McCain’s privatization campaign includes public schools
School vouchers haven’t had any luck at all lately. Voters in Utah, expected to be rather conservative, overwhelmingly rejected a statewide ballot referendum on vouchers last November. The president touted a voucher plan in his State of the Union address, which was DOA in Congress. A study of the Milwaukee system found that students who receive vouchers to go to private schools don’t do any better academically than those “stuck” in public schools.
The voucher system in the District of Columbia — created by congressional Republicans to be the first-ever federally-funded voucher program — has had it especially rough. Last fall we learned that after Congress handed over tax dollars to unregulated private schools without conditions, lawmakers ended up financing unaccredited schools, “unsuitable learning environments,” schools with no operating permits, and schools where teachers didn’t even have bachelor’s degrees. Worse yet, a report from the administration released a month ago found that students in DC who received vouchers didn’t do any better academically, either.
So it’s odd that one of the very few substantive lines of attack John McCain is making against Barack Obama is over the issue of school vouchers.
John McCain, the father of private school students, criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama on Friday for choosing private over public school for his kids. The difference, according to the Arizona Republican, is that he — not Obama — favors vouchers that give parents more school choices.
Specifically, McCain told the National Urban League, “Democrats in Congress, including my opponent, oppose the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. In remarks to the American Federation of Teachers last month, Senator Obama dismissed public support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans as, ‘tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.’ All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?”
The substance of all of this is completely wrong, but the politics is just odd.
Republican pollsters usually tell GOP candidates to steer clear of the word “voucher” altogether, because voters, in general, reject the idea out of hand. In 2000, when Al Gore hit Bush over his support of vouchers, Bush was anxious to change the subject, and come up with euphemisms for “voucher” that weren’t as offensive to the public. (Conservatives tend to prefer phrases like “opportunity scholarships” and “Pell Grants for kids.”)
Indeed, when Bush took office and started working with lawmakers on No Child Left Behind, the White House initially proposed a voucher system, but decided not to put up a fight over it. Congress balked at the idea, and Bush dropped it like a hot potato, figuring it wasn’t worth fighting over a policy that a) lawmakers wouldn’t budge on; and b) the public didn’t like anyway.
And yet, he we are, seven years later, and the centerpiece of McCain’s education policy is “vouchers.” That’s a fight Obama should certainly welcome.
McCain told his audience yesterday, “Everybody should have the same choice Cindy and I and Sen. Obama did.”
That’s a common argument. McCain and his wife are extraordinarily wealthy, and they decided to pay tuition to send at least some of their kids to private schools. (I say “some” because it’s unclear if McCain also sent his children from his first marriage to private schools, or only those from his second marriage.) McCain believes he, like other wealthy people, have a “choice,” so lower-income families “should” have the same “choice.”
I’m curious, though, whether McCain is determined to limit this to schooling. The McCains have a choice about the kind of healthcare coverage their family enjoys. And yet, McCain doesn’t believe lower-income families “should” have the same “choice.” Indeed, wealthy families like the McCains have all kinds of “choices” — about the kind of homes they own, cars they drive, food they eat. Those with money even have a “choice” about the kind of political influence they can buy with generous campaign donations.
If I understand McCain properly, though, he opposes vouchers for healthcare, homes, cars, food, and campaign contributions, apparently because it’s not important whether lower-income families have the same “choices” in these areas as the McCains have.
“Where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?” Well, for one thing, we could do more to fix those schools that don’t measure up. But I’d also ask McCain, where his policies leave families and their children who are stuck without health insurance? Or without housing? Or who struggle to get where they need to go on public transporation?
McCain supports vouchers for schools in large part because he wants to privatize the system. That’s his right, but let’s not pretend this has anything to do with John McCain’s deep concern for the plight of families with less money than his.
Caitlin
says:“McCain supports vouchers for schools in large part because he wants to privatize the system.”
Indeed. More to the point, McCain’s corporate greedhead supporters support vouchers, just as they supported NCLB and the penalties for schools not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress. When repeated failures to meet AYP result in handing a school district over to new administration, guess who’ll be waiting at the door to “fix things”? Years ago, Harper’s magazine published an article on corporate America’s plan to take over public education, recognizing its potential as the biggest profit-maker for them next only to war.
MsJoanne
says:Tired and old…every single ‘idea’ he has. I don’t think there is a single thought out of the McCain camp that is from this century. Before anyone think me ageist, think about it. Does he have a single original thought?
So many ills we have and so little he offers. There is no way he’s at 40% in the polls. Absolutely no way.
Shalimar
says:Maybe we should eliminate public schools completely and become a medieval country? No one else in the world is going to follow our lead, but at least US corporations would finally have the cheap, ignorant workforce they apparently yearn for above all else.
Rabi
says:If nothing else, vouchers are somewhat less ridiculous than No Child Left Behind.
It would still be nice to see some sentient debate on education reform.
superdestroyer
says:Senator Obama’s children attend an elite private school that is 10% black and less than 5% Hispanic. The question for the coming Obama Administration is whether public schools across the U.S. will become more like The Chicago Laboratory School that his children now attend or more like the DC Public Schools where over 90% of the voters will vote for Senator Obama. My guess is that the public schools, overall, will tend to become more like the worst public schools and less like the elite private schools where people like Senators Obama and McCain send their children.
noms
says:Someone needs to ask mccain how he plans to fund his vouchers. Foreclosures have reduced revenue from realestate tax to all time lows.
Our Paul
says:This issue has little to do with education and all to do with capturing the hearts and minds of conservative Catholic Bishops. School vouchers = money for parochial schools!
anon, too
says:By what measure are schools “failing?” If it’s by the standards in No Child Left Behind, then we need to take a hard look at the NCLB Act and its implementation. I think that’s where the real failure resides.
Seems like this administration has repeatedly set up legislation by which to assess the “success” or “failure” of programs that they want to destroy. NCLB has been underfunded – or maybe unfunded would be a better description.
Dale
says:Hey we’ve got emergency rooms and libraries to handle health care and education. That’s socialism enough. McCain’s All-purpose Bromides are over-priced.
jhm
says:Does anybody know what this is all about:
Does Hon. Sen. McCain believe that we suffer from overqualified applicants being turned away instead of under qualified applicants, and a dearth of these?
His proposed $5,000, refundable tax credit is a sort of health care voucher, no?
Megalomania
says:Education in America is one of my favorites.
As famously said by Cool Hand Luke “What we have here is a failure to communicate”.
In education, especially in a free market with the “Technetronics” we have today, education in the free market system can be considered by many as criminal.
Actually America should have a flurry of free market training, indeed with that in common sense knowledge of free market expressed across the spectrum from grade school through to include graduate school it should all be free to an American citizen. Yes, a citizen in good standing, a citizen that participates in the civics of its culture, a citizen that votes, a citizen that obeys the laws, a citizen that pays taxes, and moreover a citizen that volunteers to serve its country as a politician, or better give ones life in the military.
The Library of Congress should be ordered to digitize and supply “at will of the American people” to the free American citizen an open education using mastering principles originally developed from the “Plato” system from the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana from k-12 to the Doctorate level, or similar in every vocation from science technology medicine to history law agriculture space and religion.
So, what happens to the brick and mortar University System? Here, research and development becomes the engine of progress. All Universities are developed into advanced educational instruments that compete for tax money to develop the advances in technology and create future challenges. The one very instrument to defeat the decadence of terror and its cultural grip is education built with a culture that will leave terror and tyranny in histories past. It is the key to crush terror and tyranny, greed and corruption in less time in perhaps less than a few generations.
Don’t you find it amazing how few training and educational channels are on Cable Television that are “free”. Or how about the Internet, how about some free college level training, free, to take as many times as I want to, yes free, to take for refresher. Free to review. Free for every “Citizen” for any time in the easiest way to communicate science and technology.
Why do I say this? It is absolutely a shame, a disgusting reality when America can change a whole industry around that is the telecommunications industry simply by offering a coupon to citizens that have to convert from an old analog transmission system to a new Hugh Definition System.
It is pitifully insane to be able to give a coupon for a change, underscored by the American tax payer in one industry like telecommunications and then in the educational industry offer vouchers here where America slips or slides and in some cases chokes. Here in education America has the opportunity to make that so called giant quantum leap. As an example reading about Einstein who had no formal education, or Michael Faraday was educated in the common way of the time. Which was not too much more than self study, only to be given the opportunity to study and read the Encyclopedia Britannica? An open book to the world.
One wonders why not do this with the oil industry? Change to other fuels with a coupon. Likely we will have to and likely the Bear market is going to take your tax money to do it.
Actually on balance, the University system is the problem, just as the long time politicians with their secret societies, meeting behind closed doors encouraging hazing all the while promoting secrecy while waving the flag of free education and an open society, gays that want equality all the while many want to in the closet. Yet, waging war within in self with mass murders, or singularities. Forging ahead to fill government with legions of the young minds that mingle in this mix of time with the golden opportunity to do something right but get caught up in the funnel of tyranny or fascism hatched to many that are the seeds of the poison America has to deal with in its future. It is way too easy to see today its not just the long term politicians that need to be changed out it is the long standing way America has been teaching it self.
Caitlin
says:jhm –
As a Daily Kos diarist suggested, just substitute “doctor” or “civil engineer” for the word “teacher” in that part of McCain’s speech, then plug in the matching professional references, and see how that argument works. I’m a teacher who has spent the last thirty years not only teaching, but taking courses and seminars year round to hone my craft. I deeply resent the implication that teachers don’t really require training in “educational theory or methodology” to practice their profession.
superdestroyer
says:caitlin,
But physicians and civil engineers take competency exams to enter the field and to advance in the field. The teachers unions have fought competency testing of teachers. If people want to teach algebra, physics, or history, they should demonstrate competency in the subject. What too many on the left have argued is that technique is all that is needed and you do not really need to know the subject. Most large city school district have teachers teaching outside their specialty.
Teachers unions have also oppose paying math teachers more than gym teachers. In many cities the gym teacher could make more money than the math teacher. For engineers and physicians, the harder speciality pay more.
Be careful comparing the current state of teaching to other professions. Teachers always come up lacking.
Jen
says:above it quotes McCain You can be today a Nobel laureate and not qualified to teach in most public schools today because they don’t have all the proper credits and educational theory or methodology. All they have is learning and the desire and ability to share it. If we’re putting the interest of students first, then those qualifications should be enough.
Does Hon. Sen. McCain believe that we suffer from overqualified applicants being turned away instead of under qualified applicants, and a dearth of these?
Anyone who has been to college or better yet, graduate school, is aware that having high level skills in an area (usually in this case, math or science) does not by default translate to the ability to impart that knowledge or those skills to others — *especially* to learners who are just starting out in the study of [insert math/science subject here].
While I have many a quibble with teacher ed programs (I’m in one myself) — learning theory and methodology and *thinking* about teaching are not the quibbles. My problem is more with the quality of applicant programs let in. Raising salaries and tightening standards is one way to get better qualified teachers. Not letting people take qualifying exams a million times is another, as is demanding higher scores — GPA and/or SAT/GRE and also demanding essays or recommendations that show the applicant is actually someone who enjoys learning and the acquisition of knowledge themselves!
Honestly? Anyone with high level skills who is switching into teaching had better have a big enough nest egg and emergency fund to support themselves through the certification process and life afterwards, because they’re going to be living a far leaner existence for the rest of their teaching career!
Many districts also offer emergency certification — you can teach as long as you promise to meet your certification requirements within a set time frame by taking courses, evenings, weekends, summers. However, many people soon find out that just the teaching takes up all of that aforementioned “free time.” They either leave because it’s not the easy career they thought it would be or they leave to finish up the certification, so they can do it right.
Jim Hudson
says:In my state, Florida, teachers must show their competency in their field in an exam when they begin teaching. Every year, teachers are observed(perhaps several times) by an administrator to show their competency in action. I’ve been teaching for 30 years, yet I still must submit to such an observation. It’s kind of a joke when an assistant principal with only a few years’ experience is required to evaluate my efforts. In addition, teachers are required to take courses and earn the points expected to renew their certification. I’m sure that expectations placed upon teachers would match up well with engineers or other professional endeavors.
I don’t agree that teachers “always come up lacking”.
libra
says:We should also offer more choices to those who wish to become teachers. Many thousands, highly qualified men and women, have great knowledge, wisdom and experience to offer public school students. But a monopoly on teacher certification prevents them from getting that chance.
You can be today a Nobel laureate and not qualified to teach in most public schools today because they don’t have all the proper credits and educational theory or methodology. All they have is learning and the desire and ability to share it. — McCain(?) via jhm, @10
I would question that last sentence — a lot of people may have the learning (in their particular subject) and even the desire to share it but, “ability”? As several people have pointed out, that’s not always true.
I did my studies at Warsaw U (Poland), English department, specialty Applied Linguistics which, “translated”, basically meant teaching, translation and interpreting (simultaneous translation). A part of my — compulsory — curriculum was pedagogy and child psychology. We had two years of lectures and seminars (once a week, 90 minutes each) on pedagogy, one year of lectures and seminars on child psychology and one year of “practices”, where we went to observe but also had to conduct at least two classes. We were judged on those by the regular classroom teacher and, during the seminars, our performance was discussed — and judged — by the person leading the seminar and by our fellow observers.
This was SOP for *all* sections of our dept (the other 3 being UK lit, American Lit and Theoretical Linguistics) as well as *almost all* departments of the university (the exceptions were for subjects which were not taught at any level of the public school system, such as African or Semitic languages or law. But everything else — from astronomy, through biology, chemistry, history, languages and math to philosophy — was covered).
When we got our college diploma (after 4 yrs) or our Masters (5th yr you wrote and defended the thesis. Optional, but most of us went for it), we were all qualified, automatically, to teach (4yr diploma was sufficient for primary school; you had to have the Masters to teach in highschool). Our composite grades (U teacher and classroom one) were the basis for the school to decide whether we should be hired or not. The course also told us whether we liked teaching or not. And prepared us for a job to fall back on, if we wanted to try it for just a couple of years. The only people who actually studied at the Pedagogy Department were those who knew, at 18, that they wanted to devote their entire lives to education. Broadly understood, since most of them were preparing for a career not of teaching but of administration.
Of course I’m prejudiced, but I think that system was much better than having to spend extra years getting teaching certification, *after* college, even if you’re not sure that you’re temperamentally suited to the job.
superdestroyer
says:Jim,
I have been in meeting where physicians have called each other incompetent and moved to take away privledges. When was the last time a teacher at your school was removed because they did not really know the topic? My guess is never.
stick
says:Jim…. the key word is “guess”. Without experience, how do you “know” this?
Caitlin
says:Superdestroyer says physicians “moved to take away priviledges.” First of all, it’s privileges, but that’s a trivial point. Sorry. I, too, have sat in meetings questioning whether a teacher should be kept on because of incompetence. The answer was “no”. They were assisted in finding other jobs outside of education, which may understandably anger you. But I would suggest that this might have happened more often than not in those “physicians” meetings you refer to. Nevertheless, this still does not address the question of educational quality. You’re simply throwing feces at another profession in a weak attempt to . . . throw feces at the teaching profession. Why? Why is it so important that we find fault with teachers? I’m so tired of it.
Caitlin
says:“But physicians and civil engineers take competency exams to enter the field and to advance in the field.”
Sorry, I failed to answer this. In my state, every new teacher must take such an exam, and then, in the first two years of their teaching provide weekly examples of the very specific ways in which they meet federal and state standards. We are also required to complete continuing education courses that not only allow us to be recertified every five years, but to advance us in the profession as well. It is an expectation – granted, an expectation, but one that is encouraged to the point of requirement – that we will complete our Masters degree and beyond.
I have my Masters degree, have studied at Oxford University, among others, and I am not particularly unusual in that regard. FWIW, I am a secondary education teacher.
Franklin
says:Full disclosure: I don’t know anything about the subject except that which I read on the InterTubes (ala the Google).
Count me among those who think teachers need at least a little bit more scrutiny than the unions currently allow. A little merit pay would be good, as would a little bit more accountability. I don’t know what I feel about vouchers; they make me sick if we’re going to indoctrinate everybody as Catholics, though.
But I think it’s a pretty solid fact that we are not educating every child in this country. And if throwing more money at it is part of the solution, so be it (I’d still like more accountability in exchange, though). If we should experiment more with vouchers, rewards for teaching in the inner city, etc., go for it. I will gladly pay extra taxes if needed.