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President Obama has come out vocally in favor of policies that are usually opposed by the Teachers’ Unions, most notably the issue of merit pay:
WASHINGTON — Challenging civil rights organizations and teacher’s unions that have criticized his education policies, President Barack Obama said Thursday that minority students have the most to gain from overhauling the nation’s schools.
“We have an obligation to lift up every child in every school in this country, especially those who are starting out furthest behind,” Obama told the centennial convention of the National Urban League.
The Urban League has been a vocal critic of Obama’s education policies, most notably the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” program that awards grants to states based on their plans for innovative education reforms. A report released earlier this week by eight civil rights groups, including the Urban League, says federal data shows that just 3 percent of the nation’s black students and less than 1 percent of Latino students are affected by the first round of the administration’s “Race to the Top” competition.
Obama pushed back Thursday, arguing that minority students are the ones who have been hurt the most by the status quo.
Obama’s reforms have also drawn criticism from education advocates, including prominent teachers’ unions like the American Federation of Teachers, who have argued that the reforms set unfair standards for teacher performance.
Obama said the goal isn’t to fire or admonish teachers, but to create a culture of accountability. He pinned some of the criticism on a resistance to change.
“We get comfortable with the status quo even when the status quo isn’t good,” he said. “When you try to shake things up, sometimes people aren’t happy.”
Obama laid the groundwork for what he called “an honest conversation” about education with comments on several recent developments that were designed as sweeteners for his mostly minority audience.
For instance, he said his goal with his domestic agenda, including the economy, health care and other priorities, is to create “an economy that lifts all Americans – not just some, but all.” That comment earned him significant applause and pleased murmurs in the room.
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Krom // Jul 29, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Our education system is critically important, so I hope we can make some progress in de-politicizing it. We need to be ditching bad teachers and bad administrators, finding something to do with students that impair the classroom experience of other students, and generally improving the critical thinking skills of students across the board. I doubt the current over-emphasis on student and teacher quantification is going to get us there.
SkepticalIdealist // Jul 30, 2010 at 10:34 pm
I don’t know the specifics of Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative. However, I do know we have a fundamental problem with the ways schools are funded. Local property taxes are too much of a determining factor to how much a certain school will get in funding. The natural result is that poor neighborhoods get poorly-funded schools, while rich neighborhoods get rich schools.
All this seems to do is attract the most qualified teachers to the already wealthy, already well-performing schools. If that is indeed the case, then this policy is taking things in entirely the wrong direction. I speak as an individual who is currently certified to teach in the state of Texas, and I believe that instead of a “race to the top”, we should reward teachers based on the students who show the most improvement. I’ve been told by educators who have a lot of experience that the rich schools are actually the easiest to teach at because if the children don’t get it their parents will simply hire tutors to make sure they get it. On the other hand, inner city school teachers need to bring their A-game every day just to keep the students engaged. Many of these kids have parents who work two jobs, so they’re not well supervised when it comes to homework, nutrition, and implementing healthy routines and sleep schedules. It’s simply a mismatch, when you compare raw test scores from these districts to the ones from the richer districts. Many of the poorer schools won’t even let the kids take books home. And yet, people always act like it’s an even-playing field, and the reason that students are failing are the fault of the teachers or the prevalence of rap music, or other such nonsense.
If Obama really wants to help boost the overall quality of our educational system, he needs to make sure that even the schools in the poorest districts get enough funding to be on par with the richest schools in the country. They need money to hire the most credentialed administrators, the best teachers, and to provide the best learning environment for children. Also, I really hope the merit pay model doesn’t apply to the actual school district. That would create a vicious circle where underfunded schools lack the resources to perform well, and then because of their poor performance they get less funding, which makes it even harder for them to perform better next time. That would be a death spiral. Of course, this is all purely speculative, I need to check out Obama’s policy outline before I can condemn or support what he’s doing. I’m just outlining what I would unilaterally oppose, and what I think would help.