September 23, 2010
Re: Chafee Just Doesn't Understand....Race to the Top
The bottom line of Race To The Top, as was No Child Left Behind ('fess up, leftie friends who oppose NCLB, that program name is you and you'd have supported NCLB if it hadn't been proposed by a Republican president) is an effort to increase academic achievement in this state. Whether, as Marc wonders, the former senator is "wary" of RTTT on its merits or to score targeted political points, does he have an alternative proposal to boost academic achievement in Rhode Island's public schools?
One hint: adding ever more money to our education budgets - more specifically, to contracts - won't get the job done. Rhode Island has decisively demonstrated this, with teacher pay in the top 20% nationally [page 37 of this PDF], student achievement in the bottom 20% and the lowest (51st) ratio of students enrolled to teacher [page 35 of this PDF].
('fess up, leftie friends who oppose NCLB, that program name is you and you'd have supported NCLB if it hadn't been proposed by a Republican president)
The mistake here I'm guessing is that you start from the supposition that Obama is a leftie, something most actual leftist find kind of comical given his continuance of numerous Bush administration policies (this being among the lease noxious). If you read left publications, you'd know that Obama's education policy is held in near universal contempt as corporatist neo-liberalism.
Russ-you're a little beyond leftist,so maybe your perspective is skewed.
Posted by: joe bernstein at September 23, 2010 8:41 PM