Obama unveils education plan in speech RAW STORY

Published: Tuesday March 10, 2009





Print This Email This WASHINGTON (AFP)  President Barack Obama will unveil an overhaul of the underperforming US education system, with a goal of restoring America to the top-ranks of learning excellence on Tuesday, a senior administration official said.



The speech, to be delivered to the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, would introduce a "broad vision for improving the quality of education, from cradle to career."



It will be the first major address on education from Obama since taking office in January.



Officials said Tuesday's speech will flesh out remarks made by Obama in his maiden address to Congress last month, in which he promised to pump funds into American schools, with a goal toward creating a "world class" US education system.



Senior officials said Obama's sweeping reform program will address education in all of its facets -- from early childhood schooling to post-graduate learning -- with an eye to making America's education system the envy of the world.



"The countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow," Obama said in the speech last month to Congress that touched upon some of Tuesday's education themes.



Obama is set to renew his call for Americans to commit to one year or more of higher education or career training as he seeks to reverse America's runaway high school dropout rate, the highest among industrialized countries.



Another plank of his program would reform higher education, with a goal of producing the "highest percent of college grads in the world by 2020," the administration official said.



Aides said the president also plans to propose better tracking of students' education progress and merit pay for high-performing teachers.



"What he'll be calling for ... is to reward good outcomes" in the classroom, the senior administration official said.



Obama was also expected to issue a "national call for people to enter education" to improve the talent pool of those who choose the teaching profession, including the recruitment of mid-career professionals from other fields.



The overhaul envisioned by the president expands preschool and kindergarten education, and would make college more affordable with a by improving the terms and conditions of financial aid programs.



But in a departure from many policy reforms introduced by the new administration, Obama does not scrap the keystone school reform introduced by the George W. Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind program.



Instead, Obama seeks to "augment" Bush's education plan by imposing tougher but voluntary standards, along with the needed funding to implement his reforms.



No Child Left Behind comes up for reauthorization by Congress later this year.



Figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, show American school children trailing their counterparts in other industrialized nations in reading, mathematics and science.



But the overhaul is likely to fuel criticism that the Obama administration is taking on too many crises at once, as it also attempts to repair the ailing US banking system, deal with a rising tide of home loan foreclosures and tackle wars on two separate fronts.





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