We have been extremely critical of the current crop of presidential candidates for largely failing to acknowledge the extent of our nation’s education problem (much less offering interesting solutions for them) but our hat is off to Sen. Hillary Clinton for taking a giant leap for mankind on the education issue.
Speaking in South Carolina, Clinton issued a “put a man on the moon by the end of the decade” type pledge yesterday, promising to cut the drop-out rate for minority students in half within the next 10 years.
Yes, of course, there are all sorts of issues about details and how “drop-outs” are defined, etc. but unlike a lot of the education plans coming from people running for office at all levels, Clinton’s starting point is based in reality. For a lone time, we Democrats, in particular, have refused to even acknowledge there is a problem – one of the reasons our education platform tends to be so impotent.
Listen to this remark from her press release:
“We know that the education system is not working when close to half of African American and Hispanic students will not receive high school diplomas with their class. Disparities in our education system mean poor and minority children receive an education that is often separate and rarely equal. And the consequences are devastating.”
Amen! When we start by acknowledging the problem we at least have a shot at looking at possible solutions that come close to matching it.
On the heels of her refreshingly-honest remarks in a recent debate about “weeding out the crummy teachers”, Clinton is quickly showing signs that things may actually get interesting on our side of the aisle for once on education.
Clinton has unquestionably raised the ante, so now how do the other candidates in the field respond?
UPDATE: Some other views on this from Charlie Barone, and Michele McNeil. And Alexander Russo wonders why neither Charlie nor I commented on the Team Hillary gays in the military question flap.