Barack Obama lost my vote this week when he said that one of his first priorities in office will be to fund charter schools and school vouchers. He lost my vote: doesn’t he do the research, or doesn’t his research team do its job? If we stick to the (debatable) measure of test scores as the touchstone of a good education, then charter schools have, over the long term, proven to be inferior, as have vouchers. (Please note: I think charter schools can be a good thing despite lower test scores, as for example great arts charter schools.)
However, vouchers are proven losers –and people in my state, Utah, agree, as they shot down voucher legislation last year with over 131,000 signatures on a petition calling for a public vote on the measure, which was then soundly defeated.
McCain lost my vote when, in his acceptance speech, he vowed to remove bad teachers and fix a failing system. As Virginia Riley pointed out in her excellent editorial in Sunday’s Salt Lake Tribune (http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10456190), who are these bad teachers? You’ve got to read her whole editorial, but here’s a brilliant clip:
“Have we really failed? Public schools are doing everything McCain asks of us with inadequate funding, facilities, textbooks and technology. Sitting in public school classrooms are students with autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, dyslexia and a host of physical and mental challenges. There are abused children, drug addicts, pregnant girls, clinically depressed adolescents, gang members and students with myriad social and emotional issues. . . There are students from families facing economic hardships, students who are putting in 40-hour workweeks and then falling asleep in high school classrooms, students who are trying to raise younger siblings, students who are undocumented immigrants, students living out of cars and students who don’t speak English and don’t understand what we are saying to them. . . We teach them all.”
It is such a cheap and easy shot to say that schools are failing, that teachers are bad, that students are falling behind. It’s so easy to compare test results from American schools, especially inner-city schools or schools with transient, low-income, non-English speaking populations, with schools in places like Japan, smaller countries with homogenous cultures and small families. It’s an impossible comparison.
So now. . . I’ve got no one to vote for. Obama suggests that he would reform No Child Left Behind. I don’t see any suggestion of how he would do that except for his commitment to charter schools and vouchers. . . back to square one.
Seems to me, that when you get right down to it, that the politicos are all about soundbites and not solid research, when it comes to education.
September 14, 2008 at 10:45 pm |
Love the post. I am struggling with the same thing. Who do you vote for? Neither of the two are superior in my book. They are whoever or whatever sounds good at that particular time.
September 18, 2008 at 7:57 pm |
I have not heard that Obama favors vouchers. I believe his statement was that if vouchers had demonstrated success he would support vouchers, but since they have not generated success he is not in favor of vouchers. He said this in Wisconsin, the home of our nations longest voucher experiment.
He has no objection to charter schools that I know of, but he also is a strong supporter of public schools and believes in rewarding teachers with incentives to increase their knowledge of both subject material and pedagogy.
As an education activist I am quite certain what I have written here is the truth. Your comments on McCain are dead on which is why this election is a no brainer for educators. We must elect Obama.
September 19, 2008 at 12:36 am |
I completely agree! When will we have someone who has a little faith in teachers to do their job. Charter schools, vouchers, and a slap in the face. I’m thinking of writing in one of my co-workers because she would make a great president, especially when it comes to education! Besides, how do you vote for a president, when you don’t agree with either one?
September 19, 2008 at 1:38 am |
I’m not sure where Cathy thought she heard that Obama supported school vouchers, but he has been clear that he is opposed to them. Twice in the Illinois State Senate, Senator Obama voted against bills that would have created tuition tax credits for parents to use for private and parochial schools – legislation that he believed would create “backdoor vouchers.” In a major speech last July he noted, “The ideal of a public education has always been at the heart of the American promise. It’s why we are committed to fixing and improving our public schools, rather than abandoning them and passing out vouchers.”
Obama is committed to innovation within our public school system to meet the challenges of the 21st century, bringing teachers, parents, and administrators together to redesign schools, develop more thoughtful assessments, upgrade curriculum, and design programs that will work with students who are struggling. His plan proposes investments in middle and high school reforms to personalize schools and offer additional supports for students who need them, as well as summer programs for students who will benefit from enrichment and more learning time. He supports public school choice and innovation, including but not limited to charters, and would help fund and disseminate successful innovations launched by teachers, administrators, and parents in public school districts. He has pledged to invest more than $20 billion annually in PK-12 education and another $10 billion in financial aid for college attendance, giving every student up to $4000 per year in a refundable tuition tax credit. McCain’s only pledged investments are in vouchers and “virtual” on-line schools. It is clear to me that there is a huge difference between Obama and McCain, and educators should vote for Obama.
September 19, 2008 at 6:06 am |
I totally agree with Cathy that vouchers don’t improve student performance, so reading Cathy’s post sent me back to read both candidates’ platforms. I don’t understand where Cathy found Obama’s favoring vouchers. It is just not there, and I have never heard him express any support for them. Further, he has consistently opposed tuition tax credits (backdoor vouchers) in the Illinois Senate. He does support charter schools, but wants to make them much more accountable than they are now in most states–exactly Cathy’s position that there is room for innovation (like arts charters) in the educational system. Again, Illinois is a good example of a state that has very strict regulations on charters, and, as a result, the the state has a good record of closing flim-flam charters.
From my reading of the platforms and speeches/statements, the most important difference that struck me is Obama’s broad support for teachers as the key to improving education. The platform states clearly that he wants to raise salaries to attract more people into teaching, to improve teacher education, to fully fund NCLB so that schools in difficulty can get the teaching resources they need to improve, to spend $10 billion on expanding pre-school (more teachers), McCain’s platform also talks about teachers, but it is mainly about rewarding the “good” teachers and providing “choice” so that parents can escape “bad” schools, but also an explicit bias against public schooling, improving teacher education and teacher experience (he is for alternative teacher certification). So the difference between the two candidates in their views on supporting and improving teaching are GIGANTIC.
It is great to question any and all of Obama’s policy proposals, but let’s be accurate about them, and let’s put the discussion in proper perspective. Obama is the best education candidate we have had in a long time, and anyone who cares about public education and teachers should not only vote for him but organize to make sure that he wins the election.
September 19, 2008 at 10:22 am |
I echo Martin’s sentiments and am organizing a meeting for undecided voters in my neighborhood.
We at least as educators can make sure our colleagues know the facts and support Obama in this election.
September 19, 2008 at 10:25 am |
Thanks to all for the great interactions on this post. I looked back to the speech I heard and realize that your responses are right–Obama doesn’t support vouchers. However, his proposed doubling of funding for charter schools is accurate. And charter schools, like vouchers, have over time proven to be inferior, according to test scores, anyway. Anecdotal evidence about charter schools has supported my observation that charter schools do not produce good results: not as good as public schools, and critics are all over public schools for “failing.” Again, please note that I do not oppose the idea of speciality schools like arts schools, which can be splendid. My bottom line: I think the politicians don’t have a clear idea of what goes on in real public schools, every day. In most places, we struggle, but “failing” is a broad sweep of the brush that we don’t merit.
September 20, 2008 at 7:24 am |
I too agree with Linda and Martin. Cathy is unfortunately misinformed about Senator Obama’s education platform and his vision for the future of American public education. In particular I am impressed with the Senator’s deep respect for teachers and their profession. His focus on accountability has teacher leaders in the middle of efforts to transform No Child Left Behind and its narrow, standardized test score-derived prescriptions. Instead, he has teachers leading the way, developing new, more authentic assessments to inform policymakers, practitioners, and the public.
September 27, 2008 at 12:43 am |
Wow… if Obama was in support of vouchers it would be the one thing I agreed with him on – a parents right to have a choice about where to have their kids educated without the liberal indoctrination they now recieve. The same choice that the rich of America make – there must be some reason they don’t send thier kids to public schools. I would venture a bet that Obama’s kids don’t attend a public school.
Public schools are inadequately funded? I have no idea how the over-funded poor-performance of public schools continues to fly under the radar of the American tax payer. The statistics are blatently obvious that there is no correlation between funding and performance in public schools. Yet, according to teachers and education administrators we need to throw more money at the problem to fix it.
Why is getting rid of bad teachers a bad idea? Now that’s something only a teacher would understand I suppose.
McCain-Palin 2008