Education was a key part of President Obama's State of the Union address.
Education is one of the few areas of the federal budget that would not see a spending freeze, if President Barack Obama gets his way this year.
In his State of the Union speech on Jan. 27, Obama said his administration will work with Congress to expand school improvements across the country, saying the success of children cannot depend on where they live.
As he prepares to ask Congress for billions of dollars in new spending for education, the president said the nation’s students need to be inspired to succeed in math and science, and that failing schools need to be turned around.
Obama also called on Congress to finish work on a measure to revitalize community colleges. And he called for a $10,000 tax credit to families for four years of college, as well as an increase in Pell Grants.
“In the 21st century, one of the best anti-poverty programs is a world-class education,” Obama said.
He said college students should only have to devote 10 percent of their post-college income to repaying student loans.
“And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, … all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years—and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college,” he added.
Obama will ask Congress to boost federal spending on education by as much as $4 billion in the coming 2011 budget year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said earlier in the day.
Of that total, $3 billion is slated for elementary and secondary education programs ranging from teacher quality to student safety.
The sum also includes another $1.35 billion for Obama’s “Race to the Top” competitive grant program, which was created last year using $4.35 billion from the economic stimulus bill. States must compete for a share of the money and, for some, that means changing their education laws and striking deals with teacher unions to bring their systems in line with Obama’s vision of education reform.
“This year, we have broken through the stalemate between left and right by launching a national competition to improve our schools,” Obama said in his State of the Union address. “The idea here is simple: Instead of rewarding failure, we only reward success.”
Obama sees linking student test scores to teacher performance and creating charter schools as solutions to the problems plaguing public education. Charter schools are funded with public money but operate independently of local school boards. These ideas are controversial, however, and 10 states chose not to apply for Race to the Top funding as a result.
The first round of Race to the Top awards is expected to be announced in April.
With the additional $1.35 billion, states not awarded money in the first round would get another chance to compete. Local school districts also would be allowed to apply.
The rest of the money Obama seeks for K-12 education would become available after Congress overhauls the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law, which is due for a rewrite. Duncan said he hopes that process will be completed by August.
Dear Bobblomeyer :
I read your comments once more.
I did not respond enough to K12 Inc.
I have no intention of promoting a K12 Inc. as a for-profit company. I have no relations with them. Just I know they are a good company. I do not want to mislead anybody. Thanks very much for your warning me.
I am sure there are many better too.
So best thing is to have Federal Government to bring together the best educators of the world and USA to develop a National Curriculum and then a National CONTENT for everybody to SHARE . FREE.
If it can be free in Turkey, it can be free in USA as well .
But my personel opinion is ” free things are not appreciated ”
Therefore I suggest ” to charge $ 10 per course per year per person “.
Best regards.
Dear Bobblomeyer:
I thank your comments . I am also very happy that there are people in the USA thinking like me. K12 Inc was just an example came to my mind at that time. There are Floria Virtual etc as well. DOE can make a contest in DC and have them develop an completely new National Curriculum. We spend $ 60 million to develop about 60 online courses for K12 in 10 years from scrach. USA can spend at most $ 100 million for 100 courses or so .
Let the Federal Government give away these courses to every state free of charge. It is up to states to use it or not.
I would appreciate your email for detailed conversstion.
We were able to have 15.000.000 K12 students access to online cpurses free. Now we are providing netbooks for 15.000.000 K12 students at $ 8 per month installments. Only one in the world.
This is vision USA has given me.
I know very well Hewlett Foundation and its fantastic works. I am very proud to be one of his engineers and having lunch with him for 5 years continuously. He also financed my MSEE degree at Stanford.
Now Bill Gates is also endorsing http://www.academicearth.org and http://www.opencourseware.mit.org and Monterey .
I am trying toorganise all these under the sama umbrella in Turkey.
I set up GLOBAL ONLINE UNIVERSITIES CONSORTIUM . From there I reach to 145 universities in Turkey and later to other parts of the world.
Best regards. mgozaydin@hotmail.com from Turkey
Dear Friend Mgozaydin:
I’ve been reading your responses from Turkey, advocating for more online education in the US for several years now. I admire your spirit and tenacity.
Since I’ve responded to some of the same pieces, you’ll probably recognize that I am also a supporter and “cheerleader” for using virtual learning environments (online education) as a way to improve teaching and learning and help The U.S.A. and our 50 States to improve educational quality, efficiency and equity in our public schools and for ALL OUR CITIZENS!
I want to agree with and affirm your point about SHARING. Sharing is something online courses materials between practitioners in many of our states is something that’s happening already and will hopefully happen more in the future.
A specific example of one mechanism that currently enables such sharing of high quality online course content for high school and college courses is the National Repository of Online Courses or NROC, at this URL: http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/
NROC is a not-for profit entity supported by a generous grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. To access NROC’s large and peer reviewed repository of course content, schools or school district in the US (and elsewhere) are required to pay a nominal membership fee and joint their national and international educational collaborative (or co-op).
There are other online educational collaboratives and co-ops in the US; including MEROT (higher ed courses- merlot.org) and THE Virtual High School (Mass.- govhs.org) The recent increase in interest in online course “repositories” establishing interoperability standards for online course (so they can be transported seamlessly between LMS’s) is evidence that leads me to speculate that more “SHARING” is in the works for online education in the near future.
However, I must disagree with your characterization of that American private company you describe above as serving 25 States. They are a “for profit” company with a mission primarily oriented toward making profits for it’s owners.
The create and disseminate a large amount of “advertising”claiming that their courses and programs produce miraculous gains in performance for students who were previously unable to be academically successful in “traditional” American public schools.
Until I see reliable and objective evidence, from assessments and evaluations by independent and qualified educational researchers, published in refereed professional journals s affirming that company’s claims about the “effects” of their for profit online education programs, I will continue to be more skeptical about those claims that you are.
What’s more, because they are a “For Profit” company, the last thing they would ever consider doing with their courses and instructional materials would be SHARING. They strictly protect all the intellectual property.
Apparently in many of the states they operate in, that includes the grades and testing scores of students from the families contracting for their services.
I challenge you to find publicly reported AYP testing scores for students enrolled in any of that company’s school,s reported along with all the other K-12 school districts and other state-supported charter school programs in ANY of the states in which they operate.
I very much hope that you will take my challenge and be able to prove that I am wrong.
BobBl
Does anyone really think that linking teacher pay to student achievement really works? The way I see it Teachers will be stumbling over themselves to get out of Low income Title Schools to get jobs in Higher achieving schools with more money. We are not creating robots and have to understand the differences in children and achievement levels. Should all children succeed “yes” but will they all succeed exactly the same “no”!
Dear Mr. President :
This Muvaffak GOZAYDIN . I am served by USA for 8 years at Caltech, Stanford and worked in a wonderful company in Silicon Valley for 5 years, 1962-1970 . USA provided me my 40 years of wonderful life in Turkey due to what I learned in USA.
Today I am telling to USA that solution to education is ONLINE .
I grasped this consept in USQA .
It is easy also.
1.- You already have a wonderful company called K12 Inc. for online in the USA. They serve 25 states . Why not they can serve 51 states and have a National Curriculum. Sorry it is against to Federal Law. So So we can call it Academic Curriculum. Have every state to be feery to accept or not. I am sure all will accept.
2.- SHARE wonderful online courses of beautiful universities online courses with the rest of the colleges at fair costs such as $ 10-20 per course per person . You visited Carnegie Mellon and seen the real things.
3.- I am already sharing all those courses in Turkey.
Solutions are visions , innovations. Usually acquired in USA Universities .
Please look realities . Best regards. mgozaydin@hotmail.com from Turkey