President Obama will send the outlines of an education overhaul bill to Congress on Monday, promising sweeping changes to a faltering American education system.
While short on specifics, Mr. Obama said he wants to push for more local control of schools, recognize and reward excellence among students and teachers, emphasize math and science, build better standardized tests, and in general raise expectations for American schools in the cities, the suburbs, and the country.
“Now, debates in Washington tend to be consumed with the politics of the moment: who’s up in the daily polls; whose party stands to gain in November,” Obama said in his weekly Saturday radio address. “But what matters to you – what matters to our country – is not what happens in the next election, but what we do to lift up the next generation.”
Obama went on to say: “What this plan recognizes is that while the federal government can play a leading role in encouraging the reforms and high standards we need, the impetus for that change will come from states, and from local schools and school districts. So, yes, we set a high bar – but we also provide educators the flexibility to reach it.”
Obama has already signaled he intends to use federal levers to try to improve America’s K-12 public education system, which is losing ground to some other industrialized nations and which graduates only about 70 percent of students who start high school. Blacks and Latinos are particularly affected by high dropout rates and academic achievement gaps.
Last year’s economic stimulus package included $3.5 billion to help failing schools, and the president has proposed another $900 million for states and schools districts that agree to drastically reform or close their worst schools.
(Kansas City school officials this week decided to shutter 26 public schools at the end of the academic year, though the problem that led to the decision is financial, not performance. Still, it is an indicator of the wide range of problems facing US public schools and the reform movement during a down economy.)
In Saturday’s address, Obama called for Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which in 2002 became known as the No Child Left Behind Act.
With a goal of having every child read at grade level by 2014, No Child Left Behind has been criticized by current Education Secretary Arne Duncan as “utopian” and as failing to properly reward schools for progress. One change under his proposed legislative blueprint, Obama said, would be that schools that perform well would be rewarded, while underperforming schools would face tough consequences.
A focus on education reform may be a politically astute move for the president and fellow Democrats in Congress, some of whom face difficult elections in the fall. Education reform, unlike financial regulatory reform or new environmental laws, is a kitchen-table issue that many Americans support.
“The announcement’s timing suggests Obama is looking beyond the health care proposal that still lingers in Congress, has delayed the president’s international trip next week, and threatens his party’s electoral prospects in November,” writes the Associated Press.
But the president’s decision to burn up political capital on a smorgasbord of endeavors that has little to do with bringing down unemployment may frustrate many Americans – and could backfire.
“We’re being told – and even worse, Obama and the Democrats are being told – that their narrative is not getting through … [and that] the wonderfulness of all that they’ve done is somehow not being recognized by the slow-to-catch-on masses. That’s just silly,” writes New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. “People are … losing faith that their elected representatives are looking out for their best interests.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.