“Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, my fellow Americans, today in America, a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it and did her part to lift America’s graduation rate to its highest levels in more than three decades.”
That’s how the President began his State of the Union Address last night.
On education, it was brief and downhill from there.
I couldn’t help but think of Pete Seeger’s famous anti-war song, Waist Deep in The Big Muddy.
We were — waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.
To be sure, Obama is no fool.
I won’t venture to say the same of his Education Secretary. So while the Obama/Duncan education vision is under assault by teachers, parents and teacher union members across the country, with few successes to point to, Obama says to push on.
Five years ago we set out to change the odds for all our kids. We worked with lenders to reform student loans, and today more young people are earning college degrees than ever before. Race to the Top, with the help of governors from both parties, has helped states raise expectations and performance. Teachers and principals in schools from Tennessee to Washington, D.C., are making big strides in preparing students with the skills for the new economy — problem solving, critical thinking, science, technology, engineering, math.
Now, some of this change is hard.
It requires everything from more challenging curriculums and more demanding parents to better support for teachers and new ways to measure how well our kids think, not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test. But it is worth it — and it is working.
Working?
Parents and teachers who were watching were just shaking their heads.
Fred Klonsky 
We need to come to the realization that political rhetoric is simply BS well packaged! irrespective of the source.
And why hasn’t the President once mentioned the theft of Illinois pensions? He called out the Wisconsin legislature a couple of years ago. Now he’s silent.
It’s his Party who stole it.
Thanks, Fred, for the summary of Obama’s all-too-brief statements about U.S. education. I do not have the gastrointestinal fortitude requires to watch the POTUS SOTUS, so thanks for yours. As it is, he said exactly what I’d expected him to say. In the same paragraph, no less–“…new ways to measure how well our kids think, not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test.” REALLY, Mr. President?! And just who among us is asking that “our kids” (certainly not YOURS!) “fill in a bubble?” Teachers and parents? Of course not–you & your basketball pal Arne!!
And then…the mantra: click the heels of your ruby red slippers together three times, folks, repeating,
“…and it is working…and it is working…and it is working…”
Oh–“But it is worth it…” Excuse me while I make a pit stop.