What's Next 2008:
Special Report
Table of Contents
- What's Next: Ten Predictions for the Future of Public Education
- 1. Full-Service Schools: Where Success Is More Than Academic
- Video: Stealth Mental Health: Student Support Without the Stigma
- 2. In the Trenches: Community Activism Plays a Starring Role in Education Reform
- Posting Protests: Email Becomes Active in Education
- 3. Moral Aptitude: Schools Cultivate the Character Development of their Students
- Video: Talking Heads and Hearts: Intellectual and Emotional Education Make a Potent Pairing
- 4. Serious Gaming: Computer Games Become Potent Student Motivators and Evaluators
- Video: Grading with Games: An Interview with James Paul Gee
- 5. Behaveyourself.com: Online Manners Matter
- Beyond Emily: Post-ing Etiquette
- 6. The Media Is the Message: Invasive Messages Require Defensive Teaching
- Savvy Sites: Online Resources on Media Literacy
- 7. The Way of the Wiki: Building Online Creativity and Cooperation
- Wiki Woman: How a Web Tool Saved My Career
- Wiki Wisdom: How to Use an Online Classroom Clearinghouse
- 8. A Match Made in Cyberspace: The Next Generation of Teachers Will Seek Virtual Support
- Poll: Would you use online mentoring?
- 9. Hail to the New Chief: A Guide to the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Education Agenda
- Poll: Which candidate will be better for K-12 public education?
- 10. Rise of the Robots: Human-Machine Interaction Enhances Tech Teaching
- Poll: Do robots have a place in the classroom?
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The Edutopia Poll
by Sara Ring
As the presidential battle between John McCain and Barack Obama heats up, each vies to convince the country that he is the best candidate to improve education. The senators' policies share some common ground: Both would revise No Child Left Behind, and both believe in some form of merit pay for exemplary teachers. Yet there are stark differences as well. McCain emphasizes school choice and parent empowerment, supporting private school vouchers and earmarking $500 million in federal dollars to fund virtual schools and online classes. Obama is against private school vouchers and would focus on reforming public schools, emphasizing research and development in science, technology, and math to prepare students for America's fastest-growing fields. Whose vision for the future of education more closely matches your own? We want to know!
Improving Education
Submitted by Michelle M (not verified) on October 28, 2008 - 06:31.
Do you know that the top 25% of Chinese students out number the entire student population of the United States, it is the same with India. The top 25% of students in those countries go to university and the rest are guided to jobs in trade and industry. We cannot accurately compare the whole of the United States with the top 25% of others.
In other countries in the world, health care is a guarantee, and providing for children from pregnancy to adulthood is the rule rather than the exception.
How can the top 5% of this nation's wealthiest people control more than 90% of the income in this country?
Only in the United States do we pay professional athletes millions of dollars to be entertained, while we have a growing majority of families without the basic necessities of life.
Until we take off our Rose-colored glasses that we live in a free society and take responsibility for the direction our Nation has taken can we reform any part of our reality.
Vote for John McCain if you want more of the SAME!
Trillions of dollars in national debt, bail out plans for the wealthy and NO plan for the future!
Better for Education?
Submitted by Katie (not verified) on October 24, 2008 - 13:40.
As bad as President Bush has been, you all forget we haven't had another 9/11 in 7 yrs. I'm very disappointed in his choices, but how can you think Obama will be a better choice? If you watched the first debate, he will not be stopping the war, only transferring it to Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you don't believe me, watch them over again and really listen to his answers. As for being eloquent, you must have missed him speaking in PA when his telepromter went out. He is very good at reading what's in front of him or memorizing a good speech. It's off the cuff he can't do and that tells a lot about a person and his knowledge and experience. And for education? Both want to reform the NCLB act. It was a novel idea, but it needs a lot of tweaking. I vote McCain.
Both Candidates support some
Submitted by Dina Logo (not verified) on October 23, 2008 - 06:22.
Both Candidates support some form of merit based pay-- I fear this will adversely affect inner city teachers. Does anybody see how it will not? The haves will still have and the have nots will still have not! This inner city issue is also where those teacher turnover rates and drop out rates are staggering!!!
Non Inclusion of Third Party Candidates?
Submitted by Ron (not verified) on October 8, 2008 - 13:27.
For a publication of Edutopia's stature to not even mention third party candidates on a question of this importance is a major disappointment and inappropriate.
While I will probably be voting for one of candidates you do list by name - the educational platform of the Green Party represented by Pres. candidate Cynthia McKinney and VP candidate Rosa Clemente is much more progressive and forward thinking than the democratic or republican nominees.
While Obama's vision of education is closer to mine than McCain's. It is Cynthia McKinney's that is closest to my own. Edutopia's decision to not include McKinney by name in this poll shows a bias and lack of inclusiveness when considering visions of education.
Presidential Choice
Submitted by Anthony Adamczyk (not verified) on August 27, 2008 - 08:56.
I had to take time during the busy first day of school to comment on your article on the Presidential election. Before I express my strongest disappointment I must ask some questions:
-Are you aware that more than two candidates are running for President of the United States? (Probably not because the corporate media is, as usual, ignoring or dismissing the other candidates.)
-Are you aware that on Election Day MOST of your readers will have more than two choices? (Probably not because the "two parties", and many States themselves make it nearly impossible for "outsiders" to get on the ballot.)
-Are you aware that it is a Constitutional Right to run for President? (Probably not because the Bi-Partisan Commission on Presidential Debates only invites their chosen candidates and dictates the location, format, moderator, audience, broadcast sponsor, and questions so that the "debate" will once again resemble a duet of tired old sound bites instead of an actual exchange and debate of new ideas.)
-Are you going to publish an apology and corrected information in your next issue so that your readers can learn who is on the ballot in their state and the educational positions of ALL candidates. (Probably not.)
-Will anything change if we keep voting for the same two parties over and over and over? (Definitely not.)
The best presidential candidate
Submitted by Michael Simkins (not verified) on August 24, 2008 - 18:30.
I'm frustrated. Neither of these candidates seems to represent me as the next leader of our nation. It's not about whether the candidate is great on "education"; what matters is his or her overall leadership ability.
Presidential candidates and education
Submitted by John (not verified) on August 25, 2008 - 12:15.
I agree neither of these candidates will make a great leader to this nation and therefore will not be able to bring the change THE PEOPLE want to see on many fronts including education. Hillary Clinton we need you!!!
Best candidate for education
Submitted by Penny (not verified) on August 22, 2008 - 15:03.
Well, for starters, McCain claims he does not know how to check his e-mail and cannot use a computer. There are very few jobs someone like that is qualified to do. My husband, the heavy equipment operator, has to be able to read a computer manual since the new heavy equipment has no steering wheel, it's got a "joystick."
The best candidate for education
Submitted by John Roseman (not verified) on August 22, 2008 - 10:17.
Mike Bonnie {prior comment} is correct
The members of the Senate and the House or Representatives are just as important, perhaps more so. As Mike said, "History shows representatives who support the president are equally as likely to make things worse as to make things better (case in point; the Afghan/Iraq war)."
The problem is, no one is recognizing the educational system is broken and can't be fixed with band aids. Politicians are so worried about offending voters that they are not looking at the individuals who can't vote - the children. A 30% drop out rate {or higher}, and a 50% attrition rate for new teachers is a sign on the wall politicians just want to ignore.
The state of public education
Submitted by Neela (not verified) on August 23, 2008 - 16:54.
I support allegations that 30 % of high schoolers drop out of school. I also believe the assertion that 50% of new teachers leave the profession within the first 5 years. I would like to further assert that although the numbers afore mentioned are staggering, they are based on NATIONAL averages. On individual state and local levels, high school drop out rates and teacher attrition rates vary dramatically. Many of these statistics boggle the mind!
In simpler terms, these findings assert that an UNACCEPTABLE amount of our nation's future labor force are falling through the cracks. Frustrations over their lack of abilities in literacy and math lead hard-working, socially-conscious young adults to drop out of formal education and find other, more attainable ways to make a future for themselves. Consequently, we lose hardworking and determined adolescents to the "school of hard knocks". Their chances for survival are not good. And worst of all, their sad fate is because the Baby Boom generation and the generation succeeding them failed to accept responsibility and revamp the whole U.S. education system to meet the needs of a technologically-rich economic future. The MAJORITY of our nation's public schools are stuck in a learning structure designed for the industrial age. Since then, we as a society have progressed through the ages of information and digitization. Yet our educational paradigm has stayed the same, stagnating growth and creativity in today's students. Students are monumentally frustrated and frankly, so are we (the teachers)!
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