Education Getting Overlooked Again

The issue of education, which is of the utmost of importance to our nations future, has struggled to make the headlines during this election cycle.  Despite the lack of attention, Barack Obama delivered a key address in Dayton today outlining his educaiton policy. In typical big media fashion, the AP jumped on just one line of the meaningful speech, saying that Obama plans to double funds for charter schools. Obama’s speech calls for more innovative schools (Innovative Schools Fund) and accountable for-profit charter schools. He said, “successful charter schools need to grow and charters that arent will get shut down.” Building on that concept, he called for quality afterschool programming, summer school and extended school days.

These are truly innovative ideas that will help the U.S. play catchup with the rest of the world. We have to play catchup because the Bush Administration neglected the education system and turned their cheek by passing No Child Left Behind. The election needs to be about real issues and not cosmetic biographical fodder. Obama has a plan for education and it should be a reason to cast a vote for him in November.

“The Greatest Scandal” in WSJ Misses Point

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal today shows how the issue of education can be twisted to blame our public schools and then offer them no help at all:

The profound failure of inner-city public schools to teach children may be the nation’s greatest scandal. The differences between the two Presidential candidates on this could hardly be more stark. John McCain is calling for alternatives to the system; Barack Obama wants the kids to stay within that system. We think the facts support Senator McCain.

The WSJ breaks it down to the school voucher system to be the “golden ticket” to educational success. The editorial goes on to praise school choice programs in D.C. (Opportunity Scholarship Program) which is a federal initiative and Philly (EdisonLearning) a private company run effort. The numbers behind the success?

A recent Department of Education report found nearly 90% of participants in the D.C. program have higher reading scores than peers who didn’t receive a scholarship…

The number of students performing at grade level or higher in reading at the schools managed by private providers increased by 6.1% overall compared to 3.3% in district-managed schools. In math, the results for Edison and other outside managers was 4.6% and 6.0%, respectively, compared to 3.1% in the district-run schools.

These figures are made to sound exemplary, but the gains are marginal at best. Then the Journal paints Obama and the Democratic Party as threatening to kill those “successful programs” at the bequest of “uniformed teachers unions.” To top it off, the editorial points out the fact that the Obama’s send their kids to expensive private schools, not willing to wait for fixes to public education.

Not only is the articles evidence shortsighted (kids respond well to good schools that are safe and have excellent resources) but it is out of touch with reality. The issue of improving public education cannot afford to be sidestepped. The Democratic Party is in favor of increased federal funding, improved teacher salaries and more early childhood education, where the real differences are made in closing the achievement gap. While vouchers and school choice systems can help with certain students, its not a magical solution, and its most certainly in need of standards reform and better accountability standards (even the Ohio Grantmakers Forum, a large school-choice support agrees on pg 37-42 in “Education for Ohio’s Future”). The WSJ is missing the point on the debate about public education… there is no one size fits all solution and shallow observations about Obama’s children prevents the real issues from being discussed.

Why are Poverty and Racism Still in America?

The idealistic, liberal 22 year-old that I am is curious as to why the richest and most powerful country in the world has such issues adjusting to the 21st century. Maybe not all people are made to fit into our capitalist system, or some people have hate constantly flowing through their veins regardless of who its directed at, but when the media and government still show blatant signs of backwardness, its quite perplexing. So much so, that our entire value system has to be called into question.

Yesterday, the Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg spoke out against the federal standard that measures poverty in the U.S. It was brought to my attention some years ago in an introductory sociology class, that the federal method used an outdated formula from the 1960’s, the Orshansky Formula, to determine if a family or individual is below the “poverty line”. This model has undoubtedly been underestimating the number of impoverished people in the U.S. for quite some time due to the raised comparative standards of living, increasing transportation and childcare costs and a broken health care system. Bloomberg outlined a new formula that New York City will use to more accurately assess the scope of the problem. It is my hope, the the federal government will also change its archaic policy for one that better reflects the bare essentials of life in America.

C'mon are you serious?

Perhaps more troubling this week, is the cover of the New Yorker Magazine, depicting Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, as a pair of unpatriotic, radical Muslims. While the magazine claimed it was trying to depict the satirical side of the right-wing attempts at undermining the Democratic presidential candidate, it is clearly a racist depiction. Both campaigns, the newspapers around the country and most Americans will agree that the cover is tasteless and offensive. The truth is that we have a black man with a very good shot and becoming the next president, and many people are secretly terrified, shocked and outraged. People look at him as a black man first, and everything else second, masking the severity of the real issues our country is facing. Until we can drop the past and accept the fact that all people are the same biological species, then we are doomed for failure.

America has came a long way, from the times of forcefully removing Natives from their ancestral lands and the slave society, to today, where CEO’s receive hugely disproportionate incomes and moms drive kids around town in their 12 mpg SUV’s. We still have quite a ways to go if we want to remain on top of the world’s power structure and it should start with a critical self-examination as soon as possible.  If we want to keep the American Dream alive, we should value all Americans equally and make this land a becon of freedom for all.