The flap over Obama's speech to kids going back to school, reminded me to check up on what O has done lately for schools.
Arnie Duncan's financial aid package to public education has some seriously bad points. The fed Race to the Top program has strings that include provisions to rate teachers by their student's scores on academic achievement levels. State's without this `accountability' provision, can't apply for the money.
California teachers have been fighting that kind of thing in the state system for years. At the moment most districts don't link teacher pay or promotion to student achievement scores. The teacher's unions are not going to like that kind of crap. Obama's aid to education essentially says, here's the money, now go rat your teachers:
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2009/09/school_reform_t.html
Alexander Cockburn's article below, summed the Obama situation. After spending most of the article complaining about the dead anti-war movements out here, he got back to Obama. I assume his rant on the quiescent anti-war front was supposed to be aimed at their efforts here to get out the Obama vote... Here's the last couple of paragraphs:
``Here we are in September, and what have Obama’s liberal supporters got to cling to by way of evidence that positive change is on the way?
Economically, we seem to be heading—well ahead of schedule—into 1937, the year the New Deal crashed onto the rocks. The energy bill, driven by junk science and junk nostrums, has been a detour into disaster. Health reform is levitating toward the graveyard, borne along by Blue Dog Democrats, nerveless salesmanship by the White House and as ripe an eruption of insanity by the know-nothing legions as I’ve ever witnessed.
Many Obama dreamers hoped that their man would introduce some minimal shift for the better in America’s relationship with the rest of the world. Now, as noted above, all they have to look forward to is Gen. Stanley McChrystal marching up to Capitol Hill and into the Oval Office to demand more troops for Afghanistan. In relations with Russia Obama and Vice President Biden have remained substantively committed to NATO expansionism. In Latin America, the handling of the coup in Honduras and warm relations with Colombia’s Uribe suggest a sinister larger strategy of counterattack on the leftist trends of the past few years.
It’s a dark vista overall. Some big opportunities—like a frontal assault on the power of the banks and of Wall Street—will never return. What can Obama do to regain the initiative?
There are two men capable of uniting large numbers of Americans in detestation: Dick Cheney and George Bush, in that order. Typically, Obama has hopped from foot to foot on his administration’s posture toward our Home Team Torturers. Now Attorney General Eric Holder has gingerly inclined to the view that maybe, perhaps, the US government should inch toward the legal standard on prosecution of torturers required of it by a law signed by Ronald Reagan, not to mention the Geneva Conventions.
With their drive for impeachment, the Republicans dominated the headlines and all but paralyzed the Clinton White House for two years. Now it should be payback time. Obama’s pledge to the American people: Cheney and Bush behind bars by 2012, plus Gonzales, Yoo, Addington and the rest of the pack. We crave drama. From Obama we’re not getting it, except in the form of racist rallies. This is his last, best chance.''
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09042009.html