McCain, Obama Offer Differing Education Plans

Tag : college education

NPR.org , June 27, 2008 · Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has delivered four majorspeeches on education. Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain unveiledthe details of his educational agenda during a speech in mid-Julybefore the NAACP.
The two candidates differ on everything from public school fundingto college tuition to the No Child Left Behind Act. Below, NPR laysout the two candidates' education plans side by side.
Funding Public Education
The McCain campaign has said that Arizona senator intends to keepthe full federal funding for schools; he just wants to give more ofthat money to parents for them to send their kids to the public,private or religious schools of their choice. He has also said thathe would like to commit a total of $750 million to develop "virtualschools" and curriculums, allowing students to take online classesin science, math and foreign languages.
Obama has said that his education proposals would cost about $18billion and would be funded by trimming NASA's budget andauctioning surplus federal properties, among other measures. Butmost of the Illinois senator's education proposals are so costlythat they would require Congress to approve additional newspending. He says he wants to make "a historic commitment" toeducation, because he wants to give every American child the samechances he had.
Rethinking the No Child Left Behind Act
Both McCain and Obama plan to keep in place the No Child LeftBehind Act, although they both want to tweak the law.
McCain voted for the 2001 law, which has given the federalgovernment unprecedented authority over testing, academic standardsand the rating of the nation's public schools. However, he hasjoined critics — Democrats and Republicans alike — whosay the law needs major fixes. Unlike conservatives and somemembers of Congress, McCain does not want to scrap the lawentirely. His advisers say instead, he wants to provide moretutoring services for students who are behind before he tacklesNCLB.
Obama was not in the U.S. Senate when Congress voted for the NoChild Left Behind Act, but he supported it in the Illinois statelegislature. His biggest criticism of the law is that it has beenineffective and inadequately funded. He also has said it relies tooheavily on poorly designed tests to gauge progress in reading andmath at the expense of a well-rounded education. Obama says hedoesn't want to get rid of testing, but he does want to work moreclosely with governors to come up with better written tests thathelp teachers pinpoint students' weaknesses.
School Choice: Vouchers, Charters and Home Schooling
McCain supports vouchers, home schooling, charter schools andgenerally any policy that helps parents choose the private orpublic school that they want their children to attend. Schoolchoice, McCain argues, will create market forces that will spurcompetition among schools, not just for students but for the bestteachers. He has also said that he would expand federally fundedvouchers called Opportunity Scholarships that would let moreparents pick the school of their choice.
Obama also wants to give parents more options when they pick aschool for their children, but he would limit those choices topublic charter schools. He does not support vouchers for childrento attend private and parochial schools.
Keeping College Costs Low
Both McCain and Obama support providing more money for needycollege students, as well as the recent efforts by Congress and theBush administration to shore up the student loan program, which hasbeen hit hard by the credit crunch.
Obama would like to introduce a new tax credit to ensure that thefirst $4,000 of a college education is free for most students, inexchange for 100 hours of community service. This plan would costabout $10 billion a year. Obama says he can save billions ofdollars by overhauling the federal student loan program, andcreating a system that bypasses banks and private lenders in favorof having the U.S. Education Department run a direct lendingprogram.
He also wants to double the size of the Peace Corps and expandAmeri-Corp and other national service programs.
McCain wants to make college more affordable by supporting a bigincrease in Pell Grants that Congress approved for needy studentsin 2007. McCain also backed the expansion of low-interest loans formiddle-class families who are struggling to keep up with collegetuition increases.
Training Teachers
Obama would require all schools of education to be accredited andthen figure out which colleges are doing the best job of trainingteachers. Obama is the first presidential candidate ever to makesuch a proposal. His proposal borrows many ideas from severalcommissions that promote the national certification of teachers,more mentoring programs for first-year teachers, and merit pay forthe best teachers.
McCain has said that he supports merit pay for teachers, includinggiving bonuses to teachers who work in the most troubled schools.He also wants to recruit more top teachers who have graduated inthe top 25 percent of their class, or who participated in an"alternative teacher recruitment program," such as Teach forAmerica.