The education proposals unveiled with considerable fanfare this weekend by Obama have a very relaxed timetable for curing a national crisis. Politico reports:
Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have called the 2014 goal unreasonable, and have said that it led to watered-down standards. Instead, his blueprint calls for a new goal of career and college readiness for all graduating high school students by 2020.
Think of that. If you are now in the second grade, you are assured your schooling will prepare you for a career or college — when you graduate ten years from now. If you are in high school now, you can expect little impact on your school while you are there. Assuming the Obama policies do change schooling, children now in grammar schools can expect some benefit near the end of their high school years.
Handschooling can begin for any youngster within a week. To get started, a student only needs a mobile that browses the internet. Second graders could begin practicing their arithmetic and middle schoolers start to learn a lot about cells.
The timetable for launching Obamaschool? The New York Times sets it out here:
Mr. Duncan has been working behind the scenes on rewriting the No Child law with a bipartisan group of senior lawmakers in both chambers, and administration officials say they hope to complete work on a new bill by August, when the elections will dominate the Congressional agenda. Many skeptics question that timetable.
