Education

John McCain

Barack Obama

*Translation

McCain proposes strategies to recruit teachers, provide funding for education and expand online education. His campaign Web site outlines the following proposals: K-12 Education Thinks No Child Left Behind should inspire students and not focus on group averages. Would emphasize standards and accountability. Would empower parents to become involved in their children’s education, fight for home schooling and allow parents to choose where their children attend school. Would expand online education by providing $500 million for virtual schools. Would offer $250 million in grants to states to increase online education. Would also provide $4,000 to low-income students to take online courses, including SAT/ACT prep classes. Would use Title II funding to recruit teachers in the top 25 percent of their class or from alternative teacher recruitment programs, such as Teach for America. Would provide incentive bonuses for teachers, especially those in math and science. Would allow school principals to control the spending of federal money for the improvement of individual schools. Higher Education Calls for simplifying financial aid, fixing student lending practices and simplifying existing tax benefits for higher education.

According to his campaign Web site, Obama proposes programs to boost early education, a tax credit for higher education and teacher scholarships. He says he would reform the No Child Left Behind Act. Early Childhood Education Would increase access to higher-quality early childhood education, invest more in Early Head Start and provide quality child care. Would also increase child/dependent care tax credit. K-12 Education Says No Child Left Behind left the money behind. Would reform the law to boost accountability and improvement assessments and would provide more money to fund the law. Would encourage more people to seek education degrees by offering scholarships in exchange for promises to teach four years in a particular field or location. Would make math and science teachers a national priority. Would encourage teacher pay increases based on district programs that reward teachers who serve as mentors to new teachers. Would require school accreditation. Higher Education Would create an American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000 per year for higher education and make community colleges free for most students. Would fund the tax credit through spending cuts and offsets in the tax program. The federal financial aid form would be eliminated. Families instead will check a box on their tax form to apply.

K-12 Education    No Child Left Behind is here to stay, and the candidates don’t have the appetite to do wholesale changes to the methods. The largest issue education faces is how to approach enhancing student achievement while reducing the achievement gaps. Online education is marginal and will only tweak the problem. Incentive bonuses for teachers are a good idea on the surface, but it won’t keep teachers in the field long-term. Alternate certifications programs are an option. A study conducted at MU in the College of Education from 2004 to 2007 found that it is not just any previous career that related to teacher quality, but how that prior experience is related to education. Also, new teachers with mentors and a support system are more successful. It is important to invest in the youth because some studies prove learning at a younger age will prepare children for starting school. From Jay Scribner, MU associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis Higher Education     It is important to increase access and affordability, but, years ago when California had nearly free tuition for community colleges — rather than raising tuition — the students were bombarded with fees to keep tuition low. It is critical that any plan calling for free tuition in community colleges be accompanied by consideration of a check on student fees. Eliminating or revising the federal financial aid forms would help students, as would making grant and scholarship processes more transparent, especially for African-American and Hispanic students, who tend to opt out of college if they need to take out loans. Although the government needs a mechanism to provide financial aid, eliminating or altering the form would help students and their families. From Jeni Hart, assistant professor in the MU Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis: