Another Stunning Day!

Etainne's Another Stunning Day!

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following Obama

Obama's education plan scares me. One answer to one question:
I told Eclectablog that I would be looking into Obama's proposals with a skeptic eye.
I am reading the plan from Obama's site. It is a PDF that outlines his plan for education pre-K – 12.
I have questions about how he is planning to execute the plan. I see that he proposes adding more funds for pre- K and early childhood education, more access for the poor to the childcare tax credit, funding for NCLB (which I would rather see completely tossed!)" Barack Obama will expand evidence-based home
visiting programs to all low-income, first-time mothers." Is at the top of page 5. My question is why do low-income mothers need to have their homes invaded? Civil liberties, anyone? Next section is part three- teacher training and retention:" Barack Obama will create substantial, sustained Teaching
Service Scholarships that completely cover training costs in high-quality teacher preparation or
alternative certification programs at the undergraduate or graduate level for those who are
willing to teach in a high-need field or location for at least four years." This sounds unachievable to me. It seems like joining the military, but for teachers. Reading further, the goals for teacher certification are just plain invasive and use way too much government involvement. You see, for me it seems like the old Democratic ideal that they are more qualified to run our lives than we are. I do not agree that government needs to legislate every minuscule operation in the classroom, or in my home.

"Teacher preparation programs will be further strengthened if they are guided by a high-quality,
nationally-available teacher performance assessment that measures actual teaching skill in
content areas. Barack Obama will fund the development of such an assessment, which, unlike
current examinations used for licensing, will do more than merely measure basic skills and
subject matter knowledge via paper-and-pencil tests. It will collect evidence about how
prospective teachers plan and teach in the classroom, evaluate student work, and adapt their
teaching to student learning needs." He plans that all teachers would become cookie-cutter copies of each other and that we all would teach "the approved method." Big Brother? China? Not America!
I agree we need to have better retention of new teachers, but many are lost due to life-style changes like having children of their own, or divorce or what have you. Others find they cannot stand the job. Do we want to retain those teachers? I think not. The next section talks about retention of students, starting with identifying those in the middle grades most likely to become drop-outs. This critical area means a lot to me since my area has a 60.5% Graduation rate. Our students leave school w/out graduating in droves! It would be great if our students could learn to appreciate education and the possibilities it offers, but the reality is that unskilled labor that pays great and drug trafficking are a huge part of the problem here. Yea, that's a local issue, but is an issue I have to deal with in my daily life.

In the end, we need to know where the money for all of this will come from. The answer is found at the end of the document and it is not satisfactory to me.

"IX. A COMMITMENT TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Barack Obama’s early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year. He will
maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue
sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the
NASA Constellation Program for five years, using purchase cards and the negotiating power of the
government to reduce costs of standardized procurement, auctioning surplus federal property, and
reducing the erroneous payments identified by the Government Accountability Office, and closing the
CEO pay deductibility loophole. The rest of the plan will be funded using a small portion of the savings
associated with fighting the war in Iraq."
Why sponsor more science in the schools and then steal the money from the space program? The money coming from the war effort is money we already cannot afford, so it is a non-issue to 'divert' the money into education. What other parts of the government can we afford to not have so that this one issue can be solved in this manner? This doesn't work, and it would have a hell of a time passing in congress with all of the special interest groups that would be affected by this plan.

Posted: 1:25 PM, Wednesday, June 4, 2008

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