obama’s most recent failure
it is incredible that obama’a campaign was based on change coming to washington because my assessment of his work is decidedly unimaginative and status-quo. new york times published on its front page an article detailing states rush to adopt national educational standards. and although i don’t reject out of hand national standards, the obama administration is simply continuing the bush agenda of applying the hyper-capitalist business model to the public education system. it is seems as if obama is doing this because he simply lacks the knowledge to make a change in educational policy, or what is more likely is mr hope and change truly believes in the same failed policies of his most recent predecessor (it wouldn’t be the first time).
the philosophy in short is that schools and their employees will be punished for lack of student performance and rewarded for student success. success will be defined by the all knowing federal government issued standards and tests. thus mr hope and change is saying that all we have to do is get tough with teachers and presto our public school system is thriving. poverty, racism, sexism, and classism don’t have anything to do with student performance? how about student apathy? family involvement? is it simply that we don’t have strict enough punishment for out teachers? this is an obvious political copout by the obama and bush administrations alike. it is simply an adoption of politically marketable to drop phases like “accountability in our schools” then bring actual change and hope to the communities that need it most.
what is truly unfortunate about obama’s “race to the top” campaign is seeing the state governments scramble for a small piece of the 3.4 billion dollars that will be awarded if they follow all the rules being set by the federal government. it is almost like watching pidgins scramble for bread crumbs. often states largest budget outlay is education and in this time of financial stress mr hope and change is shifting our education system to the far right just like his bush before him.
in the end obama’s legacy will show this glaring and obvious hypocrisy. the money the feds are putting up to “fix” our public education system is only a tiny fraction of the money we just spent on keeping our financial services industry solvent. yet the money that we are offering to the states for education is contingent on a number of stipulations that push the public system toward running our schools like a business (we see how well that is working in the health care industry). the money that went to the financial services industry has little of no strings, and on top of that we seem to be trusting the bankers and layers (not to mention the right-wing philosophy) to get us out of the financial mess that they themselves caused. the real irony is we also seem to be relying on the same group of union busting bankers and lawyers to fix our education system.
it seems as if our government under obama isn’t changing a thing when it comes to education. in fact i don’t see any change at all he just seems to be accelerating the mediocrity that pervades our youth.