to be happy with him.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Mixed messages is what I remember from '08.

Not unlike the mixed message we get right now: "We demand more accountability from teachers and schools and we must prevent schools from turning into test-prep factories."

In other words... political people are advising him on ed policy." Be out front on whatever it is people seem to "want". Even if part A of that contradicts part B." He himself has no real POV or interest.

( I don't doubt that it took place but can you link me to the 2008 Fox interview? I wanna see it.)

[LWolf]

8. Mixed messages are smart messages.

As far as covering your ass goes, anyway. I spent about 3 minutes watching the SOU last night, and heard 3 minutes of them.

Here's the link; it's a long interview, and the ed piece is way down:

<snip>

As a president, can you name a hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party line and say, "You know what? Republicans have a better idea here?"

OBAMA: Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

He starts off with regulation, of all things, and then starts in on education:

<snip>

I think that on issues of education, I've been very clear about the fact — and sometimes I've gotten in trouble with the teachers' union on this — that we should be experimenting with charter schools. We should be experimenting with different ways of compensating teachers that...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352785,00.html