The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years, using purchase cards and the negotiating power of the government to reduce costs of standardized procurement, auctioning surplus federal property, and reducing the erroneous payments identified by the Government Accountability Office, and closing the CEO pay deductibility loophole. The rest of the plan will be funded using a small portion of the savings associated with fighting the war in Iraq.

• Reform No Child Left Behind
• Reward effective teaching
• Make math and science a national priority in education

He would pay for a number of his initiatives by delaying a plan for the United States of America to return to the moon and be a stepping stone for human exploration of Mars. This leaves me wondering how we can make science and math a national priority for students while canceling an initiative that would make America competitive with China, Russia, India & Japan while creating scientific discoveries that could fuel our economy not to mention inspire child. A five year delay would likely remove any competitive edge the U.S. has over other nations.

Senator Barack Obama released an education plan that would amongst other things:

More Details of the Plan
Here are some highlights of what the plan would do:

Reforming No Child Left Behind – The policy states that the Senator believes in the fundamental idea of NCLB but wants to change specific laws he sees as flawed. First amongst them is the assessment process or overall the notion that students spend their academic year preparing for tests that are not always accurate measures of learning.

There is no specific proposal for alternative assessments just a thought that they should be reformed, they will look into alternatives and fund states to look into alternatives.

Zero to Five – Is the Obama plan for focusing attention and money on childhood learning that starts at infancy and continues through school. $10 Billion would be spent by the federal government to fund state “zero to five” programs. This funding would help quadruple the number of eligible children for Head Start program, provide affordable and high-quality child-care, create universal pre-school and would convene a council that would focus energy and create collaboration between local, state and federal governments.

Obama would also fund a number of grants for early childhood education and tax credits.