Wow! I just read that our Dear Leader Obama is again proposing another government plan to help us out! This time he is again showing us his concern about the high dropout rate of students from high schools. And in doing so he is proposing yet another government “plan”. Never mind that last year Obama described a “Race to the Top” program — a $5 billion pot of money states would compete for in order to, among other things, reduce the dropout rate and improve performance in low-performing schools. Never mind that most previous government “plans”, to include those at the State level, apparently have never worked despite all the money expended in those plans. Never mind that Bush signed into law the “No Child Left Behind” act in 2002, an act which has since increased federal funding for schools by many billions of dollars. I guess that bill did not work either.
Well, I’m sure that Obama, being very intelligent, knows how to do it right. According to the article that I read, Obama is proposing four different methods to “improve” our high schools which have high dropout rates. One method is to fire the principal and at least half the staff. I guess by the “staff” is meant those in administrative positions and NOT teachers. A second method is to “Restart” the school by opening it as a charter school or a school under the management of an education organization with expertise in running schools. Hmm… I wonder what kind of “education organization” has expertise in running schools? Could it be some progressive “social engineering” organization with good political connections? A third method is to “transform” the school by firing the principal but retaining — and retooling — personnel to implement “comprehensive instructional reform strategies.” Wow! Don’t you just love the phrase “comprehensive instructional reform strategies”? I sure wonder exactly what those are! But never mind. I’m sure Obama and his administration not only know what they are, but will even determine some of them, all to the benefit of our low-performing high schools.
Yeh, right. Obama’s latest “proposals” don’t say a damn thing about all the teachers’ unions and the teachers themselves. Oh no, whatever we do we must not get in the way of the teachers’ unions. Never mind that many high school principals, who wish to fire clearly incompetent teachers, can almost never do so because of objections from a teachers’ union. So yeh, in such a case, fire the principal. The unions can not be touched in any negative fashion by Obama because he is so much in favor of them. The jerk. Gosh, I fear more and more for the United States, given Obama as our Dear Leader.