Overall, I don't expect this administration or Congress to put a high priority on education, at least not in the next two years. They will be as short-sighted as their predecessors. With the priority of getting the nation out of its current economic slump, there may be some justification (or rationalization, depending on how one looks at it) for putting education on the back burner (though it probably should not be because every poorly educated citizen we have is a drain on the economy).

What won't happen is serious reform. The reason is simple. The NEA has a stranglehold on the politicians, especially on the Democrats. While I lean Democratic, I have long been alarmed by how much they cave in to to the teachers' unions (which is what the NEA is). The positions of the NEA – opposition to raising standards, opposition to accountability, support of tenure, and so on – have, ironically, had nothing to do with the quality of education and everything to do with guaranteed security without accountability for teachers. That will not change until there is a public outcry powerful enough to offset the well-funded NEA lobby.

This will not happen. Even without the distractions of an economic crisis, the American people have had their heads in the sand about public education. Do they even know that the U.S., once the leader in high school graduation rates, has fallen to 13th, behind such countries as South Korea, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia? It is the only country in the developed world in which young people are now less likely to graduate than their parents were. (Source The Week magazine, Nov. 14, 2008, p. 20.) With mortgages and jobs on their minds, their heads are buried even deeper.
----------
Rich Turner (The Curmudgeon Himself)

Last Edited on 11-Nov-2008 12:29 PM