Whom the Candidates Listen to on Education
Clinton
President of the American Federation of Teachers Edward McElroy and his union have endorsed Clinton. Rudy Crew, superintendent of schools in Miami-Dade County, has a record of improving urban school systems. Codirector Andrew Rotherham of the Education Sector think tank (who has also advised Obama) led the White House Domestic Policy Council education team under President Clinton.
Obama
Linda Darling-Hammond is founder of the School Redesign Network. Obama's campaign team also includes Michael Johnston, cofounder of New Leaders for New Schools, which recruits, trains, and places urban school leaders. Christopher Edley, the law school dean at uc-Berkeley, is a member of the independent commission that issued recommendations last year for reforming the No Child Left Behind law.
McCain
Longtime McCain adviser Lisa Graham Keegan served as Arizona's superintendent of public instruction. McCain's education policy coordinator, David Crane, served as senior policy adviser to Sen. Trent Lott, for whom he managed Senate negotiations on No Child Left Behind. Phil Handy, the former chairman of the Florida Board of Education under Gov. Jeb Bush, helps craft McCain's education policy.
Reader Comments
Why should teachers be advisors?
Why in the world does everybody think we should take policy direction from front-line teachers? Do we develop war strategy based on the thoughts of army privates? Do we set the menu of a restaurant based on direction from line cooks? Do we set the strategy for a national business based on feedback from the outside sales staff or the accounting department?
Why anyone believes this is beyond me.
Everyone loves to get higher pay, no argument there. However, paying me even half a million a year doesn't mean I'm going to be a better teacher if I'm still denied the resouces I need to do my job and my children are denied the services they need to do theirs. Taking away recess and music doesn't make them study any harder or become any smarter, either. Also, how useful is it that out of 180 days of school, my kids are spending 67 of them sitting for mandated exams?
Educational Theory
I think Terry''s question is quite valid. So many of the people who are steering the "industry of education" are *former* teachers. Even district administrators rarely go into the classroom anymore, and only for brief "drop-ins". Drop-ins don't cut it when you want the whole picture. Also, if you're consulting and have been out of the classroom for more than five years, unless you work directly with teachers--not with administrators--consider yourself well on the road to uselessness. Your memories are not what is happening in my classroom today. If people don't listen to teachers and don't come and see who are children are, what they are doing and what their needs are and ACT ON WHAT THEY SEE, no amount of theorizing, planning, strategizing or governmental mandate is ever going to help or ever be meaningful.
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