The Progress Report.

John McCain on Education: Limited and rash.

After his earlier post on the two candidates' take on education, here is a follow-up from Mark Phillips on the heels of the final presidential debate:

JohnMcCain's comments on education last night were a perfect microcosm of both his limited knowledge and his rash thinking.

I won't waste time, as Obama didn't, on his support of voucher programs. They don't work. They increase educational inequities. They challenge the separation of church and state. But his Troops to Teachers proposal was scary and the epitome of his limitations.

There are Troops to Teachers programs, some very good ones. He should have acknowledged that. It's not an original idea at all. And the idea of offering teaching as a career for former military people is a good idea. Contrary to a sometimes knee jerk liberal response, we know that many soldiers are highly intelligent and humane. But McCain's comment that they could "go right into teaching and not have to take these examination which - or have the certification that some are required in some states,"  besides being borderline unintelligible, makes a mockery of those programs.

They require training. They require demonstrated competency. They require certification. McCain implied that they could no sooner shed their uniforms then they would be able to start teaching. The absurdity of that needs no exposition; it stands on its own as a demonstration of ignorance and shooting mindlessly from the hip.

Hopefully that will be the end of it and the idea will die with his campaign.
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(Maybe Joe the Plumber can get a teaching gig. -- ed.)

McCain versus Obama on education

UPDATE: Mark Phillips reacts to McCain and Obama sharing their educational philosophies at the final presidential debate: John McCain on Education: Limited and rash.

This piece appeared in the Marin Independent Journal (the "IJ") and was written by my father, Mark Phillips, a professor of secondary education at San Francisco State University.  So while I'm biased, I suppose, I had to repost this here because it's a critical look at one of the most underappreciated aspects of this campaign. Please read.
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JOHN McCAIN and Barack Obama are now poised for the final months of combat. A major challenge for all of us, but for parents and educators especially, is to determine how well prepared each candidate is to help our schools and our children.

It is understandable that economic and national security concerns will be in the forefront of voters' thinking and the media's focus. But the critical educational issues facing the nation must also be addressed.

I am not unbiased. I think that the best that can be said about John McCain's perspective on education is that his powers will be limited by what will probably be a Democratic-dominated Congress.

Beyond that, I think his educational ideas are wrongheaded and potentially destructive. Barack Obama, on the other hand, although not an educational visionary, shows far more promise than most of our political leaders.

All political candidates share the same platitudes in support of excellence, high achievement and accountability. But McCain and Obama are light years apart on how to get there.

McCain, the more conservative candidate, in one respect has the most radical educational agenda. He strongly advocates school choice and has publicly declared his support for a voucher system through which parents would be given a stipend to enable them to place their children in whatever schools they choose.

This would be federally supported, implemented with a degree of flexibility by each state and initially targeted towards the poorest children in the worst schools. 

He believes that "all federal financial support must be predicated on providing parents the ability to move their children, and the dollars associated with them, from failing schools."

Volumes have been written about the dangers of vouchers. It's a bad idea educationally.

Where vouchers have been tried there has (a) been no evidence of improved achievement, (b) the creation of a two-tiered system in which the strongest schools get stronger and the weakest schools deteriorate further. It's a bad idea socially, encouraging further segregation and stratification, with no evidence that it helps low-income children and families.