Response to George Will
Here you'll find an Op-ed by George Will. Following is my point-by-point response. I'll attempt to respond one point at a time as I get time. Would love to here any and all feedback.
George Will:
Obama, who might be the last person to learn that schools' cognitive outputs are not simply functions of financial inputs, promises more money for teachers, who, as usual, are about 10 percent of the Democrats' convention delegates and alternates.
Response:
The above statement is completely misleading, in my opinion. Judge for yourself after you read this response. But before that, if George does not know this information already, than we have reason to doubt his quality of journalism. If he does, then reason to doubt either his understanding of the language (unlikely), or worse, his objectivity, and possibly integrity.
You can find Obama's details here:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/#teachers
But essentially, Obama says in this policy paper and has said on interviews that he is not tying school results simply to financial inputs or more money for teachers. His idea entails creating a merit based system for teacher pay so that better teachers get rewarded with higher salary, which the system lacks today. The system itself will be designed with inputs from the teacher community so that defination of good performance is not arbitary but agreed upon by the teacher community and the school administration. A fundamentally sound idea, rooted in capitalism, which should motivate teachers to perform better. Compare that with what George is trying to tell you.
George Will:
Obama, who might be the last person to learn that schools' cognitive outputs are not simply functions of financial inputs, promises more money for teachers, who, as usual, are about 10 percent of the Democrats' convention delegates and alternates.
Response:
The above statement is completely misleading, in my opinion. Judge for yourself after you read this response. But before that, if George does not know this information already, than we have reason to doubt his quality of journalism. If he does, then reason to doubt either his understanding of the language (unlikely), or worse, his objectivity, and possibly integrity.
You can find Obama's details here:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/#teachers
But essentially, Obama says in this policy paper and has said on interviews that he is not tying school results simply to financial inputs or more money for teachers. His idea entails creating a merit based system for teacher pay so that better teachers get rewarded with higher salary, which the system lacks today. The system itself will be designed with inputs from the teacher community so that defination of good performance is not arbitary but agreed upon by the teacher community and the school administration. A fundamentally sound idea, rooted in capitalism, which should motivate teachers to perform better. Compare that with what George is trying to tell you.
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