Bill Clinton has some harsh criticism the U.S. education system. The former president said Tuesday, “The whole thing is crazy if you think about it.”
Appearing alongside Brian Williams as part of NBC’s "Education Nation," Clinton told the audience that he would fund schools at the sate level, have more instructional time and develop national education standards.
“We are in a global economy, and I would start with national education standards which we almost developed in my second term," Clinton said. "Then there was kind of a bipartisan resistance to it in Congress…on the theory I was interfering with states and the localities.”
Clinton sees his struggles in the 90s as similar to challenges facing President Obama as he tried to reform the nation's No Child Left Behind education law. In a speech last week, Obama said his Race to the Top initiative provided funds to sates that demonstrated “the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement.”
Clinton praised Obama’s race to the top initiative and credited it’s success to Education Secretary Duncan's time as a school superintendent.
Schools hit with budget shortfalls have cut music and the arts, a place Clinton thinks private financing and philanthropy can close provide opportunities while improving test scores.
“When you take out the arts and music, when you take that out of the curriculum," he said, "you’re also diminishing the ability of a significant percentage of students to learn science and math and technological subjects because they get it in a totally different way.”
