Senator McCain said he wants to make schools accountable to parents and students rather than to a government bureaucrat. This is great news because, as everyone knows, the public educational system in America has been failing for academically and socially to the last few decades, while new government programs and regulations have had little or no effect. The school system continues to get worse.
Senator McCain said, "Equal access to public education has been gained. But what is the value of access to a failing school?" "We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work." The crowd gave those lines one of the loudest roars of approval of the nominee's lengthy acceptance speech.
Civil Rights Issue of This Century
John went on to call education "the civil rights issue of this century," and that parents deserve to choose a new school for their children if a public school "fails to meet its obligations to students."
"Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucrats. I want schools to answer to parents and students," Sen. McCain said. "And when I’m president, they will."
It sounds like McCain will help homeschoolers. The reference to education being the ‘civil rights issue of this century’ brings to light the social and religious issues of government programming of humanism, evolution and sex education, which are some of the primary reasons many parents choose to homeschool.
The powerful unions that Senator McCain is referring to are the NEA (National Education Association) - which is the largest labor union in the United States with some 3.2 million members and a budget of over $300 million and the AFT (American Federal of Teachers) - which is the second largest labor union in the US. These unions are entrenched in politics and lobbying groups, which is why they have remained so powerful for so long.
Realizing we Have a Problem
The educational system in the United States has been in decline for several decades, resulting in lower and lower test scores. The debate over the decline has been a political subject for years with little progress being made. The reasons for the decline are many, including;
- The influx of immigrants, the prosperity of the US (decreasing student motivation),
- The changes to the standard test (making tests easier),
- The inflation of the grade curve (giving 80% an A) and
- The removal of the bible (moral decline).
The decline in education has been clearly documents by the National Center for Education. The Bush Administration and the Congress have acknowledged the problem by creating the “No Child Left Behind Act” in 2001, with the goal to improve US schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states and school districts. But, many schools have not improved and the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ has increased costs and brought moral hazards, by forcing more teachers and administrators to manage the regulations while causing some to teach just for the tests.
Education reform is definitely a major issue, especially when considering the need for higher educated population to compete in the global economy of today.