Obama and No Child Left Behind

I have to say this first: When George Bush pushed through the No Child Left Behind Act, my school applied for a grant for an after school program. I wrote the grant--for about two hundred thousand dollars. I put in there hiring local college students to tutor the students (k-2nd graders), a teacher to monitor the tutors and a learning specialist to monitor the program.

It was a great plan--servicing every child in those three grades if they wanted to be a part of the program--and giving assistance to local college students who needed financial support to continue with their college education.

(The school where I taught is still a high poverty school where ninety-eight percent of the students receive free lunch and free breakfast. During the program we even fed them dinner. Furthermore, the area is a high crime, high gangs, high everything negative neighborhood--and I had hopes the grant would begin to change the way the community saw itself.)

When the program began--everything changed. four teachers were hired at about fifty dollars an hour, one learning specialist was hired (at the same hourly rate) and we saw twelve students--not the potentially ninety I had hoped for.

This is why I support President Obama:

"The new budget blueprint, and the recent meetings with education groups, give a look at Obama's thinking on other aspects of the law:

"_Teachers. The 2002 law said all teachers in core academic subjects must be "highly qualified" but let states define what that meant; as a result, most teachers in the U.S. are now deemed highly qualified. Instead, Obama wants to measure teachers by how much their students improve, and he wants to do a better job of making sure disadvantaged kids, who are more likely to get inexperienced teachers, get experienced ones. The budget would create a $950 million competitive grant program for teacher recruitment and retention.

"_Spending. Obama wants to make federal education spending more competitive to drive states and schools to do better, rather than relying on formulas that give states and districts a certain amount of money regardless of how well they educate kids. The president began with the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" competitive grant program created by the economic stimulus. His budget would make more K-12 spending competitive — but money from the larger programs, those for poor children and children with disabilities, still would be distributed through traditional formulas. And his budget would add another $1.35 billion to the Race to the Top program.

"_Standards. The president is pushing states to adopt tougher academic standards; his budget would give states money to align math and science teaching with higher standards. Nearly all the states have signed onto an effort by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers to develop a set of high-quality standards. The Race to the Top program also will reward states for working toward those standards."

Click here to read the entire article--Obama would overhaul No Child Left Behind By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 1