Where Does Obama's Jobs Plan Leave the Teacher Quality Debate?
The jobs plan President Obama unveiled to Congress last week calls for $30 billion to save public school teachers from layoffs. "While they’re adding teachers in places like South Korea, we’re laying them off in droves," Obama said in his speech to Congress. "It’s unfair to our kids. It undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong."
This may seem like an uncontroversial, conventional Democratic spending priority. Indeed, the 2009 stimulus also helped school districts avoid teacher layoffs.
But it's important to realize that on education, Obama has never been a conventional Democrat. During his years in the Senate, his presidential campaign, and after he entered the White House, Obama always framed his school reform agenda around the issue of teacher quality, not teacher job security. He has resisted seeing
