Face The State Staff Report
President Barack Obama outlined his plans for education reform Tuesday by embracing stricter standards, merit pay for teachers and charter schools. While Colorado’s conservative education leaders were glad to see Obama embrace ideas that have long been espoused by the center-right, they still welcomed his plan with skeptical optimism.
“To the extent he’s willing to recognize and state the harmful impact of archaic union rules in education, the President is at least using the right words,” said State Board of Education Chairman Bob Schaffer, R-Fort Collins.
Coloradao’s Junior Sen. Michael Bennet, a former Superintendent of Denver Public Schools, praised Obama's plan in a release. Bennet has been known for standing up to Denver's teachers' union, which is opposed to merit based pay — a staple of Obama’s plan. “If we want to have a real impact on education, we need a bold, new approach, particularly for poor children,” Bennet said in a statement.
Schaffer, however, said he was disappointed that Obama has not moved to save the Washington D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a scholarship fund providing $7,500 a year to send 1,700 inner-city children to private schools. The program is currently under attack by Democrat lawmakers who have arranged to sunset the program after the 2009-10 school year. “There is no indication at the moment that the President is going to help the poor kids in D.C. continue to have bright futures through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program,” Schaffer said.
Ben DeGrow, education policy analyst for the Independence Institute, said he is glad to finally see Obama taking a strong position on education. “Obama the candidate and Obama the President has been all over the place on education reform, and it’s been hard to pin him down,” said DeGrow. “The comments in [Tuesday’s] speech are mostly promising, and we need to hold him to those comments.”