Reader Lloyd Lofthouse finds President Obama’s education reforms to be as unrealistic as those of George W. Bush. The basic theory of action is to set I reachable goals and to punish those who can’t reach them.
He writes:
“The Common Core high stakes testing that judges teachers, gets them fired and public schools closed took public education systems that operated based on individual state legislation with minimum or no standards and demanded the highest possible standards that have never been achieved anywhere on earth at any time in history without building a new system and implementing it over at least an entire generation—and maybe several generations.
“Instead, what Obama did with his Race to the Top and Common Core Standards was the same as expecting a 1908 Model T Ford that’s rated at a top speed of 45 mph to suddenly hit moon rocket velocity or face failure and behind sent to the dump. And to achieve this federally UN-Constitutional mandate, Obama did nothing to replace the Model T’s engine. Nothing!”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What a sad disappointment this President has become. As someone who supported and voted for this man, I’m amazed that he has turned his back on the people and organizations that supported him. Is it stupidity, arrogance, or putting the fox in charge of the henhouse (Duncan)? A great orator; a lousy CEO.
I beg to differ. I am so sick of Obama’s worthless platitudes. After signing a multitude of petitions because cuts to Social Security keep going back on the table, I don’t believe this man is truly capable of feeling compassion towards common people.
I’m going to start getting my Social Security retirement benefits soon, since I have no pension, and I just found out that I will be getting $900 per month. This is $10,800 annually. In my urban area, basic living expenses cost well over twice this amount –but that is considered to be too much money?
This is what Obama’s administration thinks of people who have devoted their lifetimes to America’s children and have no pensions: Spend your golden years in poverty and die quickly.
Aye, aye, oh captain, my captain. I will soon be homeless and I am in poor health…
I agree, Anonymous!
Anonymous,
America needs to do more for its working people and retirees.
Hedge fund owner, Pete Peterson, recently spent one-half billion dollars in Washington, on the “Fix the Debt” campaign, which was an excuse to cut Social Security. Thanks, mainly to Democrats, and Sen. Sanders, Peterson failed.
It’s time to increase payouts form Social Security, by taxing the !% more heavily.
From what Lloyd is saying, it sounds like they changed the whole purpose of standards. The standards in my state were never written with the intention of being a rigid barrier to graduation. They were guidelines for where the typical student would be and what they would be able to do at a particular stage in their K-12 education. Even the stages were broader than grade level recognizing the variability of development and ability. Any testing/assessment was left to the local school district and most often to the classroom teacher. The state never proposed any system of overarching exams that everyone would have to pass in order to graduate. It was enough to fulfill the requirements of the local district for graduation.
In contrast, to suggest that the federal government can unilaterally demand that students perform to their arbitrary standards, so they can have bragging rights with the international community is ludicrous. Our strength has come from our individualism and a willingness to experiment. As far as I can see, the international tests have never been a good measure of creativity and innovation, so to create a set of standards like CCSS that do everything to stifle inspiration is incomprehensible. I cannot think of a model for innovation that starts with top down demands for uniformity. We have to make room for the serendipitous.
I am just so sad.
But, here is something really GREAT. A teacher friend sent this link to me. Please view. This is why I love being a teacher. The creativity of kids is amazing if we just create the space for REAL learning to happen. Think of all that these 5th grade boys learned by putting on this funny water ballet.
I too voted for Obama and am very disappointed in his tenure in the White House AND not only in education.
My fear: there is so much entrenched monied interests in DC that perhaps no one can overcome them. My own view is that he did not have the experience in politics, has a brilliant mind but was ignorant of the political situation in DC and has had to rely on people who have led him astray. I cannot see into his mind of course and the forces arrayed against him are mighty, in many areas and to play the political game? To get anything done? I see him getting gray FAST as does everyone who enters that office. I do not know what the answer might be or even if there is one. In some ways the American people are getting the message but with 5 corporations controlling 80% of the “news”, and people having to work so hard and for the real news one must dig deeply, it IS scary. One MUST keep up hope and keep working but as throughout history, that has been the case and sometimes the right does prevail. If one knows the truth, the truth can make one free. True for the individual, true for society. People a LOT smarter than me have written in depth about this.
In addition to the handful of corporations that now own the media, just “10 mega corporations control the output of almost everything you buy; from household products to pet food to jeans.” With well maintained branding of their subsidiaries and the companies they have merged with or bought out, we have “The Illusion of Choice”: http://www.policymic.com/articles/71255/10-corporations-control-almost-everything-you-buy-this-chart-shows-how
The bad joke at the bottom of the above page is that the reporter previously worked at the Clinton Foundation and there’s an ad for a Clinton article entitled, “He’s Still Got It,” when Clinton has blood on his hands for perpetuating this plutocracy and just passed the mantle on to Obama.
Obama deserves every grey hair on his head, and then some. Actually, he is more like a real-life Dorian Grey. Obama is a tool of slumlord banker Penny Pritzker, who groomed him for his Illinois state senate seat and helped him make the connections to catapult him to the Oval Office. I can almost guarantee that this cold, egotistical man is not losing a moment’s sleep over students being pushed into corporate charter schools and public school teachers losing their jobs. Obama has broken nearly every promise – single payer, warrantless spying, card check, net neutrality – which he made to ordinary Americans while he was on the campaign trail. Obama will do whatever the plutocrats want him to; after all, he has plenty of decades of life left in which he would like to earn millions himself. His selfishness and ambition has left tens of millions of Americans in the dust instead of being buoyed by “hope and change.”
It almost makes one hope that karma will visit Obama and bite him where it hurts.