I cried with joy when Barack Obama was elected president, and I'm still with him most of the way, but I'm flat-out dismayed at how he is handling education.
Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is a non-educator businessman who basically faked his resume when he claimed to have achieved successes in running Chicago's schools -- look, you don't hire someone to do a job because he's your basketball buddy; you hire someone who's qualified and experienced (and who hasn't made false claims on his resume).
Like much of the business community, Duncan is pushing privatization, more testing and other E-Z magical-thinking miracle fixes, disdainfully squelching the views of experienced educators, people who actually have seen the inside of a classroom.
I posted about this at the time, but again aiming at new parents coming into the schools: Obama made a speech in March that assailed U.S. public schools and characterized them as lagging behind other nations -- using inaccurate inforamtion that painted an unjustifiably gloomy picture. Here's an excerpt from factcheck.org correcting some of those misstatements (emphasis mine):
... President Obama is making a case for spending more on teachers’ salaries, early education and more as part of his new agenda. We certainly wouldn’t argue that education can’t be improved, but some of the figures Obama used painted a bleaker picture than actually exists:
* The high school dropout rate hasn’t "tripled in the past 30 years," as Obama claimed. According to the Department of Education, it has actually declined by a third.
* Eighth-grade math scores haven’t "fallen" to ninth place compared with other countries. U.S. scores have climbed to that ranking from as low as 28th place in 1995.
* Obama also set a goal "of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world" by 2020. But in terms of bachelor’s degrees, we’re nearly there. The U.S. is already second only to Norway in the percentage of adults age 25 to 64 with a four-year degree, and trails by just 1 percentage point.
Echoing factcheck.org and others who think it's important to get the facts straight and not use falsehoods to disparage our schools, I agree that there's much about our educational system that needs improvement. But it's just wrong -- and damaging -- to use inaccuracies to blast our schools undeservedly.
Read the full factcheck.org commentary.
Comments
Good strike Caroline, Arne the Duncan is a national fraud; his only role as Chicago Schools CEO was to pimp for Mayor Daley, the real power in city education. Since the President knows full well that his b-ball buddy did nothing to reform the schools,the Department of Education must have a goal or mission for our children that has nothing to do with teaching and learning. When you finally figure it out, Obama will make you cry again.
So if we are second in the percentage of adults with college ,then it is proof that those who want a good education can get one. Our problem remains same as it ever was. Ho do we educate the ones who culturally have been programmed that they don't need it?
Keith, that's such an excellent and succinct way to put it. And that is what it boils down to.
Even in the story on Obama in China (NPR) today talked about how the US has such an amazing education system, even if China surpasses us in many ways, our educational system stands in the way of other countries overtaking the US in others.
Check out Yong Zhao's new book "Catching Up or Leading the Way". He points out that as we're heading toward rote tests and scores (more of the Chinese way), the Chinese are now trying to adopt the qualities that the US is more known for because the they understand that their system does not produce the creativity and innovation that drives the economy in the way that the US system does.
Irony upon ironies. I am a big Obama fan too but so disappointed in his faith in Arne. The question is how do we change this crazy course we're on?
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!