ShareThisPresident Obama this week laid out his plan for improving American education, but to get much of it enacted he will have to take on powerful constituencies, including those in his own party.
And in seeking to lengthen the school day, school week and school year, modeling it after South Korea, he is meddling with deeply entrenched rhythms of American life.
Just as in the post 9/11 period -- when proposed programs were linked to national security to give them urgency -- programs are sold in this time of recession on the basis of strengthening the economy. And in listing three reasons for reversing what he called the "relative decline in American education," he listed the economy first. It is, the president said, "untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy and unacceptable for our children."
He will be bucking the reliably Democratic teachers' unions in seeking merit pay for good teachers and making it easier to remove bad ones. Obama took a direct shot at the unions' jealously guarded job protections and tenure: "I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequence."
He will also be facing off against the unions in his goal of eliminating limits on the number of charter schools. Greatly increasing the number of charter schools is fine if there is a mechanism to ensure those schools are better than the public schools they are displacing, and for closing them if the charter schools are failing.
His plan to provide an additional $5 billion to the Head Start programs will run afoul of Republicans opposed to additional spending on early childhood education.
Conservatives are sure to oppose uniform academic achievement standards on the grounds that such a policy further federalizes what traditionally has been a state and local responsibility.
The president also said he wants to cultivate "a new culture of accountability in America's schools." The details of how this is to be accomplished are yet to come.
All of this is very ambitious -- and very expensive. Over $100 billion is already provided for in the economic stimulus package, but a stimulus is by definition one-time spending. That means the president may have to refight this battle with the growing number of lawmakers uneasy about the size of federal spending.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
