McCain Hits Obama On School Vouchers

By: John Bentley
Topics: John McCain

(CBS)

From CBS News' John Bentley:

(ORLANDO, Fla.) – In an address to the National Urban League, John McCain employed the same line of attack on Barack Obama that he used when he spoke to the NAACP a couple of weeks ago, saying of the Democrat's education policies, "his ideas are not as impressive as his rhetoric."

"In remarks to the American Federation of Teachers last month, Sen. Obama dismissed public support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans as 'tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.' All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?" McCain asked. "If Sen. Obama continues to defer to the teachers unions, instead of committing to real reform, then he should start looking for new slogans."

McCain was also asked about his recent comments supporting a ban on affirmative action in his home state of Arizona, a question that received a round of applause from the audience. "Affirmative action is in the eye of the beholder," McCain said. "I do not, and Americans have rejected, a quota system. And that, frankly, is something that I don't think helps anyone and has not helped anyone."

He said that he will continue to fight for equal opportunity, and held up the military as an example. "I think still the best equal opportunity employer in America today is the United States military," he said, to some grumbling from the audience. "I'm proud of the equal opportunity the United States military provides to everyone. And we don't do it by quotas."

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by knwmn August 2, 2008 10:45 AM EDT: I''ve been following the research on Vouchers for 5 years now. The results from Milwaukee where it has been the longest, and Cleveland, demonstrate vouchers do not work. Why whould we implement nationally, a concept which has failed locally?
To fix schools we must improve the reading rate at which children arrive at school. In my school 88% of first graders are in need of intensive intervention just to be at the 1st grade reading level.
A better and less expensive way to to fix schools are to improve reading readiness rates with Individual College Accounts (ICAS). ICAs work as follows: At birth $5K is placed one time into an ICA which matures as a Roth IRA does. If the child arrives at school the parents get $2k. The rest remains in the ICA, matures, and at high school graduation time, a percentage of the matured amount goes to the college or trade school of the child''s choice.
(If the child is not reading ready the school gets the $2k).; Reply to this comment