Presidential Candidates and the NCLB Act

Since the NCLB is the driving force behind the PSSA test and since the NCLB Act is up for re- authorization, we should know where the presidential candidates stand on education and the NCLB.

While Hillary Clinton voted for the NCLB the first time around, on her website, she bluntly states that she will end the NCLB Act. (Hillary Clinton Website) To improve education, she will enhance the IDEA Act with more funding, recruit and retain good teachers, improve early intervention programs, and create job programs.

On his website, (Barack Obama Website) Barack Obama says that "teachers should not prepare students to fill in bubbles". He believes in reforming and funding NCLB to improve current assessments and create new ones in areas such as the ability to work with technology. He believes more funding from the government would help schools to run lots and lots of programs that would close gaps in subgroups of students, recruit teachers, and run summer programs to help educationally disadvantage students. The funding money would come from varies parts of government such as a reduction in a specific NASA program, improving government procurement systems, and savings from the Iraq war.

According to his website, (John McCain website) John McCain believes that the standardized testing required under the NCLB has helped us see that there is an achievement gap between schools and students from different socioeconomic groups and school choice is important to narrowing these gaps. He states that schools should be "innovative and flexible" in teaching our students and we should focus on addressing the underlying cultural problems in the educational system.

While I do not think any of these candidates is exactly an educational ball of fire, their plans sound good in theory. I am suspicious of Hillary since she was on the committee that gave us the first report "A Nation at Risk" which, along with her husband, really created the environment for the NCLB to become law. I will give Obama some credit, his plan is on a PDF file and has a lot more detail than the other two candidates. I like what John McCain says about schools becoming more innovative and flexible, but that is pretty hard to do when you have the PSSA looming over your shoulder.

Well folks, the vote is yours alone, so I encourage you to look on the websites to read the candidates stances on different issues and the plans they have associated with their ideas. Let us strive to have past voting records and these facts decide our next president instead of voting with whatever the media decides to bombard us with during the race.