Discussion for article #230021
Former teacher here. You have no idea how destructive NCLB has been. I warn every young person I know to stay far away from the efficiency-machine that is education today. The machine swallows up anything that tries to grow in the schools. Duncan’s approach, reformers’ approach is ideological. And whenever ideology trumps people you get systems that people later regret.
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Obama’s Educational Legacy? You mean appointing Arne “Class size doesn’t matter” Duncan to the head of the DOE, who repeatedly stated that classes in elementary schools could have as many as 60 students in them and still be successful? You mean supporting Michelle Rhee and her glorious attempts to weaken one of the few unions left in the country all in an attempt to push her own personal ideology of teaching? His Educational Legacy looks good only in comparison to the functional illiterate who occupied the office before him and instituted No Child Left Behind, probably the single biggest obstacle preventing any children from succeeding in todays’ world.
I don’t have a link offhand on the nationwide data, but here is a link that shows the US average SAT score from 2004 to 2014. Do note how terrible and absolutely pathetic that is (and how much worse Texas is).
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20141007-texas-sat-math-scores-hit-a-22-year-low.ece
No, Obama’s education legacy is not a positive one. He has nothing to fear about Republicans tarnishing it. It is already crap.
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I teach at a community college, which means I get all of the students that NCLB left behind. Let me tell you, we can see exactly how destructive NCLB has been. It is a monstrosity of the highest order, and the single biggest impediment to student success in America today. The truly gifted and talented are intentionally stunted, while those that need more help with critical thinking are prevented from getting it, instead taught nothing more than how to take that one particular test to get the school its funding.
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Being fragile isn’t the issue. What President Obama’s education policies are is a stain on his legacy. I have yet to see any untainted evidence that NCLB has done any good anywhere. The President’s education legacy would have been better had he just canned NCLB entirely and said " you folks just stumble along on your own for a while." He has done what I didn’t believe was possible & made NCLB actually worse than it was.
In Albany soon, the State Ed Dept is holding a “conversation” on testing PRESCHOOLERS (!) because things are just not bad enough yet, apparently.
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We are a nation that has gone from teaching Greek and Latin in elementary school to a nation that teaches remedial English in college.
As a former college prof—whose sister and brother-in-law teach younger kids----I cringe every time I hear about yet another “solution” to our educational problems.
The real solution is to return to basics—with additional efforts at technological knowledge—and stop trying to re-invent the wheel.
To paraphrase the late, great Frank Zappa—conservatives in America act like intelligence is some sort of hideous deformity.
And that is one of the main factors crippling education in America.
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“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”
Maximilien Robespierre.
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Obama drinks from the same well of corporate privatization as the Republicans do. Arne Duncan?
Global competition! Race to The TOP. WIN THE FUTURE!
It’s all a crock.
Obama’s Betrayal of Public Education? Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling
We live in a society in which a culture of testing, punishment and intolerance has replaced a culture of social responsibility and compassion. Within such a climate of harsh discipline and disdain for critical teaching and learning, it is easier to subject young people to a culture of faux accountability or put them in jail rather than to provide the education, services and care they need to face problems of a complex and demanding society.[14] What Duncan and other neoliberal economic advocates refuse to address is what it would mean for a viable educational policy to provide reasonable support services for all students and viable alternatives for the troubled ones. The notion that children should be viewed as a crucial social resource - one that represents, for any healthy society, important ethical and political considerations about the quality of public life, the allocation of social provisions and the role of the state as a guardian of public interests - appears to be lost in a society that refuses to invest in its youth as part of a broader commitment to a fully realized democracy.
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Speaking of legacy, bush 43 has written a book about Bush 41. In it he actually had something wise to say. I know I know it’s shocking… anyway it was about how to run a Presidential campaign if you want to actually WIN (democrats take note please). Ite advice occurs several minutes into the interview and can be found here:
It’s not particularly profound but it’s something the democrats absolutely ignored this time around to my disappointment: an organized hard ball campaign.
I think Bush’s comments on how to campaign dovetail with what Josh posted in his opinion piece yesterday (which was an excellent piece we should all read)…
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While Duncan has been terrible, PISA scores are up a bit.
I didn’t realize that simply following your predecessor’s path, even if you rebrand it, can be considered a legacy.
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I will note that a five sentence article about Joe Manchin saying a potty word, 71 comments in under two hours. Article about Obama’s educational legacy? Even an absurdist cheerleading one? Crickets.
Sigh, welcome to TPM.
Amen to that and how about adding Geography to the curriculum
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I think there has been plenty of Obama bashing by TPM today. I don’t disagree with you on NCLB. I was hoping Obama would abandon it but alas he didn’t. However, I still love this President but it does boggle the mind that a President who is so pro education didn’t do better. Considering the shit he has had to deal with, I might give him a slight pass - slight pass.
Do I have to read it or can you give us a synopsis because I do not want to contribute to Bush’s wealth by buying the book.
Yeah we know how you feel. Yada yada yada
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The interview I posted a link to is all of 8 minutes I think. It was broadcast this morning on NPR. At about the 4 minute mark Bush 43 describes a speech his Dad was supposed to give. It was a major one. But his speech writers were working on the 1st draft a day or 2 prior to delivery which allowed for no practice time (bushes needed to be “programmed” due to inability to speak extemporaneously). The disorganization showed Bush 43 that a Presidential campaign needs to focus on major policy, be organized and practiced so that it would run smoothly and not get side tracked on minutiae. This could also apply to Congressional and to a lesser extent to state races. The point I was alluding to is democrats did really poorly in their campaigns and it resulted in losing at the polling booth. Josh wrote an excellent op-ed on this yesterday and we should all read it. You can find it on the main page under the title;
The Real Challenge for the Dems
What? Are you even listening to educators across the country? NCLB is pretty much hated by everyone.
Or is it that your ObamaLove trumps our the learning environment our next generation grows up with?
And that has nothing whatsoever to do with education changing from luxury to necessity and people actually questioning why Grecco-Roman topics were held as more important than everything else, right?
Education, as I’m speaking of it, was not ever a luxury.
What I was talking about was common from the 1850s well into the 1960s.