{"id":235,"date":"2008-08-19T12:53:06","date_gmt":"2008-08-19T10:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=235"},"modified":"2008-08-19T10:58:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-19T08:58:43","slug":"obama-v-mccain-on-education-and-the-winner-is%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=235","title":{"rendered":"Obama v. McCain on Education: And the winner is\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It is typical for candidates to speak in platitudes on the campaign trail.\u00a0 As the son of a teacher and a parent I look at the education system in America as creaking.\u00a0 The average teacher salary in California is $59,345<\/a> while the median salary in California for people with between five and nine years of experience is $67,552<\/a>.\u00a0 In other words, we grossly underpay our teachers and undervalue our childrens’ future.\u00a0 While the states take the lead on providing for our childrens’ education, the federal government has had a role for quite a long time.\u00a0 The No Child Left Behind Act<\/a> has done a very good job of leaving all children behind, unless you have a lot of money for private schools.\u00a0 Teaching to tests and eliminating such \u201cfrivolities\u201d as orchestra, music, and art, does not make for a well rounded education.<\/span><\/p>\n

What am I looking from the candidates?\u00a0 I want money, plain and simple.\u00a0 I want them to see more money devoted to education.\u00a0 Providing tax breaks is not the answer to me, because it generally robs money from our public school systems.\u00a0 The lack of economies of scale in both the private and the public market for the foreseeable future would be intolerable.\u00a0 In addition, faith need not apply.\u00a0 Want religion?\u00a0 Go to church, temple, or whatever else suits you.\u00a0 Want science, arts, music, reading, language, and social studies?\u00a0 Let’s have that in the schools.\u00a0 I am not opposed to choice of school so long as everyone has that choice, it is not used as a back door for religion, and the basic standards are upheld (including building, health, etc).<\/p>\n

How do the candidates rate?\u00a0 According to OnTheIssues.Org<\/a> John McCain believes in school choice, but does believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in our schools (but see below).\u00a0 He would fund education by reducing subsidies in other areas, including sugar, oil, and ethanol.\u00a0 He wants tax breaks for charter schools, and he is a strong proponent of vouchers that could be used for any school, including religious schools.\u00a0 He claims the money would not come from other education efforts, but that’s the sort of thinking that only someone who has been in Washington too long could have, and as a fiscal conservative, it offends me.<\/p>\n

At that same web site, Barack Obama’s position boils down to this: we don’t pay teachers enough, we didn’t put any money into the No Child Left Behind Act, hire more teachers, pay excellent teachers excellently, provide a capital improvement fund for crumbling buildings, and free education for people who maintain a B average.\u00a0 My problem with Obama’s plan is that it is a wishlist a mile long with a bill to go with, and perhaps even more than I could stomach, and he does not provide a way to pay for any of it.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, on the whole I am far closer to Obama than McCain on education.\u00a0 If we are to err, it seems right to err on the side of too much, rather than too little, education.\u00a0 If people reach their potentials through education, the other problems seem so much easier.<\/p>\n

So round one goes to Obama, but it was a decision, not a knockout.\u00a0 In fact, in scoring the candidates, I’d give Senator Obama a B- for having the right idea but not clearly stating how he would pay for it, but Senator McCain a D for bringing church into the back door of schools, but at least stating what he would do.\u00a0 Or put another way: 80\/100 for Obama, and 65\/100 for McCain, a difference of 15 points. Have faith<\/strong>, Senator McCain.\u00a0 There are many more issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is typical for candidates to speak in platitudes on the campaign trail.\u00a0 As the son of a teacher and a parent I look at the education system in America as creaking.\u00a0 The average teacher salary in California is $59,345 while the median salary in California for people with between five and nine years of … Continue reading “Obama v. McCain on Education: And the winner is\u2026”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,4],"tags":[133,131,130,493],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity","category-politics","tag-education","tag-mccain","tag-obama","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}