Obama's Message - Teachers Matter - Students Matter

President Obama has been slowing but surely communicating his education plans since the State of the Union address where he spent a significant amount of time addressing our nation's educational challenges.  His comments included, "Teachers matter.  So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo; let's offer schools a deal.  Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones.  In return, grant schools flexibility.  To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren't helping kids learn."

Stop bashing teachers.  It is true that teachers have continually come under attack from politicians and parents.  The teacher has been the fall guy for years.  Politicians play the education card all the time in hopes of speaking to what middle-class parents are most concerned about, their children's education.  Parents find fault all the time with individual teachers gaining most of their information through anecdotes from their children and other parents.  Not usually a great source of evaluation.  Obama spoke of creating a competitive environment that incentivizes teacher effectiveness.

We know that such incentives work and have propelled some schools to much better results.  Obama's keeping kids in school until they graduate or reach the age of 18 is a noble goal for sure.  Realistically, it is difficult to achieve for a whole host of reasons.  The Education Department reports that "we're losing a million students from our schools to our streets each year."  Certainly a disheartening statistic and one that should be countered with programs designed to encourage kids to stay until graduation. 

Obama's example of business and education partnering together to educate, train and employ was a great story.  Unlike teaching to the test, this business-education partnership results in well-trained employees ready to step into jobs.  This model should be employed in every technical school in America with incentives for employers to participate and benefit from it. 

Finally, the President made it clear that he wanted to extend tuition tax credits to American families.  He noted the high cost of undergraduate education stating, "So let me put colleges and universities on notice:  If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down."  This challenge has not gone unnoticed in academia as I have received two separate communiqués from the universities I attended regarding what they are doing to keep costs down and in line.

Education is clearly on the President's agenda.  The question becomes one of funding and priorities.  Like every election year, 2012 should bring the education of our children to the forefront.