Re: Candidate's ed policy

["GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>]

Obama is no doubt right to cite India and China.  A third of India's 
population is still illiterate and only 40% of China's kids make it past the 
9th grade.  Many of China's "immigrant children" (the term affixed to those 
who move into cities from the impoverished countryside) aren't even in 
school.

He does need some schooling himself, though.  The McKinsey global institute 
estimates that 90% of China's "engineers" would not be sufficiently 
competent to work for a multinational corporation.  Partly it's language. 
Partly it's that China is its own world and no other nations works that way 
(recall we're dealing with entrepreneurs who are still hard core 
Stalinists).

Jerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <QCao009@aol.com>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Candidate's ed policy


In a message dated 4/30/2008 9:21:18 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
Bussardre@aol.com writes:

"Asked  what he would do to help families, and especially to stabilize those

in low income communities, Obama said “There is no one thing to do,” then
listed  some strategies: 1) provide gainful employment, particularly  for
men; and
create  second chances for offenders who live in those  communities by
providing  legislation that will offer a clean slate  to those who have
demonstrated
worthiness; 2) Provide early  childhood education and pre-k education.

"Responding to a question  about what can be done to stop the  outsourcing 
of
American jobs,  Obama suggested a highly educated American  workforce was
key.
He  commented on the high value that is placed on education in  countries
like
India and China, where many American jobs have been exported."
Billee:

Sounds like the ghost writer of A Nation at Risk is now working  for the BRT
and moonlighting as a scriptwriter for the Senator from  Illinois.  Most of
the folks I met at Stanford were pretty much party line  USDOE-funded so 
when
someone said that's where his advice was coming  from, pieces of the puzzle
start to fit.  There is historical  precedent to all of this:  GBush 41 
called
Bill Clinton the Education  Governor and here in Florida, Betty Castor all 
but
knighted Frank Brogan as  the model Superintendent when he was still in 
Martin
and prepared his ascent to  the Commissionership.

All this simply to say that the "change" candidate needs to be schooled 
much
longer by people like you who have been in the trenches before he  can say 
he
has an education policy.  Having a sister who is a teacher does  not make 
one
an expert on education.  I would look more closely at his  community
organizer and advocate track record.  Not everything that shines  is gold. 
And if
calling him out starts screams of racism, so be it.

Truth be told, if we sit down and read what Jeremiah Wright has been saying
these past three days, he sounds a whole lot more like Martin Luther King 
than
we realized and the mainstream press has somehow spun him into this crazy
nut  figure.  I like my Presidents with a modicum of courage and I find no
solace and reassurance in Obama's denouncement of someone who married him 
and
baptized his children.  If he cannot stand by Wright, will he stand by 
America's
children?  And what does he mean by keeping teachers  "accountable" ?  It is
such code word for union-busting !!!   Accountable to whom?  To those who
enforce drill and kill, test and stress  ?

Quan



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