Obama’s Applause Lines on Education

teacherPresident Barack Obama’s 35-minute speech on education at Wright Middle School in Madison on Wednesday was interrupted by applause at many points, but most of the reaction was pretty low-key. Three lines drew what seemed to be more enthusiastic responses from the crowd of more than 500, most of them teachers, parents, and students at the 250-student school. Each of those lines says something significant about public sentiment and Obama administration priorities on education issues.

One: Obama said, “I’ve got to be honest, we’ve got to do a better job of moving bad teachers out of the classroom, once they’ve been given an opportunity to do it right.” His calls for recruiting higher-quality teachers and rewarding top teachers better didn’t get applause, but this line did. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a telephone interview after the speech that this didn’t surprise him — it happens wherever the president speaks about education, he said. Raising the quality of teachers, in large part by doing more to identify quality teachers (and those who aren’t) is one of the highest, but most difficult, priorities for Obama and Duncan. And moving out the ones who really aren’t good at it is especially difficult, particularly given the defensiveness of teachers’ unions when such issues come up.

Two: His call for overhauling the way testing is done nationwide. 

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Will State Education Reforms Get a Boost from Obama?

When, if ever, has a president of the United States inserted himself as directly into a legislative issue in Wisconsin as President Barack Obama is doing by visiting Madison on Wednesday? Obama’s visit to a middle school a couple miles from the State Capitol will focus on education – and it comes as Gov. Jim Doyle and others are ramping up their push for a series of educational reforms, including giving much of the power over Milwaukee Public Schools to Milwaukee’s mayor.

Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who will be with him, are firm supporters of many of the ideas being incorporated into the legislative package. Wisconsin clearly has to make changes such as these if it wants a decent chance at a share of the $5 billion in the Race to the Top money and other incentive funds Obama and Duncan will distribute over the next couple years.

It appears highly likely a special session of the Legislature will be called in November to consider the education proposals. The outcome is not clear.

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Mayoral Control: Second Thoughts? Third Thoughts?

hamletAt the Marquette Educator, Dean Bill Henk has an interesting new post on the proposed mayoral takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools.  Bill chronicles Mayor Barrett’s hesitant, on-again-off-again embrace of the proposed takeover.  Contrary to the conventional wisdom that politicians always want more power, Barrett is displaying a marked lack of enthusiasm for taking on responsibility for the schools.  Does this have any implications for the wisdom of a takeover? 

On the one hand, given both the importance and the difficulty of turning MPS around, it would be nice to see more passion, more vision, and more tenacity from the person who proposes to lead the effort.  On the other hand — well, I am reminded of Woody Allen’s old quip that he would never want to belong to a club that would have him.  We might rightly suspect that any politician who wants responsibility for MPS does not really understand the magnitude of system’s difficulties.  Perhaps the Mayor’s reservations are evidence of the sort of good judgment that will be necessary for MPS’s next leader.

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