SchoolFinder Blog

“Reading” into Barack Obama & K12 Education

This is an election year. For real. The major issues being discussed are National Security and the Economy. And once again, Education has taken a back seat on the urgent-policy-change bus. Of course the candidates believe that education is important. Very important. At least they say so. And as they are all seasoned politicians, we ought to take them at their words. (Kidding.) Still, education is far from center stage in terms of any ongoing debates.

What do Clinton, Obama & McCain have in mind for education in the USA? What do they agree on? On that matters do they differ?

Will do my best to address these questions in a series of blog posts. You are currently reading the first installment

Let’s begin with Barack Obama. On the Obama site, there is a section dedicated to “Issues“. One of the issues being “Education“. As this site is all about K12 education, we will focus on what Obama would like to fix in the K12 education space.

The second thing Barack Obama would like to do is “Make Math and Science Education a National Priority“. This will address the problem that “American 15 year olds rank 28th out of 40 countries in mathematics and 19th out of 40 countries in science. Almost 30 percent of students in their first year of college are forced to take remedial science and math classes because they are not prepared.”

Yes. Our Country needs to sharpen our math and science skills.

My only question is: why are reading and writing not included as a National Priority? Are Math & Science more important than reading and writing? Again, quoting from the same Obama/Education page “ Six million middle and high school students read significantly below their grade level. A full third of high school graduates do not immediately go on to college.”

So, clearly, we need to improve the reading skills in our schools. If you cannot read, there’s no way you’re ever going to improve in areas of math and science. And I’ve got the Finnish to prove my point!