Not to give in completely to nepotistic back-scratching, but Jennifer has done the thankless task of combing the web sites of John McCain and Barack Obama for statements about science, and reports back on what she found. This comes on the heels of Obama’s answers to a set of questions from ScienceDebate2008 — McCain hasn’t answered yet, but he’s expected to soon.
I would never have the patience to do something like this myself, as stuff that appears in prepared statements on websites is likely to be bland and inoffensive, right? (One could go even further and comb through their legislative records, but that’s a truly Herculean task better left to superhumans like hilzoy.) But as it turns out, you can learn things.
Nowhere is the difference between the two candidates more stark than in their stated policies on education. McCain predictably champions No Child Left Behind (NCLB), when every educator I know considers the program to be a major FAIL. Beyond that, his education policy is inexplicably vague and obsessed with giving parents greater control over where their kids attend schools — so much so, that I suspect it’s a bit of a “dog whistle,” i.e., code for something else that only those tuned to that particular frequency can hear. There is no specific mention of math and science education. At least he recognizes the potential for online learning through virtual schools, and offers financial support to help low-income students pay for access to those online resources.
But again, Obama also supports online educational tools, with far broader financial support for educational opportunities of all kinds, and offers many point-by-point specifics. He supports the need for accountability in schools, but recognizes that NCLB has failed in large part because funding promises weren’t kept by the Bush Administration. His policies seek to address not just teacher training and retention, but also high dropout rates, soaring college costs, and the need for high-quality childcare to assist working parents (particularly single moms). And he wants to make math and science education a national priority.
I don’t especially enjoy constantly bashing the modern Republican Party and contrasting them unfavorably with Democrats. There certainly is a respectable intellectual case to be made for small-government conservatism, and even if I didn’t agree with all of the particulars, it would be interesting and worthwhile to engage in policy debates from the perspective of mutual intellectual respect. Nor do I especially think that Democratic politicians, as a group, are anything to be that excited about. But at the current moment, the Republicans have so cheerfully given into anti-intellectualism and cultural backwardness that there isn’t much to have a debate about.
Better conservatives, please. It would be good for the country.
Off topic apologies… but this is too much!
Large Hadron Collider Rap
I suspect that education is one of the weakest areas of Democratic policy:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/05/02/rhee-mccain-has-best-education-plan/
I have a high opinion of Mrs. Rhee’s efforts in DC so far, so I’m inclined to trust her opinion:
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/5222.html (a bit long and biographical)
As regards NCLB as an ‘unfunded mandate’, my understanding is that the correlation between school spending and performance is very little after taking income into account.
This is Karl Rove’s legacy. He proved the GOP could win elections if you win the enthusiastic support of the religious right.
Sadly, he also proved that a government allied with the religious right prides ideology over competence, and that we all are paying the price for that.
McCain was forced to pick Palin — the new darling of the religious right (and they are truly stoked) — over his better judgment. He wanted a moderate like Tom Ridge or (heaven forbid) Joe Lieberman, but there was a massive push back from the religious right on even the hint that he was heading in that direction.
Given the evidence so far, I marvel that serious political pundits like David Brookes can still claim that McCain would be different from Bush in this regard. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be, it’s that he can’t if he wants to keep the support of the base. Until the GOP is no longer in the thrall of Christian fundamentalists, they are not to be trusted with the reins of power in America.
I think that it would be helpful to step back and look at the larger issues regarding education. In our federal system education is mainly a state and local issue. If you think that there is a problem with the schools in your city or state, you should take that up with your local school district’s board, your state legislators, or your governor.
Personally, I think that there would be some benefits to having the federal government getting more involved in ensuring better results in K-12, but we should come to a national consensus about that change first. Instead, we have had decades of increasing federal government by stealth. That’s really not the best way to do things.
Now, let’s take a look at the summary of Obama’s policies:
I like the fact that high school dropout rates and teacher retention are on the list. Our national dropout rate is around 30%. It’s really one of our biggest national problems in the area of education and it doesn’t get enough attention. I hope that Obama can really find the relevant experts and do something about the problem.
The issue of teacher retention is also important. The issue really has to do with the fact that teaching is not a great job. It’s a great paradox of our society that we consider education to be very important and, at the same time, we don’t respect the teaching profession much or pay them well (in most places). It really makes no sense.
Unfortunately, the total cost of implementing Obama’s list would be very high. I hope that he can make a little progress.
Sean, I’d like to commend you for your excellently crafted penultimate paragraph. I’ve been lazily considering actually sitting down and composing a similar sentiment for a while now, and never got around to doing so. It is indeed frustrating to not be able to bear witness to an honest debate because one of the major participants is constitutionally incapable of taking that debate seriously.
This tangentially reminds me of a Cectic cartoon about chess:
http://cectic.com/069.html
could #2 clarify this:
“my understanding is that the correlation between school spending and performance is very little after taking income into account.”
sounds like the correlation between A and B is very little after taking A into account.
yes i think the correlation of B and 0 (=A-A) would be very small.
True. In this
2006 Gubernatorial Candidate Questionnaire, all candidates were asked:
To which Palin responded:
Well. There goes math. Oh, and physi … now biol … hey, wait, where’s everybody going!
A fine-tuned dog whistle, isn’t it—next thing you’ll hear in science class will be the chirping of the crickets.
^_^J.
For several months that seemed like an eternity, I never saw MAYBE one posting about maybe one small issue maybe about the the issue and policy differences of Obama vs. Hillary. There were enough to have at least one blog posting- Healthcare, Energy, Iraq, Education (Hillary was an original author of HeadStart) , etc. Or maybe talking about who is most able to pass a bill through the gauntlet of tests.
So it is TOO LATE to make this election about issues. This election is about ONE thing- OBAMA on the democratic side. On the republican side I do not what the heck it is about. Foreign policy maybe or “country first”. Who knows!
For example, no one takes Obama seriously on the economy anymore than McCain. Like Paul Krugman says Obama speaks with no authority, confidence or passion.
As Bill Clinton says
Suppose, for example, you’re a voter, and you have candidate X and you have candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything but you don’t think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that, on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver.
This is the kind of question that I predict – and this has nothing to do with what’s going on now – but I am just saying if you look at five, 10, 15 years from now, you may actually see this delivery issue become a serious issue in Democratic debates because it is so hard to figure out how to turn good intentions into real changes in the lives of the people we represent.
candidate x = Obama.
NCLB has become No Child Allowed to Advance. Schools have cut programs for top students in order to fund programs for low-performing students. Fortunately, I grew up in a state/county/town that valued education. Stchools, teachers and students all know some students were brighter than others. Even the ‘less gifted’ studends knew it. That was the case, that is the case, that will always be the case.
Trying to legislate equality does not work in any area – finance, education, lifestyle, etc. Education $ should go toward making sure each student can achieve his/her potential. In the case of some students, that may just mean teaching them to flip burgers and count change correctly. For other students, it may mean extra, advanced classes, special projects or mentoring.
so kurt, are you saying if she weighs more than a duck then logically
she is a witch?
#6:
Sorry, I mean the income of families in the school district.
e.g.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/08/my_schooling_ch.html
i still dont follow,
school districts with wealthy families have more money.
wealthy schools perform better.
actually in the link you provided, some one had the same question
which was not fully answered.
“…But no one controlled for the relative wealth of the school district. The control in KdeRosa’s work was percentage of students that receive free and reduced meals…”
i am pretty sure the percentage of students that receive free and reduced meals
is directly correlated to the wealth of the school district.
“As Bill Clinton says
Suppose, for example, you’re a voter, and you have candidate X and you have candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything but you don’t think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that, on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver.”
Kurt, this is pretty much a straw man argument: maybe Candidate X can’t deliver on ALL the issues, but chances are, s/he will be able to deliver on a significant fraction, and that is STILL better than voting for someone who will deliver not just on issues you support, but many that you DON’T support — and the latter may very well prove to be the most critical ones.
Everyone knows that campaign promises always run up against hard reality when one tries to put them into practice — and finding the money tops the list. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Do you _honestly_ think Obama doesn’t know that? You don’t have to like him, or agree with him, but please — he’s not a fool.
Okay, I think I see what you’re getting at. It turns out there is a fair amount of variance in the amount of spending per school district that isn’t explained by the % poor students. (actually, a lot more than I would expect)
See the last graph here:
http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2008/03/data-shows-you-are-wrong.html
Controlling for the % poor students, there isn’t an obvious correlation between that spending and performance (schools performing better than predicted by their wealth are actually spending less than schools performing worse than predicted by their wealth).
That said, I think the first commenter at the Econlog link may have a point. Quite possibly schools that are underperforming are then chosen for additional funding, which would undermine a spending-success correlation. At the same time, I’ve heard complaints that NCLB was denying funding to schools that failed to meet its standards, which is a pressure in the opposite direction. Probably worth further investigation. . .
Hopefully I’m more clear now.
Sheesh. So much for American education. Nobody like these ignorant conservatives could ever be elected in just about any other country in the world, even the conservative ones.
I have to protest the notion that the Republicans are a small government party. While they frequently talk about small government, government budgets and personnel have increased in every Republican administration going back to Nixon. In office, Republicans are big-state authoritarians.
People who really favor small government currently have no home at all.
Pingback: It’s the science, stupid « Peculiar Velocity
There are lots of intellectual Republicans whose policy positions are worth considering seriously, and who accept evolution and the Big Bang and all the rest.
However, there’s no hope that the Republicanparty will adopt sensible views on science when the Christian fundamentalist nutters form such a huge part of its electoral base.
The “dog whistle” is possibly something to do with the rollback of forced integration at schools. Remember: in the USA, *everything* is about race.
In 2000 Bush II talked about changing Washington. Everywhere he went he talked about changing Washington and the same old politics. He said he was the uniter and marketed himself as the outsider. He added “The buck stops with me” ” I want you to hold me responsible” Boy did he change Washington!
“Some of what Obama says, his overall message, is very similar to the one we ran on in 2000 about changing the way Washington works and what I had so much hope in,” said McClellan, who became the White House press secretary in 2003 after serving as spokesman for President Bush when he was the governor of Texas.
Many other candidates have run similar campaigns throughout history.
So what?
Obama’s entire campaign is about change and getting rid of the same politics. He is talking about real and some say radical necessary change!
We must all hold him to a higher standard and expect more from him because he wants us to!
But then you see him pandering to Iowa voters and selling them on the hopes of corn ethanol, for example, which we know is a sham and voting for FISA after stating “I am sick and tired of democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is by talking, and acting, and voting like George Bush Republicans”
His consistent inability to live up to his own high standards
(he is the same old politics in a clever disguise) coupled with a lack of ANY major policy accomplishments (has he ever fought for anything?) should make all good scientists just a little skeptical. That is my main point.
Is he better than McCain? I really do not know but do not expect even a small fraction of great things we have been promised from an Obama presidency. And do not expect any great changes in Washington politics. It will be better than Bush (it really can’t be worse?) but don’t expect anything too progressive like investments in science and technology or energy policies.
As an ex-school board member, my strong impression was that NLCB was a thinly disguised attack on the teachers unions and had little to do with improving the quality of education. How Kennedy ever got sucked in on this one, I’ll never know. So now teachers are forced to teach to the test instead of teaching kids how to think and solve problems. Thats a giant step backward IMHO.
Accountablity sure. But lets start by paying teachers salaries commensurate with their contribution to society. Then you might attract a larger pool of people who choose teaching as a profession and improve the product.
e.
I don’t know the exact workings of the system in America, but has anyone tried the merit-based selection approach?
Provide more funds to schools which are performing well, and have lower percentage dropouts.
That will prove a good incentive to hire top-class teachers, and retain them, increase their salary, invest in good equipment, yada, yada.
This just made the rounds in our local newspaper (I live in Oak Ridge, TN, and there is a columnist dedicated to the issues at ORNL, Y-12, and general science news):
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/munger/2008/09/obama_couldnt_do_that_could_he.html
Has anyone heard anything like this? It seems ridiculous on its face, but amazingly, that claim alone doesn’t win arguments.
Hello all,
The “dog whistle” is a reference, I believe, to the right’s policy of privatization as applied to the primary education system. The “right to choose”, so to speak, sounds an awful lot like “free market actor”, “rational self-interest”, etc; the idea being that schools, like everything else, will improve if subject to market competition.
A good place to look for recent application of this agenda is in post-Katrina New Orleans. There have been many pieces on this, the most recent is a overly fair treatment by Paul Tough at the NYT: (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/magazine/17NewOrleans-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin).
“The “right to choose”, so to speak, sounds an awful lot like “free market actor”, “rational self-interest”, etc; the idea being that schools, like everything else, will improve if subject to market competition.”
I think the “free marked” for education would work about as good as the “free-marked” for alt. med and “supplements”, ie. deregulation would result in a wide-spread pseudo-scientific agenda. Just think about schools in areas where fundamentalism has a strong foothold. You wouldn’t want those to be deregulated. Free-market principles are only useful when people know what’s good for them and, unfortunately, they often don’t, when it comes to these subjects.