McCain Speaks About Education During His Nomination Speech
Friday September 5, 2008
John McCain accepted the Republican Party's nomination for President tonight, and Education figured prominently in his speech. Here's what he had to say:
Education -- education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained, but what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice.I particularly liked when McCain was calling Americans to action and he said, "Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an -- an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed."Let's remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work. When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parent -- when it fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them.
Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have the choice, and their children will have that opportunity.
What did you think about McCain and his vision for Education? How did his speech compare to Obama's last week, in regards to Education?
Comments
The entire notion of good teachers vs. bad teachers I find rather absurd and excessively simplistic. How about an average teacher having a good day? Or a superb teacher having a mediocre week? Or a great teacher with an impossible class and they DO exist!
The children are all geniuses and ergo the teachers must be idiots although teachers are THE most educated group of people, by far, taht I have ever encountered.
Incorporate online tutors into the national curriculum. Students benefit most from one-to-one teaching and it exists NOW and is FREE to students but is relatively unknown and vastly underutilized.
McCain is very simplistic in his understanding.
Obama seems to have a more thought out approach. See In addition, I fear the day that the woman that he plucked for VP will become president.
I find it troubling that Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin, both engaged in very complex jobs, never thought education was important enough in their own lives to return and get more of it, particularly given that each had rather poor experiences as undergraduates.
In a nation where many (most?) schoolteachers are required to have or be working toward a Masters Degree, where graduate work is expected in all kinds of fields, it seems like hubris to assume that one can take on the most complex job in all America without any advanced study whatsoever.
So, any talk about education feels suspect – if a person really respects and values education, I would assume they would seek it out.
McCain sounds like McBush. How about another “No Child Left Behind” law to promote even more corporate schools? Why not blame teachers more directly for the failings of individual students? Why not administer more multiple-choice tests (the worst kind, as any trained educator knows) to measure how well students are doing? Sounds like the same old b.s. from the conductor of the b.s. express.
I am surprised Beth, that you fell for McCain’s empty rhetoric. When the last Democratic president left office: Anyone could get into a community college and move up to get a great education. The last 8 years of a Republican administration has wiped away the funding necessary for Americans to accomplish this. We need teachers. Therefore we need to see through these fake words and vote the Republicans out; so we can be a better educated people.
McCain? I am positive he’ll rather have all kids fail like he did in his academics. That will provide him with more of them to recruit into the military to fight his proposed endless war on terror in Iraq.
I am very surprised at the negative reaction to McCain’s education ideas. As a former teacher, I can tell you that Public Schools are not the answer for all families. I think that when God and Patriotism were banished from the Public Schools, we have witnessed a Big Sucking Sound as Parents (who could) started removing their children. Children need to be able to express their thoughts and feelings about God and Family – not NEA and ACLU and Planned Parenthood tenets only. We have put our money where our mouth is – and paid double for our children’s and grandchildren’s educations in order to escape the moral decline and climate of hopelessness that abounds in public schools. Our kids LOVE their schools and do not Quit!
When politicians talk about education watch out. Most haven’t been in a school, except for a photo opportunity, since they were students. They don’t know what they are talking about and it’s just a political football for them to kick around. Their time frame is from now to the next electron, or until the next issue arises. Constant tinkering and changes of mission by uninvolved outsiders are a sure way to ruin all schools. McCain should set his sights on reforming Congress and the military first. Those are institutions he can do something about and has direct knowledge and some real responsibility for. When outside “experts” like McCain urge others to become teachers I notice that they themselves don’t become teachers. They’d rather make policy than do the real work of education.
The idea that our current teacher force is qualified and competent can be argued both ways. I find that public school teachers in areas where parents insist on good schools feel pretty good about their colleagues. Those of us who have taught in inner city schools know a different reality exists there.
The real problems are the sacred cows. Poor teachers simply cannot be fired. We all know this, but this gets overlooked again and again. We pretend we have to solve the education problem without dealing with basic issues.
Another sacred cow is teacher preparation. Everyone knows the undergraduate courses are a joke. It is the easiest area of study to enter. Even the masters and doctorate in education are not real degrees compared to other academic disciplines. An M.Ed and an M.A. are not the same thing. Isn’t it obvious that we allow teachers to enter the work force less prepared than others?
Then there is teacher licensure. The tests are not even geared toward a 12th grade education. Shouldn’t teachers be able to work at the college level? We all know that if we insisted on this we would lose so many teachers that a crisis would occur.
And the sacred cow of the right to a public school monopoly that refuses to recognize the value of competition in the form of vouchers fits the same pattern. The fear of letting parents choose the best schools for students does not suggest that schools themselves are confident about the job they are doing.
So teacher receive an inferior education, take oversimplified tests and can’t be fired for poor performance. Clearly there is a problem.
Of course parents are the main problem. All children in the US have access to education and parents who insist on their children doing well usually get that result in any school system. But that is a separate issue and those of us who teach cannot control this factor.
Of course there are good teachers–thousands of them. But the system is designed to allows incompetent teachers to blend in with them.
Other professional occupations have tranformed themselves. Physicians used to be at the bottom of the occupational ladder,and they deserved to be–a few hundred yeas ago when they were basically unsanitary butchers who killed as many patients as they helped. But they submitted to scientific methods and got better, much better at what they did. Now they police themselves–not perfectly, but they do insist on a certain standard of professionalism. I think teachers have the opportunity to do the same.
I’m sceptical Senator McCain can really change schools. Since when can a federal government really impact what happens in the classrooms in my neighborhood? But his ideas are on the right track.
Rick
I tell my kids that I will never let their schools get in the way of their education (I know I stole that! but don’t tell them)”Educated” people are not the ones with advanced degrees, they are the people who have committed to a lifetime of learning. Many of the poorest thinkers I have met have been professors who’s critical thinking skills are at the level of a 14 year old. College is not synonymous with learning anymore than age is with wisdom.
America needs to get back to basics in education. The teachers need proper evaluation and seasoning. College programs are failing to deliver because of lower standards. A study of how Japanese, Chinese, and South Korean schools can give us the direction we need to take. There’s more to learn from them than the special interest groups we’ve been taking directions from.
Yes, try to enjoy whatever you do. More ideas on elementary education are found on http://www.K5Stars.com.
I feel the Rick said things best when he pointed out that teachers cannot be fired. Of course there are bad teachers. No matter what the career choice there are always people in the field that are not cut out for the position. In most cases they get fired and find a new line of work.
I could not agree more with every point the Rick had to make.