Transitions

With Baby New Year 2009 still in the toddler stage, it's time for another transition. This time, we say good-bye to President George W. Bush and say hello to President Barack Obama. CNN shows us how the logistics of the move, down to placing presidential cereal and peanut butter in the kitchen, is accomplished in just six hours.

Every four to eight years, for the past 220 years, we've been performing this peaceful transition of power. While for many Americans, this inauguration is a special day of hope, change, and renewal, in general we tend to take this civil exercise for granted. In some countries, there is no hope for transitions of power, peaceful or not.

Thank you to 43 for your service to your country. And a big welcome to the game for 44. May God bless each of these men, and the United States of America.

Now it gets interesting...

Obama's Education Agenda

Obama Elected 44th President
The Democrat’s agenda includes expanding preschool, recruiting teachers, increasing funding for charter schools, and amending the No Child Left Behind Act.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, whose campaign platform laid out an expansive agenda for pre-K-12 education, will have the chance to fulfill those promises when he takes office Jan. 20 as the 44th president of the United States.

The Democratic candidate, who defeated Sen. John McCain of Arizona in a hard-fought campaign that concluded Nov. 4, said he would expand federal preschool programs, “recruit an army of new teachers,” and provide scholarships to college students and to professionals from other fields who promise to pursue careers in teaching. The president-elect also has said he would work to change the No Child Left Behind Act, building on the federal law’s accountability measures designed to improve student achievement, and would double federal funding for charter schools.

But with budget pressures driven by deep troubles in the financial markets and in the broader economy, the Obama administration may have difficulty generating public support for the campaign’s ambitious education agenda and the spending needed for the programs in it.

The president-elect alluded to those problems in a speech shortly after Sen. McCain called him to concede the election.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term,” said Mr. Obama at a rally in Chicago’s Grant Park.

But Mr. Obama said in the past month that he considers education an important ingredient for addressing the country’s long-term economic problems. In the Oct. 8 presidential debate, he rated education as a priority on a par with expanding access to health care, reforming entitlement programs, and developing new forms of energy.

“We’ve got to deal with education so that our young people are competitive in a global economy,” Mr. Obama said in that second debate with Mr. McCain, held in Nashville, Tenn. He made a similar statement in an interview with CNN shortly before the election.

Expanding Federal Role
President-elect Obama campaigned on a wide-ranging education platform that would expand the federal role in preschool and in teacher recruitment, retention, and compensation, in particular.

His platform proposed to spend $10 billion a year to create grants to help states offer universal preschool and expand existing programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start.

Complete Election Coverage

As part of Mr. Obama’s proposals to improve the quality of teaching, he would offer scholarships to college students and midcareer professionals to pay for costs of undergraduate and graduate studies that would prepare them to enter jobs in the classroom. The president-elect also would create residency and mentoring programs to help beginning teachers, particularly those who work in schools with the most challenging learning environments.

The most significant—and perhaps most controversial—section of his education plan is to underwrite federal efforts to experiment with teacher pay plans that deviate from traditional salary scales, which set teachers’ pay based on their years of experience and levels of educational achievement.

Mr. Obama and his education advisers said throughout his two-year campaign for the presidency that an Obama administration would support efforts to link a portion of teachers’ pay to the achievement gains of their students.

He has said that such pay experiments would need to be negotiated with teachers. That could be hard to do, given teacher unions’ opposition to pay plans that differ from the traditional pay system. Despite disagreement on that issue, both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Mr. Obama for president.

Growing Democratic Majority
To enact his education agenda, Mr. Obama will be working with a Democratic majority in Congress than is larger than the current one.

In the House, Democrats will gain at least 18 seats with the outcome of at least one race still unclear, according to the Associated Press. The House had 235 Democrats and 199 Republicans going into the election, with one vacancy.

After last night’s election, the Senate will have at least 54 Democrats plus two independents who currently caucus with the party. The outcome of races in four states was still unclear, according to the AP. The Senate now has 49 Democrats and the two independents.

The top education issue facing the president-elect and Congress is the renewal of the NCLB law.

Now that the Democrats control both the executive and legislative branches, they will have to reconcile differences within their party on education in order to get a reauthorized version of the NCLB law, said Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization.

He said Democrats would be looking to the new Obama administration to set priorities for the law. Republicans, particularly in the House, are likely to become more conservative and seek a reduced role for the federal government in education, he said.

“I’m confident that [Democrats] will resolve the differences among themselves,” said Mr. Jennings, who served as an aide to Democrats on the House education panel from 1967 to 1994. “I don’t think there will be deep divisions because of the moment, because of the political demands of the time. … Democrats have been out of power for so long they understand that they have their chance now. It isn’t a permanent chance, they could lose it, [the] moment means they have to govern correctly.”

The nearly 7-year-old law, which is one of President Bush’s most important domestic accomplishments, is overdue for reauthorization. Its critics, who span the political spectrum, say it requires states to do too much testing and make accountability decisions based primarily on the results of those tests.

The law requires states to assess students in grades 3-8, and once in high school, in reading and mathematics. The law’s accountability measures kick in for schools and districts that are not on pace to meet the law’s goal that all students be proficient in reading and math by the end of the 2013-14 school year.

President-elect Obama said during the campaign that he supported the NCLB law’s goals, particularly the one to narrow gaps in achievement between minority and white students. He said he believes that the law hasn’t received enough federal money, and that he would work to improve the quality of tests used under the law so they measure higher-order thinking skills.

“We also have to fix the broken promises of No Child Left Behind,” Mr. Obama said in a Sept. 9 speech in Riverside, Ohio. Among the problems with the law, he said, are inadequate funding and lack of support for schools failing to make its achievement goals.

But, Mr. Obama added, “I believe that the goals of this law were the right ones.”

The Morning After

Here's links to the vote totals from Bucks County and Morrisville specifically.

The ambulance company tax increase was approved by a 2:1 margin.

Obama Biden

Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

We remember the racial ugliness of the 60s and the civil rights marches and last night's election completes a mighty circle. It is a major step ahead toward the color-blindness that a modern society needs to function in an equitable manner.

We were lucky this time around. Each side had their doubts about the candidate from the other party. The truth is that John McCain would have been an equally able occupant of the Oval Office. If only all of our electoral contests were choices between two able persons. How many times have we chosen the lesser of two evils only to find that we chose evil anyway?

The times, they are a'changing.

How is Voting in Morrisville?

Any stories from the front lines of the election?

Kids Vote

From the BCCT. Kids voting taking place in area schools, including Morrisville.

Students get chance to have votes counted
Students have been gearing up for the mock election with events like “Rock N’ Rap the Vote” at Everett A. McDonald Elementary School.
By JOAN HELLYER

Students from across Bucks County and Eastern Montgomery County will converge on Kids Voting booths today to show what they’ve learned about the U.S. election process.

The kids will participate in a nationwide mock election staged at actual polling places between 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. where adults will cast real ballots in the presidential, congressional and state office races.

The non-partisan project is aimed at encouraging students to be informed voters and engaged citizens once they are eligible to vote, organizers said. It also serves as a way to make sure the kids’ parents exercise their right to vote.

In the days leading up to the election, students have participated in mock debates, elections and other activities like the “Rock N’ Rap the Vote” event staged Monday at Everett A. McDonald Elementary School in Warminster.

Fifth-graders at the Centennial school hosted the combination of mime, poetry, dance, skits, song and mock debate for their fellow schoolmates to help them learn the evolvement of voting rights in the U.S.

This is the first election in which students in the lower end of Bucks County are participating in the Kids Voting mock election by penciling in mock ballots.

In some cases, like in the Morrisville School District, Kids Voting booths are set up in each polling place.

But in other districts, there are only a few Kids Voting places set up. If that’s the case, students can go to any Kids Voting station in their district to cast their mock ballot, irrespective of where their parents are registered to vote, said Richard Coe, executive director of Kids Voting Southeast PA.

In Bensalem, students can cast a Kids Voting ballot in several locations, including mock polling places set up at Cornwells and Russell C. Struble elementary schools and Cecelia Snyder Middle School, organizers said.

Additionally, Kids Voting booths will be set up in each of Bristol Township’s elementary schools, and at Neshaminy’s Joseph Ferderbar Elementary School in Lower Southampton and Oliver Heckman and Herbert Hoover elementary schools in Middletown.

Students in the Bristol and Pennsbury school districts already cast their ballots during mock elections staged in their schools within the past week. An estimated 100,000 Kids Voting ballots are expected to be tallied during the 2008 election cycle, Coe said. In the last presidential election, students voted, much like a majority of registered voters, in favor of re-electing incumbent George W. Bush to a second term as president.

Preliminary results from Kids Voting mock elections staged over the past week in area schools show Democratic candidate Barack Obama with a commanding lead over John McCain.

Project organizers expect to know by Thursday the final results of the 2008 Kids Voting Southeast PA mock election.

Polls Open NOW Until 8:00 P.M.

Non Sequitur's reminder for today.



Voting Tips, from the BCCT.

Polling places

Hours are 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Voters in line by 8 p.m. must be permitted to cast ballots.)

Find your polling place at www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us. (Your polling location may have changed if you received a new voter registration card in the mail. Be sure to check the card before you vote.)

If you’re told you aren’t on the voter rolls and you believe you should be, ask to talk with the judge of elections at your poll, or speak with a representative of your political party. Also ask for a provisional ballot, which allows you to vote while your status is determined.

Only voters appearing at a polling place for the first time must show identification, such as a driver’s license, passport, utility bill or paycheck.
Voting machines

To learn to use Bucks’ voting machines, view video and sample ballots online at www.buckscounty.orgwww.buckscounty.org.

When you make all your selections in the voting booth, be sure to recheck. Make sure your entries are exactly as you intended before you exit.

Push the green vote/record button. Be sure it records by checking that the screen clears and the machine makes a ding noise, which can be hard to hear.

If you notice a problem or have a concern, immediately alert the judge of elections at the poll.

If half or more machines in a polling place go down officials must issue emergency paper ballots. (In a polling place with three machines, the ballots must be used when two machines go down.)
For more information

Bucks County Board of Elections, 55 E. Court St., Doylestown, 215-348-6154 or elections@co.bucks.pa.us

Some services are available at the Government Services Center: Lower Bucks Center, 7321 New Falls Road, Levittown, 215-949-5800

Attire
In Bucks County, voters are encouraged not to wear political attire, but even if they do, they can still vote.

Unofficial results
In Bucks County, www.buckscounty.org

Problems?
For polling place problems, in Bucks call 215-348-6154.
For registration questions, in Bucks call 215-348-6170.
Or, call the national Election Protection hot line, 1-866-OUR-VOTE
The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania also released the following voter resources:

To report complaints of election fraud or voting rights abuses, call Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Barrett at 215-861-8420 and 215-861-8200.

The FBI will also receive calls on allegations of election fraud, intimidation, suppression and other election abuses. Call 215-418-4000.

Complaints about ballot access problems or discrimination can be made to the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section in Washington, D.C., at 1-800-253-3931 or 202-307-2767.

For voter intimidation or suppression tactics that target voters on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin, contact the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section at 202-514-3204.

One last look at the candidates? Go to phillyburbs.com/election08/

Source: Bucks County government; Coalition for Voting Integrity, votingintegrity@aol.com

Voters Guide

Don't forget that Election Day is Tuesday. The polls are open from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM

It doesn't work unless YOU get out, and VOTE. This is a link to a video from Steven Spielberg and a large group of very recognizable Hollywood stars.

Not sure how this works? BucksCounty.org has a "Voting 101" website.

Not sure how to use the machines? Check out the explanation and video from BucksCounty.org.

Not sure who is running? There's more than the Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin fight for the White House. Here's a sample ballot for Morrisville residents, including the ambulance company tax hike. [Page 3 of the PDF file.]

Not sure where to vote? VotesPA.com can show you the way. Enter your address, and one of the four Morrisville ward polling places will appear.

Morrisville 1st, Morrisville Senior Citizens Center, 31 E Cleveland Ave
Morrisville 2nd, Morrisville Library Building, 300 N Pennsylvania Ave
Morrisville 3rd, Capitol View Fire Company, 528 N Pennsylvania Ave
Morrisville 4th, Grandview Elementary School, Grandview Ave

What should I bring with me? All voters who appear at a polling place for the first time must show proof of identification. Approved forms of photo identification include:

* Pennsylvania driver's license or PennDOT ID card
* ID issued by any Commonwealth agency
* ID issued by the U.S. Government
* U.S. Passport
* U.S. Armed Forces ID
* Student ID
* Employee ID

If you do not have a photo ID, you can use a non-photo identification that includes your name and address. Approved forms of non-photo identification include:

* Confirmation issued by the County Voter Registration Office
* Non-photo ID issued by the Commonwealth
* Non-photo ID issued by U.S. Government
* Firearm Permit
* Current utility bill
* Current bank statement
* Current paycheck
* Government check

If you do not bring your ID on Election Day, vote with a provisional ballot.

Don't leave without voting!

In addition to proper identification, you may choose to bring the following items with you to the polls:

* A list of the candidates on the ballot and who you plan to vote for

What NOT to Bring:

* Weapons or firearms
* Alcohol or drugs

Having problems? Ghostbusters can't help, but here's where you can get assistance:

Bucks County Board of Elections
55 E. Court St.
Doylestown, PA 18901
Board of Elections - 215-348-6154
elections@co.bucks.pa.us

Lower Bucks County
7321 New Falls Road
Levittown, PA 19055
Phone: 215-949-5800

Now the only thing missing is you.

From the UK: Education and US Presidential Elections

Here's a view of the US presidential race from the UK side of the pond from the Guardian. Education and critical thinking skills are the basis we use for choosing the leaders we deserve, not the leaders we need.

I'm not completely convinced by his theory. It's very much biased to a liberal point of view, but there's no denying that he hit on the problem: "Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is notorious for its failures."


How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington
The degradation of intelligence and learning in American politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies
George Monbiot, The Guardian, Tuesday October 28 2008

How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama was a Muslim and a terrorist?

Like most people on my side of the Atlantic, I have for many years been mystified by American politics. The US has the world's best universities and attracts the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage.

There have been exceptions over the past century - Franklin Roosevelt, JF Kennedy and Bill Clinton tempered their intellectualism with the common touch and survived - but Adlai Stevenson, Al Gore and John Kerry were successfully tarred by their opponents as members of a cerebral elite (as if this were not a qualification for the presidency). Perhaps the defining moment in the collapse of intelligent politics was Ronald Reagan's response to Jimmy Carter during the 1980 presidential debate. Carter - stumbling a little, using long words - carefully enumerated the benefits of national health insurance. Reagan smiled and said: "There you go again." His own health programme would have appalled most Americans, had he explained it as carefully as Carter had done, but he had found a formula for avoiding tough political issues and making his opponents look like wonks.

It wasn't always like this. The founding fathers of the republic - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and others - were among the greatest thinkers of their age. They felt no need to make a secret of it. How did the project they launched degenerate into George W Bush and Sarah Palin?

On one level, this is easy to answer. Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on earth, one adult in five believes the sun revolves round the earth; only 26% accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of US voters cannot name the three branches of government; the maths skills of 15-year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD. But this merely extends the mystery: how did so many US citizens become so stupid, and so suspicious of intelligence? Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason provides the fullest explanation I have read so far. She shows that the degradation of US politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies.

One theme is both familiar and clear: religion - in particular fundamentalist religion - makes you stupid. The US is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing.

Jacoby shows that there was once a certain logic to its anti-rationalism. During the first few decades after the publication of The Origin of Species, for instance, Americans had good reason to reject the theory of natural selection and to treat public intellectuals with suspicion. From the beginning, Darwin's theory was mixed up in the US with the brutal philosophy - now known as social Darwinism - of the British writer Herbert Spencer. Spencer's doctrine, promoted in the popular press with the help of funding from Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and Thomas Edison, suggested that millionaires stood at the top of a scala natura established by evolution. By preventing unfit people being weeded out, government intervention weakened the nation. Gross economic inequalities were both justifiable and necessary.

Darwinism, in other words, became indistinguishable from the most bestial form of laissez-faire economics. Many Christians responded with revulsion. It is profoundly ironic that the doctrine rejected a century ago by such prominent fundamentalists as William Jennings Bryan is now central to the economic thinking of the Christian right. Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian evolution and accept the pseudoscience of social Darwinism.

But there were other, more powerful, reasons for the intellectual isolation of the fundamentalists. The US is peculiar in devolving the control of education to local authorities. Teaching in the southern states was dominated by the views of an ignorant aristocracy of planters, and a great educational gulf opened up. "In the south", Jacoby writes, "what can only be described as an intellectual blockade was imposed in order to keep out any ideas that might threaten the social order."

The Southern Baptist Convention, now the biggest denomination in the US, was to slavery and segregation what the Dutch Reformed Church was to apartheid in South Africa. It has done more than any other force to keep the south stupid. In the 1960s it tried to stave off desegregation by establishing a system of private Christian schools and universities. A student can now progress from kindergarten to a higher degree without any exposure to secular teaching. Southern Baptist beliefs pass intact through the public school system as well. A survey by researchers at the University of Texas in 1998 found that one in four of the state's state school biology teachers believed humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at the same time.

This tragedy has been assisted by the American fetishisation of self-education. Though he greatly regretted his lack of formal teaching, Abraham Lincoln's career is repeatedly cited as evidence that good education, provided by the state, is unnecessary: all that is required to succeed is determination and rugged individualism. This might have served people well when genuine self-education movements, like the one built around the Little Blue Books in the first half of the 20th century, were in vogue. In the age of infotainment, it is a recipe for confusion.

Besides fundamentalist religion, perhaps the most potent reason intellectuals struggle in elections is that intellectualism has been equated with subversion. The brief flirtation of some thinkers with communism a long time ago has been used to create an impression in the public mind that all intellectuals are communists. Almost every day men such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly rage against the "liberal elites" destroying America.

The spectre of pointy-headed alien subversives was crucial to the election of Reagan and Bush. A genuine intellectual elite - like the neocons (some of them former communists) surrounding Bush - has managed to pitch the political conflict as a battle between ordinary Americans and an over-educated pinko establishment. Any attempt to challenge the ideas of the rightwing elite has been successfully branded as elitism.

Obama has a lot to offer the US, but none of this will stop if he wins. Until the great failures of the US education system are reversed or religious fundamentalism withers, there will be political opportunities for people, like Bush and Palin, who flaunt their ignorance.

Education Policy: McCain and Obama

From CQ Politics, a comparison of the Obama and McCain education initiatives.

Welcome to CQ Politics' guide to the policy positions, voting behavior and public statements of Barack Obama and John McCain. Notes, Votes and Quotes provides a serious and non-partisan examination of Obama and McCain's stands on the key issues of the day; what they propose to do as president; how they have voted in the Senate, according to CQ's unparalleled coverage of congressional voting behavior; and what they have said about these issues. We'll continue to add new issues until the election, so check back regularly.

Education

NOTES: Obama's education proposals include increasing funding for Head Start; amending the Bush administration education law known as "No Child Left Behind"; doubling funding for federal charter schools; recruiting new teachers, particularly in math and the sciences; and offering a $4,000 college tuition credit for any recipient who agrees to complete 100 hours of community service.

NOTES: McCain supports increased school choice proposals, including a voucher system. He would pay bonuses to teachers who agree to work in the most troubled schools. He supports alternative routes to teacher certification. McCain says his proposals would give more control to parents, teachers and principals.

VOTES: Obama in 2007 was one of 79 senators who voted for a bill to cut government subsidies to student loan firms by about $20 billion and redirect most of the money to aid for students and college graduates. The bill also increased the maximum Pell grant award by $1,090 over five years. McCain missed the vote. (Senate Roll Call Vote 326, Sept. 7, 2007)

VOTES: McCain in 2001 voted for No Child Left Behind, as did 86 other senators. Obama was not a U.S. senator at the time. (Senate Roll Call Vote 371, Dec. 18, 2001)

McCain in 1998 was one of 59 senators who voted for to allow individuals to contribute up to $2,000 a year of after-tax funds in tax-sheltered savings accounts to use to pay educational expenses. (Senate Roll Call Vote 169, June 24, 1998)

QUOTES: "This probably has more to do with our economic future than anything and that means it also has a national security implication, because there's never been a nation on earth that saw its economy decline and continued to maintain its primacy as a military power. So we've got to get our education system right. Now, typically, what's happened is that there's been a debate between more money or reform, and I think we need both." (Barack Obama at 3rd presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Oct. 15, 2008)

"So what I want to do is focus on early childhood education, providing teachers higher salaries in exchange for more support. ... Charter schools, I doubled the number of charter schools in Illinois despite some reservations from teachers unions. I think it's important to foster competition inside the public schools." (Barack Obama at 3rd presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Oct. 15, 2008)

"Where we disagree is on the idea tha we can somehow give out vouchers -- give vouchers as a way of securing the problems in our education system." (Barack Obama at 3rd presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Oct. 15, 2008)

"The main components of my education agenda at the federal level are to, number one, adequately fund federal mandates like No Child Left Behind or special education, to free up resources at local school levels so that they can do more with the money that they have. Number two, to provide billions of dollars in funding for early childhood education programs, so that kids are getting prepared when they start school. Number three, providing additional money to hire, retain and train excellent teachers, which is probably the single biggest determinant as to whether children do well in school." (Barack Obama remarks at campaign event in Zanesville, Ohio, July 1, 2008)

QUOTES: "Now as far as the No Child Left Behind is concerned, it was a great first beginning in my view. It had its flaws, it had its problems, the first time we had looked at the issue of education in America from a nationwide perspective. And we need to fix a lot of the problems. We need to sit down and reauthorize it." (John McCain at 3rd presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Oct. 15, 2008)

"Education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained, but what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice. Let's remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work." (John McCain acceptance speech at Republican National Convention, Sept. 4, 2008)

"When a public school fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children. Some parents may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private school. Many will choose a charter school. No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity." (John McCain remarks to National Urban League National Conference, Aug. 1, 2008)

"We need training -- job training and education programs for those that have lost their jobs and those that are in danger of losing their jobs, training and education programs that work. And there are training and education programs that work, utilizing our community colleges to help those people get back into the economy." (John McCain remarks at campaign event in Miami, Fla., June 6, 2008)

Campaign 2008: Education

From the Inquirer

Karen Heller: Health, education foremost for voters

By Karen Heller Inquirer Columnist

In an economy that resembles a natural disaster - except that it was man-made and avoidable - Americans are concerned about health care and higher education, and how they're going to pay for them.

These are universal concerns. Without health or education, we can't go forward. We can't even tread water. Education is the great equalizer and the biggest key to financial advancement and independence, far more than race, ethnicity, country of birth, or your parents' financial situation.

Educated citizens land better jobs, ones with health insurance. A healthy, educated country is a more prosperous one. If that's elite, we should all be for it.

When Americans are uninsured and sick, they drain the entire system. We all end up paying for it. And the nation suffers.

During the Republican National Convention, education came up maybe twice. You can't have the "best workers in the world," as both candidates claim, without educating them well.

Otherwise, you don't simply leave a child behind, you leave a nation.

The McCain campaign rarely mentions education. On health care, it applies the same marvelous free-market applications that got us into this fiscal disaster. The campaign is too busy fighting community organizers and former domestic terrorists, who often amount to the same thing. Who knows, they could be anywhere. I attended the same school as Bill Ayers' wife, in the neighborhood where they live. Possibly some errant terrorist dust rubbed off on me.

Show Me the Signs

Here's a short story from the BCCT about McCain signs being removed from a Morrisville homeowner's property.

Respect for the other person's political viewpoint and rational discussion of that viewpoint is at a premium in general, but in Morrisville, it's an ancient art that is almost extinct.

Vote for McCain. Vote for Obama. Vote third party if you want. Just make sure to VOTE.

And leave the signs alone.

Joe Hurchick of Morrisville shows where someone came onto his property at Jefferson Ave and stole his McClain for President signs. Signs were stolen all along Jefferson Ave down to Pennsylvania Ave.
“People can vote for whoever they want to,” Hurchick says,”but I don’t like people coming onto my property and stealing my signs.

Obama-McCain on education

From the Harrisburg Patriot News/pennlive.com

Both want more school accountability
Sunday, September 28, 2008
BY JAN MURPHY
Of The Patriot-News

When it comes to educating children in classrooms, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama have presented voters with a clear choice on some key issues.

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, supports school vouchers that would give parents money to move their children to a better performing school.

Obama, his Democratic opponent, generally doesn't support vouchers. But he is supportive of charter schools and putting federal aid into expanding public school options.

Obama wants the federal government to fully fund the No Child Left Behind law, which seeks to bring all students to math and reading proficiency in six years. Many educators say the government hasn't provided the money to meet the law's requirements.

McCain would prefer to build on No Child Left Behind and direct some money now going to schools directly to students for tutoring.

Obama wants to move toward voluntary universal preschool, a goal shared by Gov. Ed Rendell. McCain looks to expand Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income children.

But the two candidates hold similar views on other issues.

Both call for increased accountability measures on failing schools. Obama advocates meaningful report cards on their children's progress. McCain speaks of giving school principals greater control of funds and holding them accountable for raising student achievement.

Both candidates want to reward top teachers and those who take jobs in urban areas. Both speak of increasing the number of charter schools. Both have called for stepping up federal support of special education, which Pennsylvania has sought for years.

Obama's plan, laid out over 20 pages, invests heavily in early education and school readiness and extends to higher education, where he offers $4,000 in exchange for community service.

McCain's nine-page plan invests far less new money in educational programs, redirects aid to individuals rather than institutions, and targets $500 million of current funds to build virtual schools and develop online courses.

His virtual-school program and Obama's innovative-schools fund could help Pennsylvania, which recently launched a study of creating a state-run virtual high school.

To people such as Jim Testerman, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the choice as to which would be better for Pennsylvania is clear. It's Obama all the way.

"McCain's answer to everything is privatize it," Testerman said. "He really has no interest in taking public education and improving it. His interest is in just destroying it and let the wealthy kids go to private schools."

Obama wants to restructure the weakest parts of No Child Left Behind such as removing the emphasis of punishing underperforming schools and assessing students beyond just math and reading tests. Testerman likes Obama's emphasis on small class sizes and early education, both initiatives that Rendell has promoted. And he favors Obama's support for providing more aid for college.

McCain is the obvious choice to Eugene Hickok, a former state education secretary and a former political science professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle.

"If I had to summarize McCain's approach, it really is about empowering families, empowering students, empowering teachers as opposed to funding the system," Hickok said. "That doesn't mean he's against funding the system, but his argument is we need to rethink the system."

Goldsboro parent Gale Mitchell, a registered Democrat, said she is torn about which candidate to support when it comes to education.

"With all this economic situation, I don't know that either of them will be able to deliver on what they are saying they can do," she said.

No Child Left Behind

Parents and educators interviewed for this story agreed that President Bush's signature education law has done some good. It has forced districts to examine the performance of all students, including those with special needs or limited English proficiency.

"But kids are being tested to death. It's just crazy," said Cheryl Desmond, a Millersville University education professor. Neither of the candidates is "really looking at what No Child Left Behind has done to schools in terms of the emphasis on these incredibly high-stakes tests."

Kathy Swope, the president of the Lewisburg Area School Board, has two complaints about the law: the penalties that schools face if they don't improve -- such as leadership changes -- and the law's failure to recognize special-education students' circumstances. She said she has yet to hear what the candidates would do to address them.

Swope dislikes McCain's plan to pay parents directly for tutoring instead of giving it to schools, which takes away schools' control while still holding them accountable for student learning. She is not enthralled with the targeted funding that both candidates espouse.

"Neither platform ... [allows] individual districts the opportunity to tell the federal government what our needs are and funding those needs. That concerns me," said Swope, an undecided Republican.

School choice

The willingness of Obama and McCain to support options to traditional public schools delights Larry Jones, president of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools.

"I think Senator Obama and Senator McCain both are showing school choice does not have to be an enemy of public schools. It can actually be one of the saving graces," said Jones, CEO of the Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School in Philadelphia.

Jones, a Democrat, said he can see a distinction between the two candidates' views.

Obama supports public school choice, particularly in underperforming districts. He advocates creating a fund to help states and districts create public school options such as charter schools, theme-based schools and career academies that could be partially supported with private sources.

McCain embraces public and private school choice, including school vouchers.

"Parents deserve a choice in the education of their children," McCain said at the Republican convention. "And I intend to give it to them."

None of this school choice sounds good to Kim Loch, a parent of three children in the West Shore School District.

"It doesn't fix what's wrong with our public schools," said Loch, a registered Republican. "It leaves kids who don't have an option in failing schools."

Susan Haesseler, dean of Messiah College's School of Education and Social Sciences, said her concern over school choice is the heavy reliance on parents to know what choices are available.

"These are very challenging issues for parents for whom English is not their first language, who are living in poverty," Haesseler said. "I haven't seen how either candidate addresses that."

Desmond said that most vouchers fall short of covering private schools' tuition.

"It couldn't be extended to every child unless John McCain really wanted to fully fund that," Desmond said. "But he is interested in reducing government spending, so it doesn't make sense."

Affording college

McCain wants to provide tax incentives for families to save for college. Obama would provide a $4,000 refundable credit for students who commit to 100 hours of public service a year.

McCain calls for consolidating some federal aid programs to make paying for college less complex. Obama proposes to do this by simplifying the process of applying for federal student aid by allowing families to check a box on their federal income tax forms.

Some financial aid officers said this might complicate the process of applying for state and college aid programs, which rely on the federal student aid form.

Mitchell, a mother of a high school student and two college students, said neither is proposing what she wants to see -- having all the money available to pay for college in one place.

"You hear that there's all this money out there that goes unused every year," she said. "We've been looking and looking and looking and can't find it."

JAN MURPHY: 232-0668 or jmurphy@patriot-news.com

A SERIES OF ISSUES

Starting today and on the next four Sundays, The Patriot-News will look at key issue in the presidential election and how they affect you. TODAY: Education Oct. 5: National security Oct. 12: Economy Oct. 19: Energy Oct. 26: Health care

Education Policy: Obama vs. McCain

From the Christian Science Monitor.

Schools: Obama stresses more investment, McCain parental choice

A growing chorus of business and education-reform advocates are hoping the next president will create a ‘Sputnik moment’ for education.
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo | Staff writer / September 21, 2008 edition

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama offer different visions for how the federal government can help America’s students get ahead.

Senator McCain’s drumbeat is parental choice and empowerment – making it easier for students in substandard schools to take funding with them, whether to a tutoring company or another public or private school. Senator Obama’s thrust is strategic investment – more federal dollars to put good teachers into high-needs schools, increase charter-school options, and boost early childhood development to stave off achievement gaps.

But in an election dominated by economics, war, and a surprise vice presidential pick, such education issues resemble a kid in the back of the class, frantically waving for attention. Still, a growing chorus of business and education-reform advocates are on that kid’s side. They hope that whoever becomes the next president will help create the educational equivalent of the “Sputnik moment” – when America reached for the moon.

Whose vision will enter the Oval Office?

“The key difference is that Obama puts the emphasis on improving the public schools, working through the schools themselves, and McCain believes in outside pressures through the free market,” says Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonprofit research group in Washington that advocates for more-effective public schools.

While McCain has offered several policies to increase parental choice, such as an expansion of a voucher program in the District of Columbia, he has not put out a broad voucher proposal, senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin says.

McCain energized the audience at the Republican National Convention when he emphasized standing up to entrenched interests in education, saying, “We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, … attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.” By contrast, Mr. Holtz-Eakin says, “Senator Obama’s not really taking on … the unions, the school boards, the entire hierarchy.”

Obama has been endorsed by the major teachers unions, as Democratic candidates typically are. But he prompted boos from union members this summer by embracing aspects of accountability that they traditionally oppose.

Obama’s plan, for instance, supports merit-pay plans, if developed in cooperation with teachers. In a speech on education this month in Dayton, Ohio, he said, “[We] need to give every child the assurance that they’ll have the teacher they need to be successful…. Teachers who are doing a poor job, they’ve got to get extra support, but if they don’t improve, then they have to be replaced.”

“[Obama] has really been a champion for investment in our kids … but at the same time pushing hard on accountability, on standards, on parental choice in a way that strengthens public education,” Jonathan Schnur, an adviser to Obama, said at the Aspen Institute’s recent national education summit in Washington.

One of Obama’s criticisms of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is that it has asked schools to achieve vastly more without delivering the resources promised when it passed with bipartisan support in 2001. His campaign criticizes McCain for planning to hold education spending even and just reallocate the dollars. Obama proposes to spend an additional $19 billion on his pre-K-12 proposals by using money from cuts in other parts of the federal budget.

Both candidates have called attention to the need for high-quality teaching, particularly in underperforming schools. McCain wants to give states incentives to recruit teachers from among the top 25 percent of college graduates. Obama’s education plan is longer and more detailed than McCain’s, including details on recruiting, training, and retaining teachers. One proposal would pay for teacher education for those willing to work four years in a hard-to-staff location or field, such as special education.

The two candidates also share a hesitancy to offer much detail about how they would handle the key education item come January: the long overdue reauthorization of NCLB. “They’re doing this dance of talking about education without talking about No Child Left Behind,” says Michael Petrilli, a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research group in Washington that supports standards and school choice. “A lot of the country hates No Child Left Behind … and yet the principles within the law around accountability and transparency both candidates want to embrace, because they want to show they are reformers.”

Both campaigns have praised the goals of NCLB and suggested they would make changes to it, such as testing the individual gains of students rather than relying on group averages. But “the guts of it, test-based accountability, that’s likely to stay,” says Patrick McGuinn, a political scientist at Drew University in Madison, N.J.

The law has prompted splits within each party. Among Republicans, one camp wants to continue NCLB’s momentum, while another says control should be returned to states and local school districts. A key education adviser to McCain, former Arizona schools superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan, has said McCain will champion assessment and federal accountability. While education circles debate how to even out vastly different state standards, she said during last week’s Washington summit, “what would concern me is if we take our eye off the improvement of the kids in the classroom today. We’ve got data right now [showing low achievement].”

Among Democrats, teachers unions and civil rights groups are facing off over issues such as the law’s testing regimen. Obama has acknowledged both sides: “Don’t tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend most of the year preparing him to fill in a few bubbles on a standardized test,” he said in Dayton. Yet his plan is not to throw out tests, but rather to help states develop broader assessments to measure skills such as problem-solving and scientific investigation.

A sample of Obama’s policy proposals:

K-12
• Double funding for quality charter schools.
• Invest in and improve teaching
• Require professional accreditation of teacher preparation programs.
• Expand mentoring for beginner teachers and give them a stipend during training in exchange for service in a high-needs district.
• Support districts that work with teachers to create compensation systems that recognize accomplishment in the classroom and leadership in hard-to-staff locations.
• $200 million in grants for longer school days or school years to assist students in need.
• Double funding for after-school 21st Century Learning Centers.
• Help create appropriate tests for students learning English and hold schools accountable for making sure they reach graduation.

Early education
• Expand tax credits so low-income families can receive up to 50 percent credit for child-care expenses.
• Grants to promote “zero to five” efforts focused on young children and parents, and to help states move toward voluntary universal preschool.
• Increase Head Start funding, quadruple the size of Early Head Start, and improve the quality of both.

Higher education
• Create an American Opportunity Tax Credit – a $4,000 tax credit per year for low- and moderate-income students to attend college for up to four years, in exchange for community service (those not earning enough to pay taxes would also qualify).
• Simplify the application for financial aid by allowing people to check a box on their tax return to determine aid eligibility.
• Community College Partnership Program to reward schools where more students graduate or transfer to four-year colleges.

A sample of McCain’s policy proposals

K-12
• Expand online learning.
• $500 million of current education funds would go toward building virtual schools.
• $250 million would support states to expand online offerings.
• $250 million would create “digital passport scholarships” to help low-income students do online courses or tutoring.
• Encourage alternative teacher certification and give states incentives to recruit teachers from the top 25 percent of their college class.
• Bonuses to teachers who locate in challenging settings and raise student achievement.
• In schools failing to meet federal standards, allow students to access tutoring more quickly. Tutoring providers certified by the federal government would be able to market directly to parents and be paid directly, rather than through the child’s school.

Early education
• Create Centers of Excellence in Head Start. One Head Start Center in each state would be chosen as a model and receive a grant to expand its reach and share best practices.

Higher education
• Simplify higher education tax benefits and federal financial aid so that more families understand their eligibility.

Education Policy: Obama and McCain

Barack Obama and John McCain will be opening up the 2008 installment of the quadrennial presidential follies shortly, and we will be treated to the spectacle of media frenzy over substance-less discussion, but education policy will be on the mind of the 44th President of the United States.

The Council for Exceptional Children has created a voter guide (pdf) that lists the education platforms of the presidential candidates.

EdWeek.org has a Campaign K-12 blog available to keep up to date.