Obama's lesson: The president has the right focus on education
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Every good teacher knows that most complicated problems can have more than one right answer. Fortunately, President Barack Obama's plan for improving the nation's classrooms is built on the same notion.
In laying out a five-pronged plan that tackles everything from pre-school readiness to post-graduate education programs, the president aims to end what he accurately described as "the same stale debates that have paralyzed progress and perpetuated our educational decline."
His intention to start with quality preschool programs is based on solid research. Mr. Obama's stimulus plan puts $5 billion toward expanding Head Start and access to quality child care for 150,000 children from working families, which will be money well spent. A well-regarded, four-decade study of participants in a Michigan program for 3- and 4-year-olds concluded that every dollar spent for effective preschool was worth $17 in the long term, both in higher lifetime earnings for participants and in savings for society due to reduced crime rates, welfare spending and remedial education.
The second topic on the president's syllabus is ending what he called "a race to the bottom" by developing world-class standards that raise the expectations for every American child. With each state setting its own benchmarks for academic success, the president said "fourth grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming" but they're getting the same grade. Mr. Obama challenged governors and state education leaders to devise methods that measure the problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity students will need for the future.
The president didn't shy away from issues where he differs with the nation's major teachers unions, which backed his candidacy for president. So far, the unions seemed willing to work with him to figure out how to reward outstanding teachers and get bad ones out of the classroom.
He also risked crossing union supporters by calling effective charter schools examples of the sort of innovation necessary to invigorate schools and stem the nation's embarrassing high school dropout rate, but he also emphasized the importance of holding charter schools to high standards.
Finally, Mr. Obama's strategy promises help at the post-secondary level with plans to simplify the ridiculously complex federal financial aid application and increase the amount of money available to help students pay for college and technical schools.
The president has offered an ambitious and promising framework. Now it's time for educators, administrators, parents, students and politicians to get to work on this lesson plan.
First Published March 17, 2009 12:00 am
