These are John McCain’s words on education last night:
Education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained. But what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.
When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity.
Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucracies. I want schools to answer to parents and students. And when I’m President, they will.
The tone of the Senator’s remarks match well with the Bush administration in spite of the absence of mention of No Child Left Behind. The message was well received by the predominantly white delegates. Unfortunately for parents and educators we heard little new in John McCain’s speech last night.
4 responses so far ↓
Turner Wright // September 9, 2008 at 11:10 am |
I guess I will leave the first comment. McCain wants to give parents more choices for where they want to send their children. Don’t they have choices now? After all, every public school system has an elected board of trustees that determine how successful the students are in their school. If there are issues parents have with the quality of education their children are receiving, they can go to the monthly board meetings to address those issues. If security is an issue, they can address that too at the board meetings. The parents can even hold the board accountable by threatening to not elect them or not electing them at all. That is how democracy works. That is how we correct problems within our society, or in this case, our public school system.
However, the Republican party, including McCain, want temporary fixes. They spit out ideas that appeal to people at first glance, such as, giving parents choices. But, as usual, they fail to solve the underlying issues plaguing our public school system. How are we to solve any problems if we run away from them? Ok, I don’t like the school my child goes to and neither do several other parents. I guess I will just send my child to private school. The other parents are considering the same option, or maybe charter schools. The public school loses many students and is not receiving the funding it needs to cater to the remaining students and the problem gets worse. Before you know it, the students at that school (whose parents don’t have the option to relocate them) are merged with another school creating larger class rooms. Do you see where I am going with this?
In the mean time, parents whose children are attending charter schools and private schools are still paying taxes for the public school system. Does this make any sense?
The problem I see why we have a failed public school system in a lot of the country is because the parents are not involved with their children’s school. We need to hold our board of trustees accountable for our children’s education instead of running away from them. But, we are very busy. And thank goodness there are teacher’s unions to help address a lot of the problems parents complain about. The teacher’s unions are advocates for children’s education, their safety and teacher morale. The unions are represented by teachers who have a passion for helping our children learn the skills they need to become productive and educated adults. Without them, the public school system would be in a lot worse shape.
Vote Obama for our children’s future!
robjmur2 // September 10, 2008 at 8:58 am |
Thank you for taking the time to respond Turner. I certainly agree with your conclusion. Those who truly care that the United States should have a high quality universal public education system whose quality is not dependent on where you happen to have been born will hopefully come to the same conclusion.
Mark Cal // September 18, 2008 at 8:19 pm |
NO, Turner we don’t have the choice of where to send our children. If you can’t afford private school, then it is only the public school in your own district. I don’t understand how going to the board of trustees lets you send your kids somewhere else. I believe if a school isn’t living up to its responsibility of educating our children then why should we send our kids there. By allowing parents to choose, it makes schools compete and worker harder for students. This option will work rather than your idea of hoping that some corrupt board will fix the system. We need to force them to fix it by making them work for their students. I now have a question for you. Are you saying that teacher’s unions should have more say in the school then the parents of the students that are actually being educated? You may see his plan as running away, but I see it as giving our children hope for a better education. The public schools will be able to get their students they lose back if they prove that they can meet their educational needs.
Don’t hope for change
Vote for it McCain:Palin
James Schneider // September 19, 2008 at 7:39 am |
Why is it that no one will ever address the real problem with education. Yes there are some bad teachers out there and yes a vast number of our schools out there are run down and in bad need of repair, but the real problem is the lack of family structure. It is hard for our teachers to teach a class when just one child is distruptive and causing havoc in the classroom. That is not fair to the kids that are there and want to earn the education. A disruptive child can eat up a whole lot of teacher time and it distracts the other kids from there learning. The solutions to the problems at our schools need to start at home with parents teaching there kids some manners and respect for everyone that they meet in their lives and that education is one of the most important things in their lives. With a good education there would be less poverty and unemployment