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Education: Compare and Contrast

Posted by JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor in Politics.
Jul 16th, 2008 | Comments

Today, John McCain addressed the NAACP, and given that a large portion of his speech centered on education issues, this is as good a time as any to visit the education proposals of the candidates. In preparation for this, I spoke today with Nancy Pfotenhauer, a senior policy advisor on domestic issues for John McCain’s campaign, and I’ll include a portion of that interview here. We were unable to reach a DNC representative thus far. With all the attention currently centering on the economy, energy policy and the wars, information on education policy has gotten scant attention in the media.

A lot of the proposals from both sides will involve expanding Federal government spending on education. From the Obama web site, we see that he plans on pushing for a new tax credit for college tuition.

Obama will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students.

Senator McCain’s proposals also include new spending for innovative programs. Both candidates would like to see financial incentives for recruiting new teachers and encouraging them to work in some of the more challenging schools, particularly in urban areas.

There are a few differences to highlight, however. Obama’s proposals seem more geared toward conventional K-12 public schools, while McCain’s plan includes significant funding for the expansion of distance learning. (Remote, computer based education.) During our interview today, Ms. Pfotenhauer told us:

There is at least a half billion dollars more in spending that will go to expand technical advancements, getting these students online, to build new resources and expand what is available on line.

The McCain plan also puts 250 million into “Virtual Passport Scholarships” for such distance education.

Another area of difference is that fact that Senator Obama has come out in opposition to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Senator McCain is supporting it and proposes to expand funding for the project. The key differentiator here seems to be over the matter of school vouchers. In short, the Democrats oppose them, feeling that they pull money and resources from already failing schools, and the Republicans favor them as an opportunity for parents to seek a better school for their children if the current one fails them. Back to our interview, this is Ms. Pfotenhaur summarizing why John McCain feels that vouchers are important.

Every child deserves the right to a high quality education, regardless of their socioeconomic background. The DC program is the one we can affect the most. All of our programs are designed to help the public education system through the reduction of bureaucratic barriers and offering choices to parents . We want all children to have access to a high quality education.

Both campaigns have an emphasis on recruiting and retaining large numbers of new teachers and getting them to work in schools where resources are scarce. Additionally, the Obama plan stresses streamlining and simplifying the application process for federal aid.

Personally, I’ve never had a serious problem with some of the proposed voucher systems, providing they don’t drain too many resources from our public schools. (Your mileage may vary.) Americans like having choices, and when making decisions about childrens’ education, it shouldn’t be any different. I’m also enthusiastic about remote education opportunities. (As an aside, my own wife completed one such degree program from home while changing careers.) Both of the candidates have some aggressive projects in mind to improve education, but with the two noted areas of difference, I will have to give my personal tip of the hat to McCain on education policy.

e-mail the author: jazzshaw@gmail.com

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Neocon

Thanks for pointing out another flip flop by Barak Obama.

AFter his speech in which he said this:

For college students, I have proposed an annual American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000. To receive this credit, we'll require 100 hours of public service. You invest in America, and America invests in you - that's how we're going to make sure that college is affordable for every single American, while preparing our nation to compete in the 21st century.

He changed his website to reflect the fact that you would have to do 100 hours of works to gain this money. Now his website has been changed back to read:

Obama will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students.

Im not sure what he believes in anymore. He is like a long willow reed bending in the breeze.

DLS

"Senator Obama has come out in opposition to the D.C. Opportunity Scholorship Program."

Not because the name is misspelled, but because of vouchers.

* * *

"I'm not sure what he believes in anymore. He is like a long willow reed bending in the breeze."

It's "whatever sticks," in a positive as opposed to negative sense. If it's liked, the promise can be repeated; if not, it can be replaced with the next one to be tried.

By the way, tax credits are typically seen as GOP gimmicks (not wanting to spend money up front on something, they use a gimmick instead) but the Dems have long learned to use this, too. Go ahead, circus animals, jump through that hoop and get a treat!

JSpencer

America has been a such a celebration of dumbing down for the past dozen years, it's hard to imagine either Obama or McCain could have any more negative impact on education than we've seen thus far. Based on recent history though, I think it's fair to say the republicans benefit more, in terms of holding power, from a less well educated, less discerning electorate than do the democrats. Call that motive if you like. I reckon I'll cast my lot with Obama - the other team blew their opportunity when they had the power to do something (anything) worthwhile.

Jazz

What would I do without you guys? ;-)

I fixed "scholarship", thanks. I cut and paste things and forget to run the spell checker because... well... sometimes I'm just lazy. (*sigh*)

DLS

"America has been a such a celebration of dumbing down for the past dozen years"

Since the Sixties, the truth is.

"I think it's fair to say the republicans benefit more, in terms of holding power, from a less well educated, less discerning electorate than do the democrats"

Not when you examine or observe the electorates! (and you're honest about it)

Don't misjudge everything by Dubya (to whom the Dems managed to lose twice, fielding a guaranteed loser against him in 2004 -- that was an educated kind of decision, all right!) or preface everything the way the nut on lefty talk radio I have heard does constantly, "[everything was great in the Sixties and Seventies, ] then ALONG CAME REAGAN..."

DLS

"I reckon I'll cast my lot with Obama - the other team blew their opportunity when they had the power to do something (anything) worthwhile."

McCain's not part of that team, but if he offers nothing of real value, it's understood.

runasim

Good for Obama!
As always, he stays true to his principles, but is flexible when it comes to tactics, because he has a tremendous capaicty to learn and absorb new informaiton.
That's exactly the kind of President we need after years of sticking to out-of-date and malfuncioning policies.

In NYC, the mix of vouchers, charter schools and traditional schools shows signs of great advances, but the overall results are a mixed bag. Traditional schools are affected, in a number of ways. Without listing all the complicated results, McCain an Obama are basically addressing different communities.

In poor urban areas, the learn from home progams wouldn't work well, because so many of the kids don't have the necessary home environments. The community school is not only a safe haven of quiet and peace, it's also a community hub. Parents bond around it. Small wonder, then, that Obama concentrates on these schools. He, like the mayor of DC are trying to inspire the community to rise to the occasion of their needs, and that involves fostering the sense of community.

I can see that McCain's proposals would work for a different type of environment.
It's not good if it has to be either/or. After Congress gets involved, who knows what kind of mish-mash we'll end up with.

That's true of all these policy proposals. They're only proposals, not final results.

DLS

"As always, he stays true to his principles"

And generally true to Dem special interests -- he is a liberal Democrat, after all -- such as the teachers' unions, in this case.

I'm not sure how much money (in addition to tax credit gimmicks) he'd put into (public) education. (Money obtained from where?) Nor do I know what he wants as far as more interventionism (curricula, testing or No Testing! [tm], and so on).

"The community school is not only a safe haven of quiet and peace, it's also a community hub. Parents bond around it. "

Too many kids just are dumped there as if the schools are day care centers. (It is not the place of a school to substitute for parents, either. For the kids to learn to form a community and for their social development, yes, but it's not their family.) How many parents get involved? Is it any better or is it worse than self-absorbed affluent parents who neglect their kids often? I suspect many parents are absent.

runasim

The results from the laboratory of different school paradigms are still coming in, and they're complicated.
In general, I think this would be a bad time to make wild policy swings. Modest adjsutments would be fine with me, for now. The NCLB definitely needs reforms, but the basic principle of accountalbility is good. The method for grading progress in schools or for teachers is problemati, however.

I think we need an Education Dept. to do the kind of data collection and analysis necessary to come up with really intelligent, meaningful proposals. Campaign staffs can't really do an adequate job, and neither can candidates in the middle of an election. They can only give a sense of direction., and thanks heavens for that. This is not a decision that should be made on the run..

Neocon

We have had 225 years of policy proposals and data collection and analysis.
HOW many more years do we need to figure out that if you put kids in win/win situations.............THEY WIN.

Jazz

I think we need an Education Dept. to do the kind of data collection and analysis necessary to come up with really intelligent, meaningful proposals.

Then I don't think we'll be recruiting you for the Bob Barr Bandwagon any time soon. He's calling for the complete elimination of the department of education on day one.

runasim

DLs said, referring to minority schools, with customary hubrs:
"Too many kids just are dumped there as if the schools are day care centers".

Suburban parents, busy with shopping and jobs do the exact same thing.
Wealthy mothers rely on chauffeurs to deliver their children on school steps, as they rush off to the hairdressers and a museum opening.

Only the circumstances are different. Poor urban mothers are just as interested, caring and loviing, or not, as other people. They are not a different species of being! !!.

I think a mom working long hours at a minimum wage job has a much bigger excuse for treating schools like day care centers than most. Home-care workers, a very common occupation, work 12 hr shifts, and they have to shop, do household chores and try to speak to their children in the few hours left.

Oh, yes, such laggards! eating up tax dollars!!!

DLS

"Suburban parents, busy with shopping and jobs do the exact same thing.
Wealthy mothers rely on chauffeurs to deliver their children on school steps, as they rush off to the hairdressers and a museum opening."

Right: "Is it any better or is it worse than self-absorbed affluent parents who neglect their kids often?" No "referring [only] to minority schools" [sic] with "customary hubris" [sic!], I'm afraid.

DLS

Actually there is no need for federal intervention into education, though the roots run deep and it would be hard to rip that department out by the roots now. Once established in Washington soil, removal of any weed seems impossible. (Even if nominal removal occurred, the power and interventionism would remain, just in some other department.)

runasim

Jazz,
You got me to rights. i'm much more likely to vote for a conservative than a Libertarian, and that's not very likely in current conditions, although I have voted for the GOP in the past.

Obama actually shows signs of some libertarian leanings, and that combination of this and that is what appeals to me. I love to watch his brain at work,

DLS

"HOW many more years do we need to figure out that if you put kids in win/win situations.............THEY WIN."

How many more times can people be convinced that more studies need to be made and more tax dollars need to be spent on them to better learn the obvious?

I say, many more times, as long as there is a desire to assemble a staff and spend money -- as long as it continues to be made available to be spent.

And if you're both ambitious and regressive at the same time, in general, in all cases, about all subjects, you repeat the1960s Democratic mantra: "The answer is: We need more programs, more policies [in Washington]...[more studies]"

runasim

i'm just curious, how poor inner cities would manage to educate their children without the feds. or how would poor states manage?

The COUNTRY needs well educated kids, not just their parents, and that means you need to get involved, libertarians!. You can't turn the clock back to the 1700s, no matter how you try. This is 2008. Deal with it!
OOH, snarking is fun!

DLS

"i'm just curious, how poor inner cities would manage to educate their children without the feds. or how would poor states manage?"

I figure they'd probably do better than you fear. Aside from the legitimate objections to redistribution of tax dollars* in and of itself (with the inefficient "recycling fee" charged in Washington), too often the money comes with strings attached from Washington, which is awful. (Consider the games played with highway funds. New huge fuel tax funds are a non-issue these days but what about the same thing done someday with health care funds?)

* If you want to be sane and enjoy simplicity, hope (pun intended) Obama innovates and just redistributes federal money to states on a uniform per capita basis as the equivalent of something like Canada's "equalization payments" to provinces. But there wouldn't be bloated, bureaucratic, stupid separate such payments for education, for highways, for this, for that. Equal per-capita payments would be made as single big block grants, for everything with _maybe_ a list of permissible [gag] objects of spending, which could be allotted as each state saw fit. (Many people would like to do this with our taxes, "earmark" them for this or that or withhold them from, say, being spent on war elsewhere such as in Iraq.) As long as they were equal per capita payments, the redistribution criterion would be met, which is the essence of federal funding if federal funding is what you want. Uniform standards of education or curricula, testing, etc., seem less important to many than merely redistributing money and equalizing funding. (This is true within states as well, though some of the blame really belongs not on economic disparity among districts but on the nature of the way property taxes are levied.)

"OOH, snarking is fun!"

Shut ye Mouth, ye Wench, snark ye no more, and bring ye my Powder for my Wigge.

And by the way, if we really had been talking about activist libertarianism, 1913 is sufficient. [fade to creaking grandfather clock as color changes to black-and-white and light level dims] In addition to preceding some things most objected to by the activists, it's still Old World enough that the Scrooges you envision would feel at home.

(Seriously, I'm against abolishing public schools as much as I am public roads and highways; I just decry the mischief the federal government, which really has no place in what should be a local and state matter in our federal republic, has often wrought, in education and in other areas. And least of all should we be looking to Washington as the first rather than last resort for anything. Many would disagree, but many are ignorant of federalism or the track record of government in general or know but don't care, which is worse. Washington is not our parent!)

DLS

And don't forget to bring ye my Beer.

runasim

Sorry, local funding and local control just won't work for education.
That, in fact, is the major reason for outcome disparity.
There are a lot of new ideas coming out of the experimentaiton of recent years, and while there is disagreement about the precise methodologies, there is near universal consensus that the corner stone is built on having great, dedicated teachers.

The bottom line question, then, is where to get these great teachers. That takes money in the long term, even if national service type positions can be created for the short term. .
Great teachers also need a upport sytem and they need guidance and supervision.
The localities that need to improve most are often the ones least able to afford what it takes and/or to know how to best use these great teachers.
Being a good teacher is a high intensity, long hour, job. There is burnout, unless there is support. and compensation.

It's hard. to do and hard to implement. That's why I urge caution before jumping in head first.

Neocon

What no one has ever proposed in which I have always found a solution to is super schools that are in nice areas of town.

Bring the kids out of the projects and into neighborhoods in which their is hope and a win/win situation.

If we can have universities that teach 50,000 at a time. Why is it we cannot have schools that teach 50,000 students at a time. Instead of 5000 schools with 1000 students. Why not 10 schools with 50,000 students in good areas where the sun shines and their is hope in the surroundings.

DLS

"Sorry, local funding and local control just won't work for education."

There have been problems with it. I'd note again that part of it has to do with how property is taxed, but there's also simply a lot of economic disparity (even a better tax system would not solve the problem) and you can find that states are typically engaged in redistribution of funds for education as a response to this.

* * *

"Bring the kids out of the projects and into neighborhoods in which their is hope and a win/win situation."

That was also tried with Section 8 housing during the Clinton years as a cultural improvement effort, if I recall correctly. It was anti-negative as well as positive, i.e., it was seen as breaking up to less than "critical mass" the underclass environment as well as providing role models for improvement. But it was seen instead more than anything by resentful suburbanites as something like cancer metastasizing. With the kids you're revisiting the specter of bussing (this time for cultural and developmental rather than for racial-integration purposes, I admit).

runasim

"states are typically engaged in redistribution of funds for education as a response "

Not much, and certainly not enough. You have only to look at suburban schools compared to inner city ones to see the difference. When teachers spend their own money for school supplies, that says a lot about 'redistribution'.

The larger problem is that individual problems cluster. Money strapped states, regressive tax codes, lack of expertise and lack of interest are often sisters in the same harem.

As education is a national interest, it will need national involvement.
Sometimes it has to happen drastically, as when the National Guard was called in to end segregation. A much more gentle involvement will do this time, but there has to be involvement, or we all fail together. .

There will be no quick fixes, btw, which is why I urge caution. No one-size-fits-all solution. No magic bullet. Just a lot of poking and prodding to see what works where and for which students.

DLS

"'states are typically engaged in redistribution of funds for education as a response'

Not much, and certainly not enough."

If you want what approaches true equity -- no argument from me.

"As education is a national interest, it will need national involvement."

It's not necessarily a national interest requiring federal involvement. There are legitimate questions whether it is a legitimate thing for the federal government to intervene in at all. (It could also be argued that it's not a national interest, period, but that argument falls apart once other unquestionably legitimate federal functions are affected, such as the education levels of military recruits.)

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