I’m excited to be a guest blogger this week… so much information to get into the hands of the American people and I think John McCain’s education policies are what they need to hear… so I’m going to take this week and share what I know to be his priorities. I have known and admired John McCain for a long time and truly respect his genuine concern for each of us, especially when it comes to the education of our children. As an education advocate for many years, I have fought alongside many legislators from both sides of the isle to improve education. I believe that every American school child should receive a quality education and we must have leadership that will ensure that this happens NOW. John McCain is that LEADER. He is dedicated to making sure that every parent, teacher and child is empowered and has access to the quality education they deserve.
–Guestblogger Virginia Walden Ford, Education Policy Adviser, McCain08
Virginia, nice of you to blog here. We educators appreciate it.
I have a request. Could you do a post on John McCain’s thoughts/policies/past regarding special education? I know that folks have sent special education requests to the campaigns and they have gone unanswered (or answered with unrelated boilerplate). Far, far, FAR too often disabled students are overlooked and it appears that both campaigns are again overlooking this important issue even though it represents a substantial portion of federal education spending.
So, if you could just do 1 post on special education issues, a lot of us would really appreciate it.
Let me second the request for a discussion of special needs issues. In my opinion, the biggest problem is lack of acountability in enforcment of the laws on the books (IDEA 2004 notably). As near as I can tell, John McCain doesn’t know this problem exists and Barack Obama is too beholden to the unions to push back on accoutability issues. Remember, this for many is the single issue (or kids and their education) we are going to be voting for and to date it has been ignored….15% of the population in schools are kids with spoecial needs…that’s a lot of voters. For my two cents, the first candidate who effectively takes the side of the parents is going to turn a lot of votes.