Obama on Education

Interviewed on 60 Minutes:

OBAMA: When we're having education debates here in Washington, my positions are informed by having tried to figure out how to fundamentally change the way that we finance public education at the state level. It's informed by work that I've done as a community organizer in inner city classrooms. And so I end up recognizing that we need more money to fix our schools, but we also need a transformation in attitudes. And in Washington, that's typically framed as a "either/or" proposition. You know, the conservative position is we don't need more money; we just need to blow up the bureaucracy. You know, on the left, sometimes the sense is we just need more money, and we and our problems will be solved. When you have actually been in these schools and worked with these parents and talked to the teachers and sat down in a meeting with principals who are trying to figure out how to hold this thing together, then you realize that it's not an "either/or" proposition. It's both ends. You know, parents need to do a better job of parenting. Teachers need to do a better job teaching. Some of the anti-intellectualism that exists in the African-American community and Latino communities and low-income communities has to change. And the federal government's got to put more money, because the fact is that they don't have enough resources.

As an education person, I'm psyched to hear a candidate voluntarily deciding to talk about education prominently during an interview. And I really don't have anything negative to say about this. Sure, it sounds a bit like this, but instead of making it sound like a reductionist political calculation, Obama makes it sound drawn from real experiences with kids, families and schools, like a proper politician and good public speaker should. And he gets a nice Bill Cosby-ish hit in there, too. Certainly, I hope whatever debate over education there is in this election resembles the tone of his remarks more than these.