As an education guy, I thought I would throw this post up for you to read this week. President Obama is challenging a core constituency with his proposals for education reform. He is calling for merit-based pay, which teacher unions oppose for obvious reasons.
This is a similar article posted on the Times web-site. Also I thought I would include this link if anyone wants to read this article from the Wall Street Journal's perspective.
It is interesting to see the President run to the right on this issue. Merit-pay and charter schools are really unpopular in the education world and he shows some gumption by supporting them.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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Eric - Terrific post topic. This goes to an idea I have been mulling for a long time. That idea is that the Democrats who have been elected in the last two decades are really a bit to the right of the party general. For example, these days a lot of persons may criticize the Bush administration for lax regulation, but the practice of leaving economic affairs alone was really a continuation of the Clinton years. Likewise, I think conservatives sometimes forget that the notion of welfare to work got a real big push under Clinton, with Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin being a prime collaborator in using Clinton era waivers that encouraged Wisconsin welfare reforms. Now Barack Obama is pushing an issue thatskews to the right of the dominant liberal side of the Democrats. That issue is the push for charter schools and a further curtailment of the public monopoly on primary and secondary education. In this matter Obama is hardly a break at all from the Bush administration. Of special note is that, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, he said nothing directly about No Child Left Behind, a law which I believe is still a sore spot with a lot of the education union lobby.
ReplyDeleteGood post and good article, I posted a similar one because, like you, I am an education kid. I also am curious on what Obama has to say about No Child Left Behind, and his opinion on charter schools was bold. Many people dont agree with the charter school idea and he pushes for more of them. Merit-pay is another tricky issue, who and how are you going to decide which teacher deserves more pay than another teacher? How will standards be developed to help make the distinction between a so-so teacher and an extraordinary teacher when we put so much emphasis on "every child is different and has different needs" in the education world? A teacher could be doing all that he or she is capable of doing, but the child still fails. However, if a merit-pay system was implemented, maybe all of these teachers who hand out worksheets and call it a day would be eliminated.
ReplyDeleteGood post.