• Obama Addressing a mostly African American crowd outside Atlanta in July 2008,
“You can’t find a job unless you are a really, really good basketball player.
Which most of you brothers are not. I know you think you are. But you’re not.
You are overrated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA. You are
probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Little Wayne, but
probably not. In which case you need to stay in school.”

• Obama opposes school vouchers.

• Obama believes that the problems with education in the US are that the ‘No
Child Left Behind Law’ has failed, students have been neglected, high dropout
rate, teacher retention, and soaring college costs. 

He believes that the goal of the ‘No Child Left Behind Law’ was the right one,
but unfulfilled funding promises, inadequate implementation by the Education
Department and shortcomings in the design of the law itself have limited its
effectiveness and undercut its support.

He states that America has one of the highest dropout rates in the
industrialized world with only 70 percent of U.S. high school students
graduating with a diploma and that African American and Latino students are
significantly less likely to graduate than white students.

He believes that teacher retention is a problem with thirty percent of new
teachers leaving the job within their first five years in the profession.

He says that 2 million academically qualified students will not go to college
because they cannot afford it because our complicated maze of tax credits and
applications leaves too many students unaware of financial aid available to
them.

• Obama proposes the comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan to provide support to
young children and their parents. His plan places key emphasis at early care
and education for infants, believing that it is essential for children to be
ready to enter kindergarten. Obama would create ‘Early Learning Challenge
Grants’ to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward
voluntary, universal pre-school programs.

• Obama would improve quality and quadruple the ‘Early Head Start’ program and
increase funding for ‘Head Start’ program.
 
• Obama wants to provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the
burden on working families.

• Obama would reform the ‘No Child Left Behind Law’ starting with funding of
the law. Obama believes teachers should not be forced to spend the academic
year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He would
improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for
college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely,
individualized manner. Obama also wants to improve the NCLB's accountability
system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than
punishing them. 

• Obama wants to make math and science education a national priority by
recruiting math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and
would support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the
field. He would also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong
science curriculum at all grade levels. 

• Obama would address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide
funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle
school - strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent
involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended
learning time.

• Obama would expand high-quality after school opportunities by doubling the
funding to the main federal support for after school programs and serving one
million more children.
 
• He would expand summer learning opportunities with the "STEP UP" plan which
addresses the achievement gap by supporting summer learning opportunities for
disadvantaged children through partnerships between local schools and community
organizations.
 
• Obama supports college outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound
to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare
for college. 
• He supports transitional bilingual education and would help ‘Limited English
Proficient’ students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure
these students complete school.
 
• Obama would recruit teachers by creating new ‘Teacher Service Scholarships’
that would cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher
education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits
in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or
location. 

• Obama would prepare teachers by requiring all schools of education to be
accredited. He would also create a voluntary national performance assessment so
we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the
classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama would also create Teacher
Residency Programs that would supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared
recruits to high-need schools. 

• He wants to retain teachers with a plan that would expand mentoring programs
that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. He would also provide
incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate
to share best practices. 

• Obama wants to promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that
are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to
design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new
teachers with a salary increase. Districts could reward teachers who work in
underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers
consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as
well. 
• Obama wants to make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new
American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit
will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for
most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average
public college or university and make community college tuition completely free
for most students. Obama would  also ensure that the tax credit is available to
families at the time of enrollment by using prior year's tax data to deliver
the credit when tuition is due. 
• Obama wants to streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the
current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply
by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be
used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.