Introduction
Barack Obama and Joe Bidden’s education policy is based on the fact that American children cannot stand any more neglect and indifference in their education system. The United States as a country is having numerous problems some of them are experienced in the education sector. Some of the problems in the education sector include; the inability of preparing all the students to have an upper hand in competing favorably in the world’s economy.
American education is not as effective and efficient as it is perceived to be as a result of some problems inherent in the system. Basing on the kind of influence which social and political issues have tried to actively affect the education sector’s policy, the students are not quite able to adjust to diversity and also know how to manage the differences. In addition, amid larger scale debates based on sociopolitical matters, there are bigger issues that are not being dealt with; for example, cheating in schools and the imbalance and the grading system which is perceived to be unfair. (Obama, B., & Bidden, J., 2009)
Need Analysis
Over time it has been viewed that the problems facing the schools are directly related to the inability to make decisions that matter about the future of American education. Precious time is being wasted by wrangling, infighting, and indecision, Instead of using this time to aim at the vicinity of true, instantaneous, and important value.
Time should not be wasted on these debates, but on the bigger problems that have an effect on the educational system in totality and the outcome of the educated young population should be attended and these other parts of disputes should be put aside until time draw closer that improvements are made on education in America. (Urdan, Solek & Schoenfelder, 2007).
History of the Problem
Barack Obama and Joe Bidden’s education policy positions are covered in a varied number of statements. Some declarations date back to as long as the year nineteen ninety-eight, and others quite as recent as the year two thousand and seven and all [of them are sourced.
The issues covered by these topics include; Teacher employment pay, incentives, maintenance of status quo in the education sector, service provider accountability, continuous learning, institutions funding, performance gap, making teachers get attracted to high need areas, Charter schools, and private investment in schools, and college affordability.
Policy/Program Recommendations
The recommendations that they have offered to this educational problem include; the reform that “No Child is Left Behind.”, making sure there is access to the best early childhood education programs and child care, avail opportunities so that children enrolled kindergarten are ready to learn, qualified teachers and instructors are availed to every classroom in America- most importantly those in high-poverty, high-minority areas; other recommendations include; creating an attractive rewarding system for experts, employing teachers who are accomplished in their disciplines to take on challenging assignments and aid in helping these children succeed, highly competent principals and school heads and leaders should be supported, Making science and math subjects national educational priority, Reducing the high rate of school drops outs by focusing on working procedures aimed at improving the general students performance and increase the spaces in the institution of higher learning, Close the attainment gap and venturing in systems that work, and above all empowering parents and guardians to increase the wellbeing and success of the American children by captivating a better role in their child’s learning at residences and at learning institutions. (Obama, B., & Bidden, J., 2009).
To increase accountability in his administration Barack Obama and Joe Bidden will make federal education programs more performance-based and report results to all Americans at least yearly. In addition to this, promoting the use of performance metrics is advised which will include student accomplishment, high school and colleges graduation charges, and institute report cards. This will be used to evaluate discretionary federal education and spending programs.
The policy is also looking into employing independent performance teams from time to time to analyze and reform underperforming federal programs, and they will also have the authority to demand improvement reviews within 30 days, make necessary reforms, fire bad managers and replace them with high-performing managers from other agencies, or shift the program’s budget to other programs if necessary. The president also proposed that programs will be funded and expanded in case the programs were visibly positively influential, and this will be done with the consent of Congress.
The Education policy has a Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility; this is contained in the new proposals contained in Obama and Bidden’s education plan put up in November 2007. Additional proposals in the plan measure up to $1 billion a year when implemented to the latter. The president hopes to pay maximally for such a new but necessary commitment but without interfering with the deficit, this is planned to take the strategy of channeling small amounts of the savings to the scheme this in return can lower the state’s spending, enhance the processes of the state of procurement, reducing the number of federal earmarks, and ending wasteful and unnecessary federal programs. (Obama, B., & Bidden, J., 2009).
This proposal has one major opponent, the Republicans lead by John McCain who supported George Bush’s policy on levy cuts for the richer citizens of the United States as an alternative to much-needed funding for our students, teachers, and failing local classrooms.
This educational reform policy is open to all American citizens; hence eligibility is most certainly citizenship. This is because the priority of the policy is to return Americans to the helm of the world’s countries with the most educated citizens by reducing school drop-out rates. From president Barrack’s speech, he said that in the United States of America today, there are unforgotten children who are doing their things since their parents and the government seems not to take full responsibilities (Bird, 2006).
The president continued by saying that the government and the private sector has failed to give sufficient infrastructures to all the corners and regions of the united states, the children in the united states today as the president puts it are lacking adequate education and the chance to access education because of factors such as poverty, race, and ethnicity.
The president believes that the lack of commitment by all the sectors responsible for the attainment of quality learning in the United States, is one major factor that has led to the current figure s being experienced students drop out from the schools, and the lack of acknowledgment of the importance of education by the students who are subjected to poor quality of education (Obama, B., & Bidden, J., 2009).
We realize the fact that this policy is not only supposed to improve education in the U.S. but also make it affordable and available to those who need it the most.
The policy is supposed to increase the number of grants accessible to applicants and at the same time increase the number of applicants who were not eligible before. For instance, sometime in the past almost ten years ago, fifty-five percent of the expenditure in the countries colleges was stretched to the maximum of Pell’s Grant, this can be related to the thirty-two percent today of the same scheme. Efforts to make college education more accessible and realistically affordable for the sake of education enhancement in America by increasing the Pell Grant to five thousand four hundred from the previous four thousand and fifty is what the foremost bill that Obama presented to the U.S. Senate would have helped do.
Selflessly but purposefully, Obama has worked on the Senate to reconsider the education, labor, and retirement benefits to obtain an uprise in the Pell Grant to about five thousand four hundred dollars in the coming years. As president, Obama goes on strategically trying to fix a maximum in the Pell Grant awards; this scheme is aimed to benefit the students from low-income earning households. The president purposes to enable the college education fees to be at par with inflation.
To increase college Awareness and Accessibility, Obama and Bidden’s policy is also proposing $4,000 to create an American Opportunity Tax Credit to do away with the long federal financial aid application process to make college education quite cheap and accessible for all the citizens. The A.O.T.C (American Opportunity Tax Credit) requires that all beneficiaries complete 100 hours of community service per year, either during the school year or summer months. In addition, as part of their competitiveness agenda, by taking part in establishing college maintenance programs which are designed to make the college students’ wellbeing and education unmatched and also in grooming high school learners ready for college-level equivalent to the advising corps of National Colleges (NCAC), Obama and Bidden will let the continuing students complete their community service component which places college students as mentors and policy advisers in schools with low economic status (Obama, B., & Bidden, J., 2009).
Obama and Bidden view this policy as a way of decreasing the illiteracy rate but with all fairness, the common American might not benefit from this policy if the grassroots services are not streamlined. The success of this policy will strictly depend on those charged with the implementation of this worthy course. Therefore if this administration does not put the right people in the office to implement this policy then it may not benefit those who deserve it the most.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Obama’s education proposals majorly focus on improving educational resources and making them available to pupils and students before and during their school years and those who come after them. That would encompass putting more money into childcare and preschool, advancing the quality of teachers who teach the students and putting in even more money in extracurricular activities to minimize dropouts (Epstein, 2008).
The main advantage of this plan is showing that more spending works are needed in the education sector, especially In the areas of kindergarten, and incentives to attract the younger experts into teaching. The main political disadvantage to this plan is that it means spending more now, but the results will be visible in fifteen to twenty years down the course. To add to that, a cross-section of the citizens do not see how spending more on education makes them better now or in the future.
References
Bird, K. (2006). Scholar’s information: How to spell involvement of parents. S-I-S T.H.E: Journal, 33 (7), 38.
Epstein, J. (2008). Enhancing community and household participation in secondary schools. Education Digest, 73 (6), 9-12.
Obama, B., & Bidden, J. (2009). The change we need; Policies and issues. Web.
Urdan, T. Solek, M. et al (2007). Students’ attitudes of family impacts on their educational inspiration: A qualitative analysis. EuropeanJournal of Psychology of Education, 22 (1), 7.