In a speech on Tuesday at Stebbins High School at Riverside , Ohio, Barack Obama(presidential nominee of the Democratic Party) introspected the No Child Left Behind Act.
NCLB was established in 2001, which was a bipartisan consent to uplift education and became a law in 2002. The main motive of the act was to improve the standard of primary and secondary education, providing choice to parents regarding the school their child will attend and increasing the accountability of state and schools.
Though Obama criticized the law’s implication but also made statements like “Forcing our teachers, our principals, and our schools to accomplish all of this without the resources they need is wrong. Promising high-quality teachers in every classroom and then leaving the support and the pay for those teachers behind is wrong. Labeling a school and its students as failures one day and then throwing your hands up and walking away from them the next is wrong”
Obama looks forward to fix up the NCLB if he is elected as the president. He also proposed a $1 billion education reform. This would include cash for privately run charter schools and $500 million for the technology investments needed. His wish is to also have merit based pay plans for teachers.
Obama’s speech was in relation to his recent campaign which emphasized on McCains efforts to spend money on the economic plan rather than public education. “My opponent has taken to talking about the need for change and reform in Washington, where he has been part of the scene for about three decades. And in those three decades, he has not done one thing to truly improve the quality of public education in our country…. You don’t reform our schools by opposing efforts to fully fund No Child Left Behind. And you certainly don’t reform our education system by calling to close the Department of Education,” he said.
Tucker bounds, McCain’s campaigns spokesperson defended by saying, “Without a single achievement on education reform, Barack Obama has resorted to a desperate attack with absolutely no basis in fact. John McCain has proposed new education reforms to empower parents and students while reducing the influence of the unions and government bureaucrats that support Barack Obama’s candidacy. Nothing that John McCain has proposed would reduce funding for public schools, but in fact he has pledged additional funds to improve education — and Barack Obama knows it.”
Obama also emphasized that he would fund his proposal by “carefully winding down the war in Iraq, by ending no-bid contracts and by eliminating wasteful spending”