Set Our Teachers FREE!

This is an important week in the 2008 Presidential Elections. Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina are all three conducting primaries this week that could boost, or end, the Presidential campaign hopes of one or more of the candidates in both political parties. So what does that have to do with problems in American education? Well, let me ask you a couple of questions:

• Do you know what plan your ideal candidate has for improving education in the USA?




• Should you even care if your candidate has a plan for improving education in the USA?

Well, each of the candidates knows what the statistics and the conditions are in our public schools. If they aren’t aware of what a national security risk 75% drop-out rates are, then they should be, if they plan to lead this country. But other than a few videos on YouTube.com and a throwaway comment about education occasionally, we aren’t hearing any real agendas. The topic has been barely spoken about, and then only briefly, when it was raised during a couple of the debates.

Do you know what the hot educational topic is on the campaign trail this week? Not a plan, but a lawsuit and a grassroots movement by two very powerful, rival teachers’ unions in Nevada, to affect the Nevada primary. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association are in a fierce competition to affect the outcome of the Democratic Primary in Nevada, with the AFT going so far as to sue the state Democratic Party.

While the teachers’ unions have traditionally supported the candidates on the Democratic side of the ticket, in Nevada, they are split over which of those Democratic candidates to support.

On the Republican side of the ticket, Mike Huckabee is the only Republican candidate to address the NEA, and receive an endorsement from them. Huckabee, perhaps because his sister is a teacher, is one of the few candidates who has spoken out repeatedly about his concern with falling educational standards and their effect on national security. Even Mitt Romney, who had an excellent track record with supporting higher education during his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, joins the rest of the candidates with no clear proposals. And the candidates who do mention education only emphasize pre-school and college reform, rather than a comprehensive k-12 package.

Of course, every honest citizen is concerned about terrorism threats, a sluggish (possibly dying) economy, rising food, fuel and healthcare costs, plus increasing unemployment. But we need more outspoken explanations of how the candidates propose to combat one of the root problems of those concerns - a failing public education system, where even our brightest students aren’t being adequately prepared to face the future.

Don’t you want to know how your candidate proposes to restore excellence to public education?

Brennan

Filed under: Education News