Obama was against vouchers before he was against them. Updated. More.
Logic and facts mean little to these people. Obama gives an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal and says that he would be for vouchers if there was any data that supports their efficacy. And then goes on to say that there is no such data. Is there another way to interpret this as anything but anti-voucher?
Yes. If you’re Joe Williams, Alex Russo, or Reality-based Educator. They claim this makes Obama pro-voucher.
Then the Obama people make it even clearer that Obama is anti-voucher.
There have been misleading reports that Senator Obama voiced support for voucher programs in an interview with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers, and expressed his longstanding skepticism in that interview. Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools. The misleading reports that have been circulated about Senator Obama’s position took excerpts of an interview out of context.
Williams now claims he was fooled.
Update: Leo Casey’s defense of Hillary in Edwize.
He wants desperately to find differences between Hillary and Obama on education, but it is not an easy job.Says Leo, Hillary is stronger on NCLB. Why? Because Leo finds an Obama quote.
“I do not believe that being against No Child Left Behind is an education policy.”
Of course, aside from whether that is true or not (and really, being against NCLB is not an education policy), it’s just one quote.Here’s another Obama quote:
Obama supports the broad goals of the No Child Left Behind legislation. He said setting high standards for schools, accountability and providing highly qualified teachers for each classroom are concepts he supports. The problems with NCLB, Obama noted, are unrealistic standards, the method for measuring performance is inadequate and lack of funding.
“George Bush left the money behind for No Child Left Behind,” said Obama. “It is another unfunded mandate.”
He assured the audience that flaws in NCLB must be corrected before he will support renewing the legislation.
The problem for Leo is that if that is not strong enough for him, it is basically an echo of the position taken by his union as well as mine.
Not to mention, Hillary voted for NCLB.
While I don’t much like the position Obama takes on merit pay, one might think that given the AFT’s collaboration on a ground-breaking pay for performance plan (school based) with test performance as a principle criteria, there seems to be a lot of stone throwing going on in that glass house.
As for Leo’s suggestion to Obama:
A number of the Obama supporters floating this idea have ulterior motives for doing so, since it lends credibility to positions of their own. It would be in the best interests of the candidate Obama to make clear that these supporters do not reflect his thinking.
See above. Good suggestion. Looks like he followed already did it.
More: A reader sends me this Obama quote from his speech the other night in Houston:
Houston, I am here to tell you that every child is our problem, every child is our responsibility…(APPLAUSE)… every child needs to be nurtured and embraced.
And so we are going to invest in early childhood education to close the achievement gap.
And I won’t just talk about how great teachers are; I will reward them for their greatness…(APPLAUSE)… by giving them higher salaries and giving them more support.
And I want the highest standards in our schools. We have to have high standards, standards of excellence in order to compete in this global economy. But I don’t want our standards measured just by a single high-stakes standardized test, because I don’t want our teachers teaching to the tests.(APPLAUSE)
I want our students learning art, and music, and science, and literature, and social studies.(APPLAUSE)
And I don’t know about you, but I think it’s about time we made college affordable for every young person in America.(APPLAUSE)
So we’re going to provide a $4,000 tuition credit, every student, every year, but, students, you’re going to have to give back something in return. You’re going to have to participate in community service. You’re going to have to work in a homeless shelter, or a veteran’s home, or an underserved school, or join the Peace Corps.
We’ll invest in you; you invest in America. Together, we will march this country forward.
