What Obama Never Got About Education
Education may have been mostly left out of this year’s heated presidential election, but that hasn’t stopped the current, outgoing president from shining a spotlight on his education record.
“We’ve made a lot of progress” on education, President Obama recently announced and pointed to record high school graduation rates of 83 percent as proof. Left-leaning operatives inside the Beltway were quick to capitalize on this announcement in order to start the campaign hailing Obama’s education legacy.
Is this a narrative Democrats should hang their hats on as they approach the post-election period, which, with every passing day, looks like will usher in another Democratic party administration?
Every politician wants to be able to point to statistical proof of how effective their policies have been – how many jobs were created, money saved, crimes reduced, etc. Obama is no different in this regard.
But how good really are his education “numbers,” and are Democrats talking about the education numbers that matter most?
What Do Education Numbers Mean?
As NPR reports, the president’s first big number he pointed to in his recent address was this: “When I took office almost eight years ago, we knew that our education system was falling short … I said, by 2020 I want us to be No. 1.”
What does it mean to be “number one” in education?
When people talk about who is number one in education, they most often point to Finland, which is the country that usually does best on international assessments.
So do we want to be like Finland, which has an economy one-eighteenth What Obama Never Got About Education:
