NCLB, an initiative that was put forth by President George W. Bush and signed into law in January 2002, was based on the theory that setting measureable goals and standards for each grade would improve among other things, testing scores in public schools.

Eight years later, NCLB has largely proven to be one massive failure. The act only resulted in increased federal government spending in education by billions of dollars, the illusion of school choice, no real punishment for failing schools, and the introduction of standardized testing as the ultimate litmus test for success or failure.

So President Obama is right when he says NCLB has got to go. However, that promise would be a lot more comforting if the president didn’t already have an abysmal track record when it comes to education.

Consider the DC voucher program, for example. The program, which was authorized by Congress in 2004, gave qualified students up to $7,500 to attend private or charter schools in the district, allowing them the chance to escape some of the worst public schools in the nation. The program almost immediately became a success among students, educators, and parents alike.

For perhaps the first time, low-income students in the District of Columbia were given the opportunity to attend better schools. Yet last April, President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the Democrats in Congress changed all that.

When the program first began, Congress made funding past the 2009-2010 school year dependent on re-authorization by Congress and the D.C. Council. So, Duncan decided to inform families that since there was no guarantee that the program would exist a year from now, it would be better to not allow any new participants.

Thus, letters were sent out to 200 families who had just gotten into the program, notifying them their scholarship was being rescinded. Of course, in doing so, he also effectively killed the program before it could get any kind of a fair hearing. This was all done of course, with the president’s approval.

Next came Obama’s community college initiative- a plan that was proposed last summer. In it, Obama called for $12 billion of taxpayer money to be invested in community colleges, and an increase in Pell grants for low-income students. To pay for this, a bill was passed on September 17, 2009, that effectively cancels all government subsidies to private lenders making college loans. Instead, the federal government has taken over as lender.

There are many reasons why that bill and the community college initiative are disturbing to free marketers. Not only do they increase government spending and intervention in education, it also tries to make college more accessible by making it easier for prospective students to obtain loans. That same tactic was tried once before with prospective homebuyers.

Reforming NCLB is the next item President Obama has set his eyes on in his overhaul of the education system. His plan involves dividing schools into three categories that are something along the line of “Excellent,” “Good,” and “Poor.” The better a school is, the more it is allowed to be completely autonomous and innovative. Poor schools are punished with strict government control and oversight until improvements are made.

The task now is for Obama to convince Congress that his plan is better than NCLB- which shouldn’t be hard to do. Almost anything would be an improvement over Bush’s initiative. But while the change in education law is likely to occur, given Obama’s record with education reform it remains doubtful whether any actual improvements will take place.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

Since American Maggie is interested in soliciting and providing a platform for fresh women voices within the Republican Party, I attended a reception hosted by the DC Young Republicans to hear a bit more about Smith’s candidacy.  The event was a mix of DC Young Republicans, Smith’s former co-workers, newcomers who wanted to learn more about her, and other conservative activists based in Washington, D.C.

Below is an exclusive interview with Smith before she starts her grueling daily schedule that now includes exploring a run for U.S. Congress in Arkansas’ First District.

Why are you considering running for Congress?

I am considering running for Congress because at this point in American and Arkansas history, we need a Representative who will go to Congress and fight on behalf of the people. We need to build a more robust economy and educational system. That sounds cliched and something that a lot of candidates say, but with Arkansas having a 7.7 percent unemployment rate, we need someone focused on bringing jobs to Arkansas and the 1st Congressional District – particularly the Delta region where there is a higher percentage of blue collar, and lower income workers who have been laid off. We need to improve our public school systems so that people have more opportunity to advance from lives of poverty and struggle.  Right now, we are in a situation where too many people are roaming without jobs and no place to go. We need a Representative who won’t go to DC and forget the interests of the people in Arkansas’ 1st Congressional District.

Can you outline your platform and what issues your campaign will stress if you decide to run?

If I decide to run, I will focus largely on three issues: jobs, education, and health care. Currently, the unemployment rate is 7.7 percent in Arkansas.  We need to focus on passing legislation that is going to encourage banks to give loans to small businesses, and will encourage more entrepreneurs to build businesses and other entities to bring companies to first district. In Arkansas, the economy is largely tied to agriculture. Therefore, farmers are going to be essential to jobs and a successful economic recovery plan.

Recently, the House passed a Financial Regulatory Reform Bill which allows the Federal Reserve to set salaries for businesses at all levels. This means that it is possible for small local stores in Arkansas to have their salaries set by the Federal Reserve. Over 90% of people employed in Arkansas are employed by small businesses, therefore it is important to support legislation that promotes small business growth to help rebuild the economy.

Education – We’ve got to improve our educational system. I was fortunate to live in Wynne, Arkansas where we had a good school system, but 20 minutes down the road, schools are sub par. Students often moved into our school system in order to attend a better school; this is unacceptable. We need to focus on teaching these kids on a higher level to prepare them to be productive citizens in the work place. I also plan to focus on tech schools and universities; not everyone will go to a four year university, but we have tech schools that train people with certain trades and skill sets.

Healthcare – Arkansas was among the states that hated the health care bill the most.  We have a high number of veterans, a large elderly population, and lots of single parents; those people, in particular, need a good health care system. We need to pass comprehensive health care that will not burden small businesses with the employer mandate, and not cost the elderly by cutting Medicare and Medicaid. We need legislation that will allow our citizens to have the choice and freedom to determine which doctors they go to and what health care services they provide.

How do you anticipate combating the charges of being too young or too inexperienced for the job?

We have several so-called “older” and so-called “experienced” representatives in Congress right now who are doing a horrendous job. I understand there is some merit to wanting someone who has more experience, but when the qualifications for running for Congress were outlined, the age was 25 – not 55, not 60.  I am not considering running for Congress because I’m young, I’m not considering running because I’m female, I’m not considering running because I’m African American. I’m considering running for Congress because I know Washington isn’t listening to small town America.  We need a Representative who will fight for small town America and small town American values and a person that is not entrenched in being an incumbent and being set in their own ways. It is good for Arkansas to have fresh blood, someone with new ideas, with new solutions without having the baggage of doing things the way they have always been done. As I’ve been making calls around the District, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the number of people who are decades older who are excited about me possibly jumping into this race. They want someone new and fresh, and are excited to see someone from a younger generation that cares about the country and its future.

Who in the Republican Party is your role model?

That’s really hard, they’re on different levels. Mike Huckabee and Win Rockefeller. Both of those men boosted and encouraged me to get involved in politics. By allowing me to intern and work on their campaigns, they were very instrumental in encouraging me that a young person could really make a difference. I remember being extremely impressed that they paid so much attention to me.  I wrote speeches for Lt. Governor Win Rockefeller and watched him read them verbatim; for a 17 year old, that is a big deal. Those two men boosted my confidence level and really inspired me. Additionally, they were very good at reaching out to everyone in the state – including minorities, young people; they weren’t just concerned with their so-called sector or base.

Mary Matalin, Ed and Cathy Gillespie and Newt Gingrich have been instrumental in encouraging me on the national level as an advocate for young people and for understanding policy.

You previously worked for Newt Gingrich as his National Spokesperson. ?As a self-identified conservative Republican, did you support his endorsement of Dede Scozzafavva in the controversial NY-23 Special Election in 2009?

I totally understand what he was doing, I didn’t necessarily agree with it. What Speaker Gingrich was doing by endorsing Ms. Scozzafavva was assuring people that she would vote for John Boehner for Speaker. At that point, she was the individual the Republican Party in NY selected as their nominee. Newt Gingrich is a Republican; he has said he will always work to advance the Republican Party. And in that particular instance, he supported her because he thought we all needed to get on one team. At the end of the day, that is one more vote against Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. This is not a knock on Doug Hoffman.

As a Republican Party, we have got to stop this litmus test. I am a conservative, I’ll always support the conservative in an election, but at the end of the day if we have to choose between someone who agrees with us 60 % of the time vs. someone who disagrees with us 90% of the time, I would choose to support the person who agrees with me 60% of the time.  Requiring someone to agree with you 100% of the time is not only unrealistic, it is illogical.

What do you believe will be the defining issue of our generation?

Two fold: culture war in America. I am a social conservative, and I believe that the culture war that our generation will face will be beyond the two issues of gay marriage and abortion. We’re in a battle for strong families – to have strong men who lead our families, to have strong women who are great mothers to our children and to encourage a belief in God and a Higher power. You can see with your own eyes there are those who want to take God out of everything. And as a result, that adversely affects the laws and decisions we make. That’s something we’re going to have to change in our culture, I’m not sure it can be legislated.

Economics – We have to ensure that America remains a very strong, capitalist nation. We need to encourage incentives, innovation, and creativity – which have always been at the heart of the American culture. We need to encourage people to do the best at their jobs and take advantage of best jobs here. This goes hand in hand with freedom.

Please share your brief thoughts on each of the Republican leaders:

Sarah Palin – Courageous.

Michael Steele – Bold.  Unapologetic.

Is he good or bad for the Party? He is good for the Republican Party. We need people in our Party who tell the truth. I don’t agree with everything he’s done, and he has surely made mistakes. He is absolutely brilliant, when he measures his words.  And when he harnesses that energy and points it toward a certain political race and political issue, he is very effective.

Bob McDonnell – Hero and a true American. He is a nontraditional politician who really is the American dream of a Statesman. He served in military, grew up in the state which he now represents, and fought the bad guys as Attorney General. I have tremendous admiration for him and his wife Maureen.

Scott Brown – Game changer!

What do you do for fun?

I love being outside. I love running on trails in Arkansas, love to read, love watching and playing sports, particularly basketball.  And I love to eat!

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Elise M. Stefanik is President and Founder of American Maggie.  She previously served in the Bush Administration’s Office of the Chief of Staff.

Earlier this year, Congress passed legislation that essentially phases-out the Opportunity Scholarship program by prohibiting any new students from enrolling. The President has stood by and allowed it to happen—effectively denying low-income children in D.C. the same opportunity that he benefited from as a child: the chance to attend a private school on scholarship.

Recently, Attorney General Eric Holder quietly urged proponents of the program to pull a television advertisement that promotes the D.C. OSP and urges President Obama to support school choice for D.C. families. Evidently, the administration is united against providing opportunity for these under-privileged children.

Last week, President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan traveled to Madison, WI where the President spoke to students and educators at James C. Wright Middle School. He highlighted the importance of offering the best education to children in the U.S.

“American prosperity has long rested on how well we educate our children. But, this has never been more true than it is today. There is nothing that will determine our future as a nation and the lives that our children will lead, more than the kind of education that we provide them.”

During Obama’s visit, Secretary Duncan also shared brief comments:

“And what amazes me is that week after week, month after month, he [Obama] just keeps coming back to education, and he’s absolutely passionate about it.  He and his wife, the First Lady Michelle Obama, received great educations.  Neither one was born with a lot of money, but they worked really hard and had great teachers and great principals and made the most of it.  And now he’s our President.  So it’s a pretty remarkable journey. The only reason he’s the President is because he got a great education.”

While Duncan fails to mention that Obama received a great education thanks to a scholarship, he concedes that without that opportunity, he would have never become President. It is impossible to know what will become of the educational futures of those 216 children who recently had their Opportunity Scholarships rescinded. But one thing is certain: Duncan’s remarks would have been highly ironic if delivered in the Nation’s Capitol, where thousands of children are being denied the opportunity to receive a decent education.

The President’s support for schools such as James C. Wright Middle School, a charter school in Madison, begs the question of why he endorses charter schools but does not back other effective school choice options for children. So far, his silence on the issue has meant 216 children have returned to the often dangerous and under performing D.C. public schools.

The children of Washington, D.C. are America’s future, and they deserve to hear President Obama’s explanation for denying them the bright educational opportunity that he was so fortunate to have benefited from.

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Kathleen Someah previously attended Kenyon College where she studied English and Political Science.  She is currently an intern with a political think tank where she focuses primarily on issues relating to homeland security.

On September 17, the House passed legislation to overhaul the college loan system. The bill, introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and supported by Obama, ends government subsidies to banks and other private lending companies for college loans. The Democrats who pushed for the bill’s passage, say it will free up $80 billion; half of which, will go toward increasing the amount of money in the Pell Grant program.

Other provisions of the bill include roughly $10 billion toward improvements for community colleges and a myriad of other spending initiatives for preschool, elementary, and high schools. Sounds like noble enough goals, right?

Actually, as noble and honorable as this bill sounds, calling it such would be a great misnomer. Throwing money at a problem has been the go-to-solution for presidents in recent years, but there is little to show for it.

President George W. Bush had his College Cost Reduction and Access Act that increased Pell Grants and cut student loan interest rates. Before that, President Clinton had his own initiatives, calling for a $1,500 tax credit for students who committed to going to community college for two years and maintaining a “B” average.

The fact is Washington has been trying to spend its way out of mediocrity in education for years. Yet the results don’t add up. The Department of Education estimates that the U.S. spent $667 billion on K-12 schools during the 2008-09 academic year alone. That’s up from $553 billion the previous year. And that number is only getting higher, especially with the $100 billion from the stimulus bill that was allotted for education.

Yet despite this massive amount of funding, reading scores on nationalized tests in elementary schools have stayed relatively the same since 1970. Furthermore, the New York Times recently reported that only about half of teenagers that enroll in college end up with a bachelor’s degree. Among advanced countries, only Italy has a worse graduation rate.

However, that same New York Times article went on to praise President Obama’s education bill, saying that taking the practice of student loan lending out of private companies and transferring it to the government is a good thing. Why? Because it would ensure that more people have access to higher education, since the government wouldn’t be so stringent with their rules and requirements in order to qualify for a loan.

The graduation rate in America may be dismal, but the way to increase it is not by throwing more money at young adults, enticing them to enter college. Increasing demand for any product only increases prices for everyone. That lesson is taught in any basic economics course. But maybe Obama was sick that day.

Probably the most disturbing aspect of this bill is that its sole purpose is to increase access to college by making it more affordable, by increasing student loans. Yet this approach was tried once before with the housing industry, when the government decided that it was a basic, American right to own a house.

We saw what happened next. For a while, the housing industry boomed and thrived, but then that bubble burst, resulting in banks closing and thousands, if not millions of people swimming in debt.

When it comes to education, the result will be the same. Increasing access to college will not raise graduation rates. If anything, it will just increase drop-out rates. And when everything is said and done, there won’t be more people with college degrees; just more young people saddled with enormous amounts of debt. As if the burden of paying for social security and a possible universal health care system weren’t enough.

President Obama and the other proponents of this new bill need to realize that education is not a right. It is not the job of the federal government to ensure that everyone make it through college. Nor should any individual be forced to finance another’s college education through taxes. Whether it’s elementary, high school, or preschool, flooding the education system with money is not a panacea for low graduation rates and poor test scores. The sooner those concepts are grasped, the better. Or else we may be on the road to a collapse of the education bubble. 

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

“Summer should be seen as a gift, an important time to explore new hobbies, work a summer job, gain independence,” wrote Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education. Other experts note that if a quick review couldn’t remedy summer learning loss, then students were not being taught the material well enough in the first place.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan  sided with the pro-homework camp. Duncan even joked that students should ideally attend school 13 months of the year, stressing that time is one of the most undervalued resources for education improvement in the U.S. But is Duncan forgetting the time-old standard of quality over quantity? Evidence from the Secretary’s own department indicates that student math and reading achieving on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, actually declines from fourth grade to 12^th grade. This suggests a quality-time not quantity-time problem.

Research overwhelmingly shows that access to great teachers—not more seat time—can  improve student learning by as much as several years. In fact, schools in other countries are getting the job done in a fraction of the time and for pennies on the dollar compared to the U.S. Many of those countries recruit their teachers from the top five and 10 percent of college graduates, compared to the U.S. which draws from the bottom third.

Among the 32 countries participating in the latest Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. led in teaching hours per public-school year with 1,080 hours compared with an international average of just 803. Top performing countries have far fewer teaching hours, including Japan with just 505.

For all that extra time, the U.S. still ranks 25th globally in math and 21st in science. Such performance is a compelling argument for improved math and science teacher training, recruitment, and retention efforts, including merit pay, which the Obama Administration has indicated it supports.

Still, Duncan recently chose to blame parents—albeit tacitly—instead of the schooling system for American students’ poor international standing. “The more schools become the center of family activity and the true hearts of the neighborhoods,” he said, “the better our children are going to do.”

Of course, making government-run schools the center of hearth and home according to a federal government approach would likely mean that family time and community participation would require additional taxpayer dollars for programs and even more government red tape.

To make summer enrichment and learning a goal embraced by families and communities alike, give parents the choice in how to spend their child’s education time and money. Consider, for instance, a summer-learning scholarship program that would encourage parents to stay involved in their children’s summer vacation and academic enrichment.

Better than allowing politicians to spend more of the taxpayers’ dime regimenting the taxpayers’ time, empower parents to decide about summer activities for their children they think are best. Most important, let parents pick their children’s schools and teachers in the first place to give students an academic foundation solid enough for a lifetime—not just summertime.

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Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D., is Education Studies Associate Director at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, California where Kelly Gorton is an associate.

According to the 2009 41^st Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll on the public’s attitudes about education, the answer is no. In fact, PDK/Gallup found that more than half of us think that charters aren’t public schools, 46 percent think they can teach religion, 57 percent think they can charge tuition, and a whopping 71 percent believe charters can select students based on ability. That’s a lot of misinformed Americans.

As Obama goes on to explain in that March speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, charter schools are public schools run by non-governmental independent contractors; they’re also secular, free of tuition, and admit students by lottery. In return for the freedom to innovate in management and pedagogy, charters are held to a higher standard of accountability for their results—they can lose their charter, the agreement by which they operate, if they don’t pass muster. Unfortunately, it’s not immediately clear that Obama’s audience knew all this. Or that the average American knows it either.

Yet PDK/Gallup found that 64 percent of Americans support charter schools, despite having little or no idea what they are. That’s up 15 percentage points from 2008. It seems, then, that the public believes in the charter school brand, loudly promoted by the president, rather than the actual charter model.

Many of us, in fact, seem to think charters are some combination of parochial, tuition-charging, private, and admissions-based—attributes that are anathema to most American voters when it comes to the spending of public funds. Religious schools receiving tax dollars? Tuition-charging private schools being subsidized by public money? (This latter is an actual reform, vouchers, and is hotly contested for these very reasons.) Is it possible that the public actually thinks we should be giving public money to religious schools? Not likely.

There is another explanation. Another recent poll, this one conducted for the education policy journal Education Next, tested the theory that public opinion, which typically stays stable in the aggregate over time, can be swayed by powerful political forces or convincing research evidence. They divided a representative sample of Americans into three groups and asked them about three education reform ideas: charter schools, merit pay, and school vouchers. The first group was given no qualifying information; the second group was told whether President Obama supported (charter schools and merit pay) or disapproved of the idea (vouchers); the third group was told whether evidence-based research supported (charter schools and merit pay) or refuted (vouchers) the reforms effectiveness on student achievement. They then broke down the responses by political party and race.

The results are startling. Across all three categories, respondents’ support tended to reflect the positive or negative views of President Obama and the positive or negative findings of the research evidence. In the case of charter schools, this poll found that most Americans remain undecided about charter schools (44 percent), while 39 percent support them and 17 are against them. But support for charters increased 11 percentage points, from 39 to 50 percent, when respondents were told that Obama supported charter schools. Similarly, 53 percent of respondents supported charters when they learned that research evidence found students “learn more in charter schools than in public schools,” a fourteen point gain.

Real live charter schools are a much superior model than that being imagined by the public when using the word “charter.” Yet, Americans tend to support charters, or in the very least, are open to them. The Education Next survey was conducted at the height of Obama’s popularity—March 2009—and the same month in which he gave that speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. It seems reasonable then, that the public’s open mind about charter schools could be related to Obama’s own preference for them.

But is that preference a blessing or a curse? The last six months have seen Obama’s popularity continue to erode; he is now, in September, nowhere near as popular as he was in March. Education policy is not the cause of this decline. We can thank a plethora of other troubles, like the continuing financial crisis and the healthcare debate, instead. But it seems likely that education policy will take a hit along with the rest of the president’s platform. (Just look at the furor that erupted over the president’s planned speech to school children on September 8. The message is innocuous: stay in school and study hard, and yet the right cried foul.)

Charters have been around since 1992, so why are we still so confused about them? The reality is that only a small fraction of students are served by charters—about 3 percent of all public schoolchildren. And despite their unprecedented growth this decade, they are still overwhelmingly clustered in urban areas. Compounding this lack of personal experience with charters, is a negative PR campaign waged by charter detractors, who claim that charters siphon dollars away from public schools (charters are public schools, making this impossible) and that charter cream the best students from neighborhood schools (charter admission is ruled by lottery). The good news is that the families whose children are served by charters tend to overwhelmingly support them. A 2008 study conducted by the National Alliance for Public Charter schools found that “familiarity breeds content”—or “the more the public knows about charters, the more they like them.”

It seems then that what we have is a dearth of information.

If Obama’s current popularity decline continues at its current clip (or even if it doesn’t), charter enrollment is not going to expand quickly enough to fill this information deficit. Obama’s support for charters has been a blessing thus far; he has brought this movement, and others of the reform-minded ilk, to the national conversation, something that other national leaders of lesser stature could not do. Though previous Democrats have also supported them, Obama’s bipartisan popularity is of a completely different league. But it’s unwise to leave those reform movements so firmly wedded to his backing, not because Obama is going to change his mind about them, but because it may prove a curse after all. The future of this viable reform movement should not rely on one man’s popularity.

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Stafford Palmieri is Associate Editor and Policy Analyst at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based education policy think tank.