Obama Talks Education in his Weekly Address

Weekly Address: Congress Should Back Plan to Hire Teachers

President Obama's weekly address today talks about a plan to hire back teachers.  He states that the United States has lost over 300,000 education jobs in the past few years.  Looking at the current job market for teachers, I've noticed that the average job posting for a classroom teacher in Massachusetts receives over 100 applicants.  At the same time, the average class size continues to rise and currently there are schools with between 30-35 students per class.  With all of these licensed teachers searching desperately for jobs, the problem in our schools isn't one of resources or availability, it's a money issue.

It would be great it there was a way to get funding for education from somewhere other than state and local government.  While these institutions do the best they can in most places, they do not have enough money to run themselves AND provide for education.  Having the federal government give a little more to support education would not only create jobs (remember that 300,000 figure...) but also provide our children with a better education.

I do not know all the details to the plan the president mentioned in his video, but SOME plan is better than no plan. Romney-Ryan do not believe the federal government should be responsible for education in this country, believing it is a state/local issue.  I believe that Education should be one of the greatest priorities of the Federal government as it is an issue that affects our national standing in the world.

Let's get the education issue on the table this election season - its just as important to the economy as medicare and taxes.

-MB

Teachers Are Overpaid: Really?!

This post is a response to an article posted by U.S. News and World Report Education read the article and feel free to post YOUR response to the study in the comments.

image - www.gosmart4u.com

Wow. What value is a child's education? Can you place a dollar sign next to a child and say, "That is how much their education is worth to our nation." It is a common fact among college students aspiring to become teachers that we say to one another, "teaching will be my first job, not sure what my second job will be yet, but I'm bound to have one."

Sure, the hours sound great, all of the major holidays, and not to mention you'll never have to work on weekends... That is, unless you're so passionate and dedicated, like most teachers are, that you spend countless hours preparing for the next days lesson, correcting tests and papers, and spending hundreds of your own dollars to make those students' experience in school as excellent as possible.

The next study they should do would be how many hours the average teacher spends outside of the normal school day doing work-related activity and add it on to the amount of hours they work in a year. Then take their salary and subtract all of the money they invest back into their classroom (usually on essentials like paper and pencils, not extra, unnecessary materials). Now divide that salary over the number of hours and see how much the average teacher is REALLY making per hour. Compare that to the "market average" and then, look a hardworking, exhausted teacher (who works another job all summer) in the face and tell them, "You're overpaid." 

Can a Presidential Election Help Education?

As I was reading some articles on the Republican debates that took place earlier this week, I thought to myself,  where is all the much needed attention on education reform?  Turns out, it falls well short of other seemingly more important topics, fixing the economy, job creation, and whether or not taxes should be raised, changed, cut or otherwise.  It was time for a quick and easy investigation.  I went to the websites of the top six candidates from the Republican Party to see what they might have to say for themselves that the media doesn't have time to focus on.

The results:

• Mitt Romney - Education is not listed as an issue

• Michele Bachmann - Education is not listed as an issue

• Rick Perry - Education is not listed as an issue

• Newt Gingrich - Education not listed as an issue

• Ron Paul - Shut down the Dept of Education and encourage homeschooling/private schooling

• Herman Cain - Localize education, remove federal government interference, let teachers and administrators fix things

My reaction: wow.

At a time when President Obama admits that NCLB didn't work the way it was planned, states are clamoring for funding and education reform is on the minds of many, how can it not be an issue large enough to garner a single sentence on a political candidates website?

As for the issues they deem more important than education, perhaps they would benefit from reading some timely articles about the jobs Americans aren't qualified to fill.  This ABC News article details companies that would love to invest in the United States, but have to train all of the employees themselves because they do not graduate with the skills required.  Or perhaps this article from the Times of India which shows jobs that already exist in the U.S. but take months to fill due to lack of qualified workers.

President Obama's American Jobs Act includes pieces that will provide money to hire workers to rebuild and upgrade American schools as well as money to keep teachers from being laid off.  Is this going to just increase our debt? According to the White House it's all paid for by our other major issue: Taxes (another post simply on this debate would be long enough as it is so I'll hold my tongue).  Whether or not you agree with the President's proposal, he, at least, is attempting to fix our broken schools as a method of keeping people employed.

So, to answer the question posed in the title of this article: No.  At least, not currently.  The only people running with a plan have a plan that says: Somethings wrong, let's ditch the whole thing and let states/towns fix it themselves.  We'll see how that works out...

-MB