Gerald Coles: Education in Obama's Second Term: What Lies Ahead?
Guest post by Gerald Coles.
I wish President Obama's comments on education, in his second inaugural speech, had not brought to mind the lines from Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues: "Look Out Kid, They Keep It All Hid... Look Out Kid, You're Gonna Get Hit." While a surface reading of the remarks suggest a concern for schooling and children, particularly poor children, to anyone who has followed the president's words and policies during the last four years, these remarks are familiar and disturbing. Regrettably, they embrace an intention to continue to support and promote the corporate-influenced assumptions and policies of his first term.
This first of the president's comments on education puts the purposes of schooling within the context of the nation's economic needs. Putting aside the question of who the "we" were, the remark conceives of education as schooling that historically had been aimed at providing the skills to serve business interests. This is a view comparable to today's expressed goal in Obama's "Race to the Top" educational legislation focused on
I wish President Obama's comments on education, in his second inaugural speech, had not brought to mind the lines from Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues: "Look Out Kid, They Keep It All Hid... Look Out Kid, You're Gonna Get Hit." While a surface reading of the remarks suggest a concern for schooling and children, particularly poor children, to anyone who has followed the president's words and policies during the last four years, these remarks are familiar and disturbing. Regrettably, they embrace an intention to continue to support and promote the corporate-influenced assumptions and policies of his first term.
Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.
This first of the president's comments on education puts the purposes of schooling within the context of the nation's economic needs. Putting aside the question of who the "we" were, the remark conceives of education as schooling that historically had been aimed at providing the skills to serve business interests. This is a view comparable to today's expressed goal in Obama's "Race to the Top" educational legislation focused on
