by Colin Lovett, PICurrent Managing Producer
As most news outlets have reported today, President Obama has given a huge speech on education reform. With all of the debate about the economy and health care, many felt education might be left out. You can see articles about his speech here and here.
But I’d like to look at some of the specific ideas he laid out and what they might mean for your community and our kids.
1. Merit pay for good teachers and the ability to fire bad teachers. Basically, the president wants to make it easier for schools to give bonus money to those who deserve it and remove problem teachers from the classroom. It’s true that teacher unions have made it harder to remove poorly performing teachers and reward good ones. The basic concern they have is “who gets to decide when a teacher is bad or good”. Is it all about test scores? If it’s not about test scores, then how? Until this concern over standards is addressed, there is not likely to be movement.
2. Allow for more charter schools and make them easier to close. This is also a touchy subject with teacher unions, which say charter schools take money away from public education. But many groups believe charter schools offer much needed educational choices, especially in poor communities. This problem also won’t move forward unless there is general agreement on standards that charter schools will be held to and if they will be different or the same from public schools.
This brings me to number three. Have you guessed where I’m going with this?
3. Encourage states to adopt better test standards. Currently, each state has the ability to make its own standards and call success whatever it wants to. One state can hold kids to a higher standard and have a slightly lower pass rate than a state with lower standards. However, the idea of more uniform national standards is likely to cause many arguments over state and local education control.
Mr. Obama acknowledged that these reforms and others will cost money, noting the extra education funding in the recent stimulus bill and promising more cash to come.
If you have a child in school, know what your options are. Take a look at one of our older posts on the ABC’s of finding the right school. Our sister site, ZipRoad, is a great resoruce for finding out more about the schools close to you.
