Just finished watching CNN’s live webcast of President Obama’s speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. His topic: school reform. He said that the goal of his administration is to make sure that every American gets a “complete and competitive education,” and for our education system to be the “envy of the world.” To do this, he is proposing a reform package with 5 pillars:

1) Investing in Early Childhood Education. Obama mentioned studies showing that children who attend quality early childhood education programs have higher test scores in reading and math, are more likely to graduate from high school, attend college, hold down a job, and earn more money in that job. His goal is to make childcare available to 150,000 more children, and to raise the quality of early learning programs through Early Learning Challenge Grants which will be given to states demonstrating they’ve created programs that work.

2) Raising Standards. Obama challenged all states to adopt world class standards. (Is he talking about International Benchmarks? See previous commentary on that topic here) He criticized the current hode podge of standards across different states, mentioned the need for more accountability in tracking students’ progress over time, as well as the importance of creating better assessments to measure 21^st century skills. (See previous blog about assessments here.)

3) Focus on Teachers. Obama talked about funding programs to recruit, prepare and reward outstanding teachers. He emphasized creating new pathways to teaching, increasing salaries for math and science teachers, teacher mentoring, rewarding excellence (i.e.performance-based pay), and moving bad teachers out of the classroom. (For my take on the importance of teacher quality, click here)

4) Promoting Innovation and Excellence. In a word: Charter! Obama is clearly a big fan of charter schools (as am I). He’s calling for states to lift caps on the number of charter schools they’ll allow, and to institute rigorous selection and review processes to ensure that all charter schools are accountable to high standards. (Click here for a previous post illustrating why I see so much potential in charter schools, and here to see why charter oversight is particularly important) He also added a plug for increasing the length of the school day and the school year, as well as mentioning new efforts to prevent kids from dropping out of school. (See previous commentary on the dropout crisis here)

5) Affordable Higher Education. Obama believes every American has the right to receive an affordable quality higher education either through college or technical training, and his goal is for our country to have the highest percentage of college graduates by the year 2020. To help make this possible, he’s going to simplify the application process for financial aid, increase the number and size of Pell grants, offer a tax credit to college students from working families, and make college affordable to an additional 7 million students. He’s committed to devoting $2.5 billion to identify and support initiatives that will help students persist through school and graduate.

I think this is the most specific and detailed Obama’s ever been on school reform, and I’m pretty excited about most of his proposals. Of course, there’s an enormous gap between words and deeds, and he’s laid out a pretty ambitious agenda. Do you agree with his 5 pillars of reform? Do you think he’s on the money or missing the mark?

takepart by reading about Obama’s school reform speech. For another interesting take on the reform this country needs, click here