Obama ties McCain to 'ideologues'

At a high school in the crucial state of Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will sound like a Republican on Tuesday as he touts school choice —and scoffs at Sen. John McCain’s record on education.

Along with the speech, called "A 21st Century Education," Obama is unveiling a new education ad that begins with a child on a swing and ends with the candidate and his wife, Michelle, frolicking with their two daughters.

"When they grow up, will the economy be strong enough?" the ad's narrator asks. "Barack Obama understands what it takes make America number one in education again. John McCain doesn’t understand.

"John McCain voted to cut education funding. Against accountability standards. He even proposed abolishing the Department of Education. And John McCain’s economic plan gives two hundred billion more to special interests while taking money away from public schools. We can’t afford more of the same. " 

Adding new proposals to amp up his longtime position, Obama plans to tell Dayton-area parents that he will “double the funding for responsible charter schools” and reward strong teachers with “performance pay plans.”

Obama's campaign says he will promise aggressive, innovative measures to help American children compete in a global economy, even if it means breaking with tradition. The campaign says he’ll demand more reform and accountability, increase resources, and recruit an army of new teachers.

And Obama will argue that during 26 years in Congress, McCain has been out of touch and behind the learning curve on education.

“He marched with the ideologues in his party in opposing efforts to hire more teachers, and expand Head Start, and make college more affordable,” Obama says in remarks prepared for delivery in Riverside, Ohio. “After three decades of indifference on education, do you really believe that John McCain is going to make a difference now?”

It’s a slap at both the right and left wings – a keen pitch to the centrist voters who will swing the election, and moved to McCain’s ticket in polls after last week’s Republican National Convention.

McCain promotes his education ideas under the rubric of “Excellence, Choice, and Competition.”

Alex Conant, the Republican National Committee press secretary, said in response: "“What has Barack Obama ever done for education reform other than give rhetoric-filled speeches? Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucracies, while Senator McCain wants schools to answer to parents and students.”

Here are excerpts from Obama’s prepared remarks:

“For decades, they’ve been stuck in the same tired debates over education that have crippled our progress and left schools and parents to fend for themselves. It’s been Democrat versus Republican, vouchers versus the status quo, more money versus more reform. 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. 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. 

“In the past few weeks, my opponent has taken to talking about the need for change and reform in Washington, where he has been part of the scene for about three decades.

“And in those three decades, he has not done one thing to truly improve the quality of public education in our country. Not one real proposal or law or initiative. Nothing.

“Instead, he marched with the ideologues in his party in opposing efforts to hire more teachers, and expand Head Start, and make college more affordable. You don’t reform our schools by opposing efforts to fully fund No Child Left Behind. And you certainly don’t reform our education system by calling to close the Department of Education. That would just make it harder for us to give out financial aid, harder for us to keep track of how our schools are doing, and lead to widening inequality in who gets a college degree.

“That is not my idea of reform. That is not my idea of change. That is not a plan to help your kids compete with those kids in China and India.

“After three decades of indifference on education, do you really believe that John McCain is going to make a difference now? …

“Giving our parents real choices about where to send their kids to school also means showing the same kind of leadership at the national level that I did in Illinois when I passed a law to double the number of charter schools in Chicago. That is why as president, I’ll double the funding for responsible charter schools. Now, I know you’ve had a tough time with for-profit charter schools here in Ohio. That is why I’ll work with Governor Strickland to hold for-profit charter schools accountable, and I’ll work with all our nation’s governors to hold all our charter schools accountable. Charter schools that are successful will get the support they need to grow. And charters that aren’t will get shut down. And we’ll help ensure that more of our kids have access to quality after-school and summer school and extended school days for students who need it – because if they can do that in China, we can do that right here in the United States of America. …

“And when our teachers succeed in making a real difference in our children’s lives, we should reward them for it by finding new ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. We can do this. From Prince George County in Maryland to Denver, Colorado, we’re seeing teachers and school boards coming together to design performance pay plans.

“So yes, we must give teachers every tool they need to be successful. But we also need to give every child the assurance that they’ll have the teacher they need to be successful. That means setting a firm standard – teachers who are doing a poor job will get extra support, but if they still don’t improve, they’ll be replaced. Because as good teachers are the first to tell you, if we’re going to attract the best teachers to the profession, we can’t settle for schools filled with poor teachers.”