Last week, Barack Obama nominated New Mexico governor Bill Richardson to the critical position of Secretary of Commerce.

Richardson was born in California, but spent most of his childhood in Mexico City.  When he was 13, his parents sent him to preparatory school in Massachusetts, where he was the only Hispanic student.  In high school, he became a star varsity baseball pitcher. Richardson went on to play baseball as a student at Tufts University, where he earned a degree in political science and French in 1970, after taking some time off to play in an amateur baseball league. Richardson stayed at Tufts and earned a master’s degree in international affairs.

Here’s what I think is one of the most embarrassing things about the U.S. educational system at all levels, and a true educational crisis – the ridiculously low level of knowledge that Americans in general have about civics.  This includes a working knowledge of American history, the government, international relations, and economics.  This is all information that citizens need to make informed choices about who to vote for and what stand to take on elections.

Thus, as reported by USA Today, it’s no surprise that on a recent Civic Literacy test, Americans scored failing grades.  The average score on this test was 49 percent.  Perhaps even more depressing was this statistic: college educators scored only 55 percent! Read the rest of this entry »

President-Elect Obama has been busy putting together a new cabinet, and one of the most important choices is going to be his new Secretary of Education.  This new position is going to be extremely important since, thanks to the financial crisis and the uncertainty of the availability of student loans, college affordability has become an even more pressing issue than before.  In addition, the new Secretary of Education is going to have an important hand in cleaning up the No Child Left Behind Act, which both Republicans and Democrats agree needs some serious work.

All of this means that this could be an exciting and innovative new time for education in the United States!

So who should Obama pick?  According to U.S. News and World Reports, these are some of the possibilities.

1) Joel Klein

One of the front runners is rumored to be Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, which is the largest school system in the United States.  As chancellor, Klein has fought to increase teacher accountability and for the creation of charter schools. Read the rest of this entry »

So what is No Child Left Behind?  And what are the 2008 presidential candidates’ positions on this controversial legislation?  Here’s a little NCLB 101, and what Obama and McCain plan to do about this legislation.

What is No Child Left Behind?

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was a federal law passed under the Bush Administration to increase public school accountability.  It also increased the focus on reading in the public schools, and gave parents more choices as to where to send their children to school.  NCLB is part of what’s known as “standards-based education reform,” which involves reforming schools primarily through improving kid’s test scores.  Schools that fail to meet the NCLB standards are held accountable and are penalized in various ways–including offering parents the option to transfer their kids out of schools who fail to meet the standards two year in a row. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s an interesting issue.  According to the New York Times, the New York City teacher’s union is suing because teachers have been forbidden from wearing political buttons and displaying political signs on the job.  The union feels this is a violation of the teachers’ right to freedom of expression.  However, the school system feels that teachers have an obligation to maintain a strict sense of neutrality in the classroom when it comes to politics.

I tend to side with the teachers’ union on this issue — but I can certainly see both sides.  On the one hand, teachers have a right to free speech just like everybody else.  Teachers have an obligation to make sure their students feel 100% comfortable speaking their own minds about opinions, even if they don’t agree with the teacher — but that doesn’t mean that the teacher can’t express an opinion of his or her own.  This kind of open exchange of ideas teaches kids to participate in an intelligent and open minded way in political discussions, which is an important skill for learning to be a citizen. Read the rest of this entry »

A friend recently read an article to me that McCain stated “Palin is the next Clinton or Reagan”. But after seeing multiple interviews and listening to her speak, her lack of knowledge seems to say otherwise to me. I don’t think comparing her to Clinton or Reagan before given the chance to prove herself is a smart thing to do, before she has the opportunities to perform tasks as a Vice President. She may seem fit for the position now, but once someone is placed in a new situation, they may change completely and not be able to handle what they are placed in the position to do.

Although placing judgment early on may be a bad thing, comparing Sarah Palin to some of the most well-known and most successful presidents of the United States is something that shouldn’t be done before she is even placed in office.

Quite personally, her lack of knowledge when it comes to current politics scares me. The fact that she questions some of Bush’s policies (by questioning, I mean asking what they are) makes me uneasy, giving me the feeling she knows little of what is going on. Although I may feel this way, I admire her for what she is doing and how she is sticking to her personal beliefs, not letting those who badger her and try to make her look bad pull her down.

So what are your takes on Palin as VP? Do you think she has what it takes?

How many people in your college classes have a landline? Unless they’re living at home with their grandparents, it’s likely to be slim to none. In fact, only one percent of Amherst College’s incoming class have a landline.

Given that this is an election year, phone lines having burning up with political pollers. These political polls are traditionally done via landline and a correlation between those who are conservative/Republican were most likely to have those landlines. Some are even suggesting that this means these polls are over-reporting Republican data and under-reporting Democratic data.

So the Pew Researchers (they call themselves a “nonpartisan fact tank”) became interested. They conducted three polls this year with young people, they defined as under 30,-  20-25 percent of those polled were contacted via mobile phone and their responses were put against the 75 percent reached on landlines.

What they found could have a serious effect on the future of polling via landlines:

Young people who use landlines are more likely to be Republican than young people who use mobile phones.

Do you think future pollsters will take this data into consideration? And do you think the polls currently in the media have been influenced by this?

So who’s smarter, Democrats or Republicans?

That’s quite the controversial question, of course.  According to a blogger at Watchblog.com, though, it seems that Democrats are more educated than Republicans. Or hey, let me rephrase that.  People in the “blue states” (states that typically vote Democratic) are collectively more educated than people in the “red states” (states that typically vote Republican).

According to Watchblog.com:

• States that voted for Kerry in 2004 had 21 percent more college graduates than states that voted for Bush.
• The states that ranked the lowest for high school and college graduates were all red states.
• Eight out of 10 of the states that ranked the highest for high school college graduates were blue states. (The number one state, by far, is Colorado — technically a red state because it went for Bush by a small margin, but effectively a “purple” state because it’s become so politically mixed.)

Is this a bunch of hooey, or is there something to this?  What do you think?

You can also see the educational background and alma maters of the Republican candidates, John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Democratic candidates, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to see how they compare.