Final Harrah, For Now

Hello! This blog certainly hasn't been functioning for quite some time now - and I think as much as I'd like to make this more of a reality - now is not the time. Perhaps when I am deeply engaged in an education policy masters program this will serve better use. I've been learning that I am young and with that I must take things as they come and not necessarily force things that I want, that I may not be ready for. Therefore, I am going to blog instead, about my favorite baseball team - The Boston Red Sox, and how I have grown a liking for baseball. You may find this new blog at:
http://oneredsoxatatime.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for reading!! Perhaps I'll even continue my educational quotes on my new blog, as I liked them so much.

Sincerely,

Margaret

My Morning Education Quotation

"There is no censorship so perfect, so complete as that imposed on the nonreader."

~ Jonathan Kozol

Presidential Candidates on Education

Hi - long time no blogging. Well as I play catch-up I will dig into a new a Huffington Post series on Presidential Candidates on Education. I was made aware of the first piece on Alexander's This Week In Education - Presidential Candidates on Education: The Republicans. Alexander is understandably unimpressed with current proposals by the GOP - and refers to an EdWeek article about the GOP candidates and education.

On Monday the Huffington Post posted about the Democratic Presidential candidates. Like with the GOP version, they scoured campaign and congressional/state legislative websites to determine each candidates stance on education issues (which is precisely what I would have done...Thanks Huffington Post!)

Barack Obama - He appears to care about educational issues - though seems a bit detached, offering policies that the education community could be skeptical of. He was not in office to vote on NCLB and furthermore makes no mention of it.

Bill Richardson - Although he has made strides in NM for public education, he makes little effort to make it a presidential priority. Richardson is in a tough position, fighting for a spot near the top of the Dems. Unfortunately, no one has won a presidential election on education issues.

Hillary Clinton - Appears to strongly support education issues - however she is also on the Senate HELP cmte which by definition requires her to be active on education issues. No big surprises - defends her NCLB vote and asserts that it has been underfunded...etc. I would like to point out that regardless of what is written on the website what matters is what she says to the American people while campaigning. And I haven't heard much about education yet.

John Edwards - As expected, he combines support for public education in his Eliminating Poverty goal. Doesn't say much on NCLB - but offers an idea of second chance schools for HS dropouts.

Dennis Kucinich - He is included in this post for speaking out the most on high-stakes testing. We appreciate his desire for critical thinking over standardized testing. However, he is barely making the polls. The opposite of the front running group - he likely won't make the nomination so he can talk about important education issues because it doesn't matter if it won't get him elected if he won't anyways. Nothing to lose.

Just a note - Chris Dodd is in favor of national standards.

How can education successfully grab hold of the presidential race? Bill Gates and the Broad Foundation are going to try - Alexander reported that the "Strong American Schools Partnership" will officially launch next Tuesday.

My Morning Education Quotation

"A large part of what we call "good teaching" is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs . . . A child is not truly using his higher order thinking skills until he no longer believes in absolutes of right and wrong answering."

~ Benjamin S. Bloom

My Morning Education Quotation

"Change leaders, funding agencies, and policy makers too often overlook or look past creating in school systems conditions that are supportive of change and instead fasten on programs and projects that promise to have immediate results. In a word, efforts to improve schools usually attend more to the introduction of projects and programs than to the systems in which these programs and projects are to be implemented."

~ Phillip C. Schlechty

Playing Catch-up

Hillary Clinton:
"Senator Clinton criticized President Bush's education policy as doing little to help minorities. While she said she's still searching for solutions to help raise minority student test scores, she said the No Child Left Behind Act isn't doing it....On education, the New York senator and former first lady said more needs to be done to prepare children for school and to get parents involved with their children's' learning." In Miami, FL - AP

At the same event Hillary says, "Republicans have turned teachers into "test-givers-in-chief" with the President's no-child-left-behind initiative" Palm Beach Post

Joe Biden:
The Huffington Post has some coverage of the Democratic debate in Nevada a few weeks ago. Biden was asked about education: "Education was a question, with Biden saying he sleeps with a teacher every night, his wife. Teachers need to be paid. Classrooms need to be smaller."

Chris Dodd:
The Portsmouth Herald reported Dodd naming education as one of his priorities - "Dodd listed his priorities as education -- an area in which he has been active as a senator -- energy and the environment, health care and re-establishing American leadership worldwide. He said he would improve the quality of education so American children would learn how to compete with workers, not just from his home state of Connecticut, but from Singapore and China."

Barack Obama:
At the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in VA Barack said: "students in American schools are uninspired, and teachers are underpaid." The senator said "the problem is the leadership."

Louisville, KY Barak continues to state that NCLB left the money behind, "He called for better early childhood education and criticized the Bush administration’s education policy. “We know a program called No Child Left Behind left the money behind,” he said."

My Morning Education Quotation

"To those of us who spend time in real schools ... claims about the dominance of progressive teaching represent an inversion of the truth so audacious as to be downright comical. As we slip into a new century, traditional education is alive and well and-as I see it-damaging a whole new generation of students. If this isn't always obvious, it may be because we rarely think about how many aspects of education could be different but aren't."

~ Alfie Kohn

My Morning Education Quotation

"Most efforts to improve schools founder on reefs of ignorance -- ignorance of the ways schools function in general and ignorance of the inner workings of selected schools in particular."

~John I. Goodlad

Very Inspirational Comments

I have been busy lately ironing out my daily schedule and I know have time to resume my blogging. Arriving at an ideal time, I received these two comments about my morning education quotations.

"Margaret, these morning quotations are great. Perhaps you can compile them into a book with some more analysis. Good job."

"That is an insightful quote indeed. For the poor college student I recoment a FREE education resource in the Careers and Education website."

I'm glad that someone is reading and enjoying my blog. I'd also like to reply to the first comment - I will admit I am using a book of education quotes, some compiling them into a book is not really an idea I don't think. For your purposes, the book is called "400 Quotable Quotes From the World's Leading Educators" by Frank Sennett.

My Morning Education Quotation

"Education is about learning to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity. It is about learning to savor the quality of the journey. It is about inquiry and deliberation. It is about becoming critically minded and intellectually curious, and it is about learning how to frame and pursue your own educational aims."

~ Elliot W. Eisner