LITTLE ROCK — WHEN IT comes to improving education in this country, this president seems as determined as the last one to make meaningful changes-for the better. Every president these modern days seems to want to be known as the Education President. But the current occupant of the White House may actually get the nickname and have it stick. If he keeps this up.
Barack Obama isn’t afraid to stand before a teachers’ union and tell them what’s right about charter schools. Barack Obama isn’t afraid to appoint a secretary of education who knows merit pay can work, and who says so publicly. Barack Obama isn’t afraid to talk about longer school years.
The president talked about extending the school year again this week. On Monday he took to the airwaves to say American students are falling behind other kids from around the world and that schools in the United States should be open longer. On average, American kids go to school 180 days a year. Compare that to kids from Japan, South Korea, Germany and New Zealand, where kids go to school almost 200 days a year.
“That month makes a difference,” the president said. “It means that kids are losing a lot of what they learn during the school year during the summer. It’s especially severe for poorer kids who may not see as many books in the house during the summers [and] aren’t getting as many educational opportunities.”
Getting out for the summer may have made sense 100 years ago when kids were needed in the cotton fields. Kids today, however, are much more likely to spend their summers playing the Xbox. Or worse. And, yes, forgetting as much as they can, as fast as they can, from that fifth-period English class.
Why not extend the school year a month? We’ve heard the excuses, but none of them outweigh the importance of getting the best education possible, thereby improving students’ futures. And the future for the rest of us.
President Obama didn’t stop by endorsing a longer school year, bless his heart. He also said bad teachers should be fired. It’s almost as if this man had once been a community organizer in a large urban city and saw the consequences when school systems fail their students.
The president even used the words “they’ve got to go,” when talking about teachers who can’t teach. He seems to think that poor performance should be reason enough for a teacher to be let go, as it is in any other profession. Imagine that.
As is often enough the case, money is the big obstacle. But this administration hasn’t exactly been reluctant to spend. And if you want to talk about money well spent, how spend it better than on improving education? It would make better sense to spend money on keeping school districts open a few weeks longer than on taking over car companies or sending money to nonexistent congressional districts in a stimulus bill. Or is that all too reasonable?
NOW IF the president would just weigh in on Michelle Rhee and her future as chief of the Washington, D.C., schools. All it would take is a phone call. And a local one at that.
After the current mayor of Washington was defeated in his re-election bid earlier this month, rumors began that Michelle Rhee might lose her job, too. After all, she’s a real reformer, which makes her real controversial among the education establishment. She had the audacity to fire 241 teachers and put another 737 poor-performers on notice. Which didn’t sit well with the teachers’ unions. But it may have done a who-oo-ole lot of good for Washington’s students. Or at least those students who would have been assigned to a failing teacher in 241 classrooms.
The president would help reformers not in just Washington, but all around the country, if he could convince the next mayor, Vincent Gray, to keep Ms. Rhee on as schools chancellor. This president hasn’t been afraid to step into local controversies-from a misunderstanding between a policeman and a Harvard professor, to a small-time preacher threatening to burn a holy book in Florida. So why not get involved when it really matters? And for the future of children who live in Washington, D.C., keeping Michelle Rhee in office may be the best thing that happens to them in their young lives.
This president has been right on education early and often in his presidency. Will he be right, and do right, again?
Editorial, Pages 18 on 09/29/2010