Obama Wonks It Up in Education Speech

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WP: Obama Wonks It Up in Education Speech
By Karl Vick

THORNTON, Colo. -- In his prepared speech on education, Barack Obama included a great deal to answer the charge that his campaign is long on soaring rhetoric and short on the earthbound specifics required to actually govern. For more than 20 minutes, the Illinois Democrat laced the language of uplift and challenge with the acronyms of education and reform: GEAR UP and TRIO, a proposed Service Scholarship program to replace retiring teachers, a Teacher Residency Program to recruit them at mid-career from other professions, and the Career Ladder Initiative to reward teachers who mentor others.

In a snug auditorium packed with education professionals, the loudest cheers greeted his critique of President Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative, which Obama blasted for forcing teachers and students to spend most of the year preparing for a single, high-stakes standardized test without offering sufficient resources.

But in the end, the message from the stage really did seem to be that it's about one person making a difference. It rose from the last question from the audience. A woman in the back began by observing that in America, the federal government has little to do with schools. States govern, and it's local communities that have produced the most successful innovations, such as charter schools and the Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts, known as MESA, where Obama was speaking after a 45 minute tour. "So I'm wondering what the federal government's role is, and the role of the president is, in inspiring and cultivating those kinds of programs?" the woman asked. "I think leadership and vision" -- thought went unfinished -- "but when you actually get down to policy, what role would your office play in inspiring those kinds of successes?"

Obama backed into his answer, praising charter schools and suggesting the federal government encourage innovation both by the president's "bully pulpit" and by advertising "best practices" for schools to observe and emulate. But, he went on, "this has always been a problem when it comes to education reform policies. There are always good schools in every state, in every school district and at every income level. You can go into every state and you can point to one school or five schools or ten schools that are doing a great job of educating their kids. The question we have to figure out is how do we scale up? How do we take the lessons of a great school like MESA, and have a hundred good schools like MESA?

"And there are a lot of ingredients to that, but probably the biggest challenge is making sure that we've got great educational leaders, both teachers and principals, in those schools and we've got to produce more and more of those....

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/28/by_karl_vick_thornton_colo.html