Obama Defends Education Program

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Saying that reforming education is perhaps “the economic issue of our time,” President Obama went before a major civil rights organization on Thursday to defend his main education program against criticisms from some minority and teachers groups.

“It’s an economic issue when the unemployment rate for folks who’ve never gone to college is almost double what it is for those who have,” Mr. Obama said, according to prepared remarks. “It’s an economic issue when eight in 10 new jobs will require workforce training or a higher education by the end of this decade. It’s an economic issue when we know countries that outeducate us today will outcompete us tomorrow.”

Mr. Obama, in his speech before the 100th anniversary convention of the National Urban League, acknowledged “some controversy” about his education initiative, which he attributed partly to “a general resistance to change, a comfort with the status quo.” But he chose the civil rights organization as his audience to address specifically the complaints of minority groups that schools and teachers in impoverished communities and inner cities will be unfairly neglected in the competition to meet higher standards and the drive to impose accountability for students’ standardized test results.

“Our goal isn’t to fire or admonish teachers,” Mr. Obama said.

Rather, he said the “Race to the Top” program, which provides additional federal funds to local schools that meet administration standards — and a companion effort to overhaul the nation’s 5,000 worst schools — were ultimately aimed at giving good teachers higher salaries, more support, from supplies to smaller classes, and more training to provide them with career opportunities and financial rewards. About $4 billion is being invested in each initiative.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/education/30obama.html

[DJ13]

1. “Our goal isn’t to fire or admonish teachers,” Mr. Obama said.

"Thats just a side benefit."

[msongs]

2. actually, his wars are the economic issues of our times - follow the money nt

[obxhead]

3. Yet somehow making the education system a for profit system

is gonna be the magic wand to fix it all.

Let me see, where have I heard that before. Oh that's right, from every fucking Republican I've ever known.

[sendero]

4. As usual..

... Obama's flowery words are at complete odds with his actions. It just gets sickening after 8 years of Bush to have to put up with more spin on steroids.

[Fearless]

5. Your goal is apparently to alienate the neediest...

But hey who am I to suggest that selective enrollment allows charter schools to take a equitably disproportionate amount of money away from the NEEDIEST of students. I mean, I only know what I'm talking about is all...

:eyes:

[wordpix]

7. don't make sweeping untrue statements about all charter schools - I worked for one & admission was

by lottery, not by selection.

[Fearless]

8. It isn't an untrue statement. Likewise, lotteries continue inequity.

Lotteries benefit no one except those SELECT FEW chosen AT RANDOM and not based ON NEED, to receive admission. It continues the inequity it claims to fix. You STILL alienate MOST of the most neediest.

We should give our public schools the support they need to equitably treat EVERYONE of our students. Why? Because it is unconstitutional (state-based) not to. Period.

[Fearless]

9. DUP

[Jefferson23]

6. Yea Arne did such a great job in Chicago, let us allow him to proceed. n/t

[defendandprotect]

10. Taking money from public schools is a shameful idea --

if communities want charter schools, let them raise the money for them --

bankrupting public education used to be a Republican goal -- ???

[Igel]

11. His defense misses the point.

Education is a pressing issue. Lack of education accounts for much of the economic disparity in the US. He's absolutely right. That's utterly not the point of the disagreement.

Since the current system isn't working, we need change.

He tacitly assumes that his program is absolutely right and nobody in their proper mind could possibly argue with his plan--actually Duncan's, but Obama's fully behind it. There is only one kind of change that could possibly work. Obama and Duncan are the providers of this change.

The assumption of their rightness is such a deeply held assumption--at least in public--that there's no point making it overt or discussing it. It simply can't be wrong. It's impossible for it to be wrong. Therefore, the only reason to disagree with the plan is to be against the idea that education is a pressing issue.

There must be some motivation for being against the idea of reforming education for greater equality and a better society. Perhaps the opponents are just idiots. Perhaps they have ulterior motives rooted in selfishness, racism, or malice. The idiots, you'd assume, would accept the arguments, so that can't be it. Therefore, anybody who disagrees is not so much argued with but decried not on the basis of their opposition to the program, but the basis of their atrocious, evil motivations.

"If you're not with us, you're against us" concisely wedged not into 8 words, but in 800.