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Clifford Baker

Weblogg-ed » The Obama Speech - 0 views

weblogg-ed.com/...the-obama-speech

weekly_article will_richardson

shared by Clifford Baker on 05 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Clifford Baker on 05 Sep 09
     
    In the midst of all of the "uproar" over the President's planned speech to school kids on Tuesday, I keep thinking about what all of this says about schools, about what they are for, and about the perception that a lot of people in this country have of them.
Adam Babcock

Transcript: Obama's State Of The Union Address : NPR - 4 views

www.npr.org/...-obamas-state-of-union-address

education history

shared by Adam Babcock on 26 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • What we can do — what America does better than anyone — is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It's how we make a living.
  • This is our generation's Sputnik moment.
  • That's what Americans have done for over two hundred years: reinvented ourselves
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  • asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own.
  • the biggest impact on a child's success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as "nation builders." Here in America, it's time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect.
  • If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation; if you want to make a difference in the life of a child — become a teacher. Your country needs you.
Adam Babcock

The Failure of American Schools - Magazine - The Atlantic - 3 views

www.theatlantic.com/...8497

education politics

shared by Adam Babcock on 01 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • recalcitrant
  • From 1960 to 1980, our supply of college graduates increased at almost 4 percent a year; since then, the increase has been about half as fast. The net effect is that we’re rapidly moving toward two Americas—a wealthy elite, and an increasingly large underclass that lacks the skills to succeed.
  • in education, despite massive increases in expenditure, we don’t see improved results
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  • That leads too many people to suspect that poverty is destiny, that schools can make only a small difference, and that therefore we’re unable to fix this problem, regardless of its seriousness. So why try?
  • That Kafkaesque outcome demonstrates precisely the way the system is run: for the adults. The school system doesn’t want to change, because it serves the needs of the adult stakeholders quite well, both politically and financially.
  • “Listen, they’re trying to get rid of a principal in my district who runs a Democratic club for us. If you protect him, you’ll never have a problem with me.” This kind of encounter was not rare.
  • President Obama was on to something in 2008 when he said: “The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of [students’] skin or where they come from. It’s not who their parents are or how much money they have. It’s who their teacher is.” Yet, rather than create a system that attracts and rewards excellent teachers—and that imposes consequences for ineffective or lazy ones—we treat all teachers as if they were identical widgets and their performance didn’t matter.
  • The result: too few effective math and science teachers in high-poverty schools.
  • Many have candidly told me they are burned out, but they can’t afford to leave until their pension fully vests. So they go through the motions until they can retire with the total package.
  • And why give all teachers making $80,000, or more, a 10 percent raise? They’re not going to leave, since they’re close to vesting their lifetime pensions. By contrast, increasing starting salaries by $8,000 (rather than $4,000) would help attract and retain better new teachers.
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