Conn Carroll notes that Obama’s rhetoric on education sounds pretty good.
Speaking in Dayton, Ohio, yesterday, Barack Obama hit the right rhetorical notes on the current state of education in the United States:
If we want to keep building the cars of the future here in America, then we can’t afford to see the number of Ph.D.s in engineering climbing in China, South Korea and Japan even as it’s dropped here in the United States. We can’t afford a future where our high school students rank near the bottom in — in math and science among industrialized countries, and our high school drop-out rate is one of the highest in the industrialized world.
At times he even voiced conservatives themes on education reform, including:
We need a new vision for a 21st century education — one where we aren’t just supporting existing schools, but spurring innovation.
And:
Now, one one of the things that we’re going to have to do — and this is something that I know sometimes is difficult — but teachers who are doing a poor job, they’ve got to get extra support. But if they don’t improve, then they have to be replaced.
And finally:
This leads me to my final point. As president, I will lead a new era of accountability in education.
As great as all this rhetoric is, the details on how this “new era of accountability” will be brought into reality are extremely vague….Got that? Obama wants accountability, but not based off standardized tests. Instead he wants accountability based off some unidentified mechanism that has not yet even been invented.
AFAIK Obama will not support any of the free market education reforms that can actually improve school performance.
Many of Oblabla’s promises and visions seem to depend on the political equivalent of “unobtainium”.
“If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.”