Barack Obama and John McCain both get a B+ on education from Newsweek, which asked Thomas Toch of Education Sector and Jeanne Allen of Center for Education Reform to evaluate the presidential hopefuls’ positions. Hillary Clinton gets a B-; Mike Huckabee gets a D+.
Clinton
The Stance : She has Bill bashing NCLB on the campaign trail but also pushed for more federal money to help schools give higher-quality tests. Would track every student in every grade. Wants more money for early-childhood education.The Reality Check: Allen say she’s currying favor with the largely Democratic teacher’s unions, who hate the rigid NCLB, while still backing accountability. Toch says look for her to warm up to the idea of performance pay if she’s the nominee. B-
Obama
The Stance : Wants the federal government to measure skills such as conducting research, defending ideas and solving problems. Wants schools to use test data to help shape lessons. Favors performance pay for teachers.The Reality Check: Well intentioned, but Allen warns that the skills he likes are hard to test statewide. Toch applauds efforts to test kids on thinking, not regurgitation. Performance pay, he warns, is easy to talk about but hard to execute. B+
Huckabee
The Stance : Wants to give states more power to decide the benchmarks for NCLB; eliminate test-prep factories by ensuring all kids get music, arts education, and give parents the option of transferring kids out of failing schools.The Reality Check: States set benchmarks now, says Toch, and they range from laudable to laughable. (Arkansas: the pits.) Allen says locals are often the worst culprits in bad schooling. A national barometer ensures states educate all kids. D+
McCain
The Stance : Likes NCLB but wants to change the tone: support, not confront, failing schools. He’d revamp Head Start and improve rates of high-school graduation, too. Supports the spread of charter schools and vouchers.The Reality Check: Allen applauds his stance on school choice but frets that supporting schools means coddling school boards and unions. Ensuring more kids graduate from high school is a good idea, says Toch, but how exactly do you do that? B+
CER’s PrezBlog has more on the Democrats’ positions on charter schools and vouchers.
McCain wants to support instead of confront failing schools?
That sounds pretty liberal and I don’t think it works.
Schools usually change only when you threaten to burn them down.
I’ve read through the websites of all four front-runners (sorry, can’t be bothered with Huckabee). I was struck by the impractical nature of all of the “plans”. They don’t really have plans, more like hopeful expectations.
All four of them boil down to “gee, I really think education is important and when I’m elected, I’m going to make it All Better.”
Actually, if you go by the policy statements on their websites, all four sound ridiculously naive and pandering.
Well said, Rob.
So what should candidates say about education? I have no idea. Certainly education is important, but I’m pretty cynical about anything at the federal level really being worthwhile.
Would a “hands off” policy be best? Should a candidate say, “I’m going to repeal NCLB and leave localities alone”? I guess I would like to hear that, but I suppose it wouldn’t get many votes.
I was under the impression that Obama also was in favor of supporting and funding early childhood education and, according to an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle, seems to have some sort of plan. Also, they neglected to mention that Huckabee refers to arts and music as ‘weapons of mass instruction’ on his website, which ignoring his other education ideas, makes his education platform seem just a little silly.