KRISTOF (NYT) - offers 5 paragraphs that Dems should read in the last 3 days before election

[underpants]

Give Obama a Break
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


The economic crisis has also distracted from authentic accomplishments. Presidents since Harry Truman have been pushing for health care reform, and it was Mr. Obama who finally achieved it. The economy seemed at risk of another Great Depression when he took office, and that was downgraded to a recession from which we have officially emerged — even though the pain is still biting.

Mr. Obama has also helped engineer a successful auto bailout, a big push for clean energy, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to reduce sex discrimination, tighter tobacco regulations aimed at the 1,000 Americans under age 18 who become smokers each day, and tighter financial regulation including reform of credit card rules.

Above all, Mr. Obama has been stellar in one area crucial to our country’s future: education. Democrats historically have been AWOL on school reform because they are beholden to teacher unions, but Mr. Obama has reframed the debate and made it safe to talk about teaching standards and “bad teachers.” Until Mr. Obama, Democrats barely acknowledged that it was possible for a teacher to be bad.

Mr. Obama used stimulus money to keep teachers from being laid off and to nudge states to reform education so as to benefit children for years to come. His “Race to the Top” focused states on education reform as never before.

He has also revamped and expanded student loans and bolstered support for community colleges, opening a new path to higher education for working-class Americans. Millions more Americans may end up in college.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/opinion/31kristof.html?ref=opinion

[Tansy_Gold]

1. I think it's horribly sad that two of those five paragraphs address

what I consider to be one of the failures of the Obama administration, which is the continuation of the booooshera race to privatize public education.

NCLB, which was supposed to raise standards and then make every student meet them, has proven a failure. Obama's RTTT has turned schools into money-grubbers and our children and grandchildren into pawns on one of his chessboards.

I will be voting for Democrats on Tuesday, but certainly not because I think RTTT has been a good idea.


Tansy Gold, whose student loans have not been diminished one red cent by any Obama policies

[skepticscott]

2. Agreed

The lot of teachers in this country, and the regard in which they are held, cannot be said to have improved under Obama by any stretch of the imagination.

[Nite Owl]

3. RTTT is one of the worse

ideas put forward. His regard for teachers is beyond disgust and he has done more to damage improvements in education than any President. More testing and disregard for the fundamental causes of school dropout rates and is being totally disregarded. RTTT will destroy public education and the future of our children.

[dennis4868]

4. Great editorial....

Kristoff speaks the truth! It's hard to imagine anyone else doing any better than Obama considering all that Obama has been up against the past 2 years.

Of course, no matter what Obama does there will be a certain % of people here on DU that will not be happy and call for Obama to be challenged in the primaries in 2012.

[Tansy_Gold]

5. No one called for a primary challenge

No one said we weren't happy.

We do have issues with some of the policies enacted by this administration, some of which are continuations, slightly altered, of boooosh administration policies, AND with the way Mr. Kristof (with whom I usually agree) presented them in his essay.

Or do you think everything Obama has done has been perfect and couldn't possibly be improved upon?



Tansy Gold, NTY

[Bitwit1234]

6. I know people don't believe this but

I have heard it over and over from different students. The discipline problem in some schools and the bullying keeps a lot of good students from really learning. I think teachers are afraid to discipline the students because of the blow back from parents. I don't believe in teachers being allowed to strike students. But I do think there should be some way to put the ones who are loud and won't let others learn in their own classes and a very strict disciplinarian in charge. It is a shame we can't raise the learning process to equal, at least, the countries abroad. I at first thought home schooling was the thing, but my grandchildren were taught at home by their mother. Now she, to me wasn't a good choice but...those kids got a better than first rate education. They were grades ahead of children in the same grade level. And they were very very knowledgeable in things not even taught in school. They went deeper into the subjects. Now a lot of this was because they got individual attention. BUT another was they were not hindered by the rants and raves of prejudice and political nonsense put forth by a lot of parents. I think a lot of home schooled children show the same results. Unless the teachers in regular school are filling kids minds full of nonsense I don't think the parents have the right to censure what is taught.

[bemildred]

8. My 2cents: Kids should not be in school unless they WANT to be there.

There should be alternatives that get them outdoors, that give then non-academic experience and job skills, that do other good things, there are plenty of alternatives. Academic learning is "hard work", and it is a waste of time to force the motivated and unmotivated together and then expect them all to do well.

[Fruittree]

7. I agree that Pres. Obama for some reason doesn't seem

to get the credit he deserves for his accomplishments. I think sometimes people expect immediate end results rather than step by step progress which is what I see happening. As far as RTTT, other people are likely more well-informed about this than I am but, what I see is an attempt to improve a situation which in some areas is in dire need of improvement. Can we just look at it as the beginning of a conversation rather than as an end result? Also, is it possible people are just too quick to take a negative view without giving it a chance?

[swilton]

9. I don't buy that he has pushed for clean energy

Clean coal is not clean energy neither is nuclear power. The author overlooks the failure of the US to exert a leadership role at the Copenhagen summit.

[Think82]

11. Lots of clean energy provisions in the stimulus

...

[yurbud]

10. on education ''reform'' both Obama and Kristof are dead wrong--it's stealth privatization