Obama Offers Education Plan

President Obama recently conveyed a new education plan for the people of America. In this new education plan President Obama called for longer school days and extended school years as well as more charter schools and also a greater effort from the parents and a greater effort to recruit more people into the teaching profession altogether.

"America's entire education system must once more be the envy of the world, and that's exactly what we intend to do," Obama Said. Obamas plan includes grants for states that improve early childhood education. Probably the biggest change in our education system would be the pay raise for teachers based on performance. It has incentives enough to show improvements in grades but i'm a bit concerned with the externalities that might come from "merit" pay raises, such as cheating, and corruption in public education; Although Obama did not state that pay raises would come directly from student test scores.

However i do agree that we need to lower the opportunity cost for good teachers and give the bad ones the salary they deserve. I support the tack that Education Secretary Arne Duncan took when he led the Chicago Public Schools where teachers recieved additional pay for completing rigorous graduate training. Truth be told(for me) teachers deserve a heck of a lot more credit(especially the good ones).