With all due respect Mr, President, your Race To the Top has been a failure, and here is where you say one thing, but the reality is that your Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan is pushing the opposite: you said, it requires everything from more challenging curriculum and more demanding parents to better support for teachers and new ways to measure how well our kids think, not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test. But its worth it - and its working. No Mr President its not working and you have the opportunity to make good on your promise to make sure that ALL children have a chance to succeed, but you need to heed the advise of real educators, experts that are trying to remind you that this policy of high stake test, closing schools based on a single test, then turning over our schools to corporation that are draining needed resources from urban school districts is not the way to have real education reforms. Testing 4 & 5 year old is not the formula for their success; teachers are trained to teach and to assess their students learning, the millions of $s going to the testing industry could be better use in enriching classroom instructions, bring back the arts, music, drama and all the wonderful things that make children develop a love for learning. Here is the President proposal on education: Five years ago, we set out to change the odds for all our kids. We worked with lenders to reform student loans, and today, more young people are earning college degrees than ever before. Race to the Top, with the help of governors from both parties, has helped states raise expectations and performance. Teachers and principals in schools from Tennessee to Washington, D.C., are making big strides in preparing students with skills for the new economy - problem solving, critical thinking, science, technology, engineering, and math. Some of this change is hard. It requires everything from more challenging curriculum and more demanding parents to better support for teachers and new ways to measure how well our kids think, not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test. But its worth it - and its working. The problem is were still not reaching enough kids, and were not reaching them in time. That has to change. Research shows that one of the best investments we can make in a childs life is high-quality early education. Last year, I asked this Congress to help states make high-quality pre-K available to every four year-old. As a parent as well as a president, I repeat that request tonight. But in the meantime, thirty states have raised pre-k funding on their own. They know we cant wait. So just as we worked with states to reform our schools, this year, well invest in new partnerships with states and communities across the country in a race to the top for our youngest children. And as Congress decides what its going to do, Im going to pull together a coalition of elected officials, business leaders, and philanthropists willing to help more kids access the high-quality pre-K they need. Last year, I also pledged to connect 99 percent of our students to high-speed broadband over the next four years. Tonight, I can announce that with the support of the FCC and companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sprint, and Verizon, weve got a down payment to start connecting more than 15,000 schools and 20 million students over the next two years, without adding a dime to the deficit.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 03:55:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015