A couple of weeks ago, President Barack Obama gave some pretty startling statistics in his weekly radio address about the state of education in the states.
No. 1, the ratio of teachers to students has increased since 2008, from 1:15.3 to 1:16 — a nearly 5 percent jump.
And No. 2, that increase in class size could be caused by the fact that states and local school systems have decreased the number of educators by 300,000 since 2009.
“Think about what that means for our country,” Obama said during his address earlier this month. “At a time when the rest of the world is racing to out-educate America, these cuts force our kids into crowded classrooms, cancel programs for preschoolers and kindergarteners, and shorten the school week and the school year.
“That’s the opposite of what we should be doing as a country. States should be making education a priority in their budgets, even in tough fiscal times. And Congress should be willing to help out — because this affects all of us.”
Of course, Congress as a whole isn’t willing to help out. He’s asking for $25 billion to go to states to help fund teaching positions — part of his “Investing in our Future: Returning Teachers to the Classroom” plan.
It’s most certainly part of his re-election plan, too, considering the fact that he isn’t very popular with teachers.
“In any case, the irony here can’t be overlooked: While Obama is, once again, calling for efforts to save teachers’ jobs (and that’s a good thing), his Education Department has over the past three years put forth policies that have been viewed by many teachers as nothing but an attack on them, including a misguided push to get districts to evaluate teachers by the standardized test scores of their students,” wrote Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss.
So the administration says one thing — teacher ratios are way too high and we can’t afford to lose any more teachers. Yet the administration’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan has a different message. In 2010, Duncan said, “We would like to have small classes for everyone — and it is good news that the size of classes in the U.S. has steadily shrunk for decades. But in secondary schools, districts may be able to save money without hurting students, while allowing modest but smartly targeted increases in class size.”
It’s a little confusing.
So we thought we’d take the issue to our readers, who log on each week to www.timeswv.com to vote in our poll question. We asked: “The administration has called on Congress to release billions to states to support teachers’ salaries after a recent report that 300,000 jobs had been lost since the start of the recession in 2009. What are your thoughts?”
And here they are:
• Education funding is critical. It’s got my support — 17.58 percent
• West Virginia will never see a penny — it will go toward states that have operated in the red since 2009 — 21.98 percent
• It’s a political move to gain teacher support. Period — 60.44 percent
It doesn’t really look like the majority of our readers are buying the conflicting messages either.
This week, let’s talk about the issue that has taken over the presidential campaign — abortion. Last week, a GOP Senate candidate caused waves within his party and the criticism of Democrats when he said in cases of “legitimate rape,” the female body is less likely to get pregnant. What are your thoughts on the issue?
Log on. Vote. Email me or respond directly online.
Misty Poe
Managing Editor
mpoe@timeswv.com
@MistyPoeTWV
Opinion
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