The Final Debate

While watching the debate on Wednesday, I decided to get out my Wonder Woman journal and "score" each candidate in my area of expertise: education. I wrote down catch phrases the presidential hopefuls mentioned and gave them pluses or minuses. Here is what I wrote down when it was Senator Obama's turn -

+ making parents accountable
- more professional development for teachers (we have plenty already!)
+ Head Start
+ math and science
+ early childhood education
+ "recruit an army of new teachers"
+ make college affordable by giving tuition credit in exchange for community service
+ mentioned that No Child Left Behind was put into law but never funded by Bush (Thank you!)
- charter schools (if education was funded we wouldn't need charter schools)
+ "Vouchers don't solve the problem." (again, if education had proper funding, we wouldn't need vouchers)

He left me feeling hopeful about what my job may be like after he becomes president.

Now for the Maverick or "Mavrick" as some of his supporters like to call him -

- charter schools
-Teach for America (I hate to diss it, but it's like a 5 week crash course for teaching, and once completing the program, teachers are committed to teaching 2 years in the highest poverty communities. Not the most ideal situation, on the other hand, we have had some great Teach for America teachers at our elementary school.)
- "Troops to Teachers" (??? He wants people from the military to come home and begin teaching without having to go through the certification process!!!! How about "Teachers to Troops"? You can send us to Iraq without ever going to boot camp. Big NO!)
- making student loans more available (i.e. more debt)
- vouchers (ugh, JUST GIVE US THE MONEY)
- Head Start reform (I was unaware it needed reforming. I smell privatization, i.e. more money for his "cronies")
+ mentioned autism (not sure what it has to do with education, but I'm all for that cause)
------ Regarding education he actually said, "I'm not going to continue to throw money at a problem." (Scary! That is exactly what this problem needs. More money for more teachers and smaller class sizes!)

He left me feeling scared about what hits may still come to our public school system if he becomes president.

What about their little back and forth they had about the Superintendent of Schools of Maryland and D.C.? That was awkward.
Obama's talking about Nancy S. Grasmick (he didn't mention her by name, but I looked it up on the internet) and McCain cuts in with, "Who supports vouchers."
Obama: Actually supports charters.
McCain: (feebly) She supports vouchers also.

I had to do a little research, but quickly found two websites that cleared it up for me. One states plainly that she does NOT support vouchers, another talks about how she is on the Task Force on Public Charter Schools. McCain lied.

My final note...
Obama says, "If we're going to be serious about this issue..."
McCain interrupts and just begins spouting phrases, "Cause there's not enough vouchers, therefore we shouldn't do it, even though it's working. I got it!" [insert scary cancer laugh]

By the way, he has cancer. Don't know if you've ever known anyone with cancer before but they usually die. So we're looking at Sara Fucking Palin here. I hope my observations help clear up any questions you may have had about who is the most awesome.

Thank you to these blogs for sharing their pictures with me:

Barack Obama: http://sableverity.wordpress.com/

John Mccain: http://kiwiyogi.wordpress.com/

Sara Palin: http://www.theinternationalrules.com/