Obama Embraces Charter Schools

On Tuesday, Barack Obama promised to double funding for charter schools and replace inferior teachers. Many of Obama's comments were directed at a solution that required Democrats and Republicans to work together to solve the issue over failing schools. Obama was quoted as saying, "There's partisanship and there's bickering, but there's no understanding that both sides have good ideas that we'll need to implement if we hope to make the changes our children need." He went on to say, "And we've fallen further and further behind as a result. If we're going to make a real and lasting difference for our future, we have to be willing to move beyond the old arguments of left and right and take meaningful, practical steps to build an education system worthy of our children and our future.

An interesting bit of information that I found later in the article was that currently the government spends roughly $200 million dollars annually on charter schools. With Obama's plan, that number will be bumped up to over $400 million annually. This will not only help these schools obtain the resources that they need to help their students succeed, but with the stricter guidelines enforced on the teachers as well, it will force them to perform at a higher level, or risk possibly losing their jobs.