Obama seeks to prod states into education reforms

WASHINGTON - Barely into the new school year, President Barack Obama issued a tough-love message to students and teachers yesterday: Their year in the classroom should be longer, and poorly performing teachers should get out.

American students continue to fall behind their foreign counterparts, especially in math and science. That's got to change, Obama said. Seeking to revive a sense of urgency that education reform may have lost amid the recession's focus on the economy, Obama declared the country's future is at stake.

"Whether jobs are created here, high-end jobs that support families and support the future of the American people, is going to depend on whether or not we can do something about these schools," the president said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show.

U.S. schools through high school average 180 instruction days a year, according to the Education Commission of the States. That compares with 197 days for lower grades and 196 days for upper grades in countries with the best student achievement levels, including Japan, South Korea, Germany and New Zealand.

"That month makes a difference," the president said. "It means that kids are losing a lot of what they learn during the school year during the summer. It's especially severe for poorer kids who may not see as many books in the house during the summers, [and] aren't getting as many educational opportunities."

Obama said the teaching profession in the United States should be more highly honored - as it is in China and some other countries. He said he wanted to work with the teachers' unions, but that unions should not defend a status quo in which one-third of children are dropping out. He challenged them not to be resistant to change.

And the president endorsed firing teachers who, once given the chance and the help to improve, still fall short.

"We have got to identify teachers who are doing well. Teachers who are not doing well, we have got to give them the support and the training to do well. And if some teachers aren't doing a good job, they've got to go," Obama said.

They're goals the president has articulated in the past, but his ability to see them realized is limited. States set the length of school years.