Obama: We must change education

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Tuesday sharply criticized the U.S. public school system and outlined a strategy to reward good teachers and fire bad ones, establish uniform academic achievement standards and increase spending on the first and final stages of a person's education.

In a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Obama called on teachers unions, state education officials and parents to change a "relative decline of American education" that "is untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy and unacceptable for our children."

"For decades, Washington has been trapped in the same stale debates that have paralyzed progress and perpetuated our educational decline," Obama said. "Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though it can make a difference in the classroom. Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early education, despite compelling evidence of its importance."

Obama's speech, his first devoted to education since he became president, had a tone of urgency at a time when the public education system is to receive about $100 billion of new federal money under the stimulus plan. The money might give Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, more power to change a public education system traditionally guided more at the state and local levels than by the federal government.

Although many of the ideas he outlined have been proposed before or are in the works, Obama used the speech to offer a sense of his priorities, linking many of them to the success of the U.S. economy. He encouraged experimentation in the public school system, including lifting the limits on the number of charter schools -- which his administration calls "laboratories of innovation" -- allowed in some states. He also said he is considering longer school days to bring U.S. classroom hours in line with some Asian countries where students are scoring higher on standardized tests.

"We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day," Obama said. "That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea. That is no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy."

His proposals reflected his party's belief that education at all levels was underfinanced in the Bush years and that reform should encompass more than demands that schools show improved test scores. But he also signaled a willingness to take on some traditional Democratic constituencies -- including teachers unions, which have been skeptical of some merit pay proposals -- and to continue to demand more accountability.

Obama said he intends to treat "teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them more accountable." Good teachers will be given pay raises, he said, and "be asked to accept more responsibility for lifting up their schools."

But he also said schools must remove bad teachers. "If a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching," he said. "I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences."

Dennis van Roekel, the president of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, said the merit pay plan does not necessarily mean bonuses would be tied to student test scores. It could mean more pay for board-certified teachers or for those who work in high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools, he said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has more than a million members, said "teachers want to make a difference in kids' lives, and they appreciate a president who shares that goal. ... As with any public policy, the devil is in the details."

Obama's call for states to adopt uniform academic achievement standards is likely to anger many Republicans, who generally favor giving local school systems the ability to set standards. But Obama said, "Today's system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means fourth-grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming -- and getting the same grade."

Regarding higher education, Obama said he would expand several federally funded grant programs, including allowing Pell Grants to rise at the rate of inflation and take on "wasteful student loan subsidies." The goal, he said, was to make "college affordable for 7 million more students."

"So, yes, we need more money. Yes, we need more reform. Yes, we need to hold ourselves accountable for every dollar we spend," Obama said. "But there is one more ingredient I want to talk to you about. The bottom line is that no government policies will make any difference unless we also hold ourselves more accountable as parents."

The New York Times, AP and McClatchy News Service contributed to this report.