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From Dakarai Aarons, Education Week staff writer:

Superintendents and board members representing several of the nation’s urban school districts grilled education advisers for the presidential campaigns of Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

The panel at the Council of the Great City Schools’ annual conference on Friday, featured McCain senior education adviser Lisa Graham Keegan, a former Arizona state superintendent and Obama education adviser Jonathan H. Schnur, a co-founder of urban principal training group New Leaders for New Schools.

The session, held in Houston, Texas, was designed to make sure the nation’s urban school leaders got a chance to share their views directly with the two major campaigns, said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Washington-based council, which is made up of 66 school districts.

Keegan praised the council for releasing an open letter to the next president earlier in the week, saying it had the most detailed plans sent to the campaigns.

McCain defines public education more broadly, Keegan said, to include charter schools and voucher programs, as long as they are open to all students and publicly report academic progress.

Improving education can’t succeed “by defining education only as what we did yesterday,” she said. “The issue we face is the civil rights issue of our times. There is no question."

Keegan issued a challenge to the group, saying that if the group of urban superintendents could get their states to agree on a set of voluntary standards, a President McCain would support their efforts.McCain doesn’t believe in the creation of national education standards but is supportive of the efforts of the American Diploma Project, which has joined 33 states to work on a common set of standards for high school graduates.

Abelardo Saavedra, superintendent of the Houston independent school district, said he supports national standards, especially in light of the far reach the federal No Child Left Behind law has in the operation of local schools.

“I don’t believe we can have a federal accountability system without some kind of national standards," he said.

Schnur said Sen. Obama also favors having governors and states work together on assessments. He also took the time to highlight Obama’s focus on teacher quality, parental responsibility, and money to help students go to college.

When moderator and veteran journalist Dan Rather gave school board members and superintendents on the panel a chance to respond, they said they agreed with elements of the proposals of both campaigns. But like others in the audience, they were concerned about how it would be paid for in the midst of a global financial crisis.

Eileen Cooper Reid, a member of the Cincinnati school board, said candidates need to make sure funding follows federal education mandates.

“Don’t come to us with standards and don’t come to us with accountability if you aren’t going to come to us with the resources to do it. “

“The only way we are going to bail ourselves out in the long-term is to teach and learn our way out,” Schnur said. “Sen. Obama sees this as an investment, not just as an expenditure."

Keegan said that McCain sees education as a top priority, but is also being cautious in light of the serious economic conditions. She also reminded her fellow educators that federal education spending had increased significantly over the last six years, and that they should challenge their respective states to provide more adequate funding for classrooms and aging facilities.

You can watch the full exchange from the town hall meeting later this week at the council’s Web site

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:36 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

That's the question my colleague, David Hoff, asked a panel of education experts after a debate between advisers for both major presidential campaigns presented by Teachers College in New York City and webcast by Education Week and edweek.org. You can watch the panel discussion here.

The question referred to Sen. Barack Obama's plan to boost education spending by $18 billion a year, including $10 billion for pre-K.

Nearly all the participants agreed that early childhood education is a good place to invest, although all made the point that it's unlikely that an Obama administration—or a McCain administration, for that matter—will have that kind of spare cash lying around.

Lucy Calkins, a professor at Teachers College, said she couldn't think of a better place in education to significantly ramp up federal spending, since pre-K programs can put at-risk students on the right track before they even start school.

Eugene Hickok, who held a high-ranking position in the U.S. Department of Education under the current President Bush, said the government should track whether federal dollars improve outcomes for students. He said that was more important than targeting the money towards specific policies.

Hoff also asked what had been missing from the discussion between the advisers, Linda Darling-Hammond on behalf of the Obama campaign and the ubiquitous Lisa Graham Keegan, on behalf of the McCain camp.

Nearly all the participants agreed the answer was pretty obvious: Neither candidate talked much about the No Child Left Behind Act, which was due for reauthorization last year.

"I came here expecting to hear a lot of talk about NCLB," Calkins said. "It's becoming more clear that NCLB hasn't done the job of making sure no kids are left behind." She said the discussion didn't touch much on the "failures" of the law and how to fix them.

Hickok said he heard a lot of talk about policies that are encompassed under the federal law. "Politically, it's a tough issue," he said. "I can understand why neither of them had a full throttle endorsement of NCLB."

For more on the candidates' position on specific issues, check out this chart, which ran in this week's edition of Edweek.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 3:00 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Barack Obama spokeswoman Melody Barnes' statements today on NPR about her candidate's support of student portfolios as a method of assessment have caused quite the dust-up. It even came up at tonight's debate between the education advisers to the campaigns—Lisa Graham Keegan for John McCain and Linda Darling-Hammond for Obama.

Though there were pleas today for the Obama campaign to clarify the Democratic presidential nominee's stance on the use of portfolios to gauge student achievement, I'm not sure that's been accomplished.

In an e-mail to me before the debate, Obama campaign domestic-policy director Neera Tanden said: "Senator Obama has said he supports testing but wants to make sure our tests are better and smarter. He does not support replacing the current structure of NCLB with portfolios and to suggest otherwise is a willful misreading of his comprehensive agenda on education."

Not sure what exactly she means by not supporting "replacing the current structure of NCLB with portfolios." (I don't think anyone thought he would replace the entire structure of the law.) What this does indicate is that NCLB and testing are very complex issues, and neither Obama nor McCain have been very specific on how exactly they would change the law as president.

During tonight's 90-minute debate at Teachers College, Columbia University, Keegan brought up the portfolio issue, noting: "The problem with backing off of assessments and turning them into portfolios that are more subjective is that we can't compare kids. That's where we were before we had accountability."

Keegan, who is McCain's chief education adviser, emphasized that "state standards and the assessments have got to stay in place."

Darling-Hammond, one of several education advisers to Obama, said quite a lot about assessment: "If you look at other countries, their assessments include relatively few multiple-choice items and in some cases none. Their kids are doing science inquiries, research papers, technology products. Those are part of the examination system." (Are those examples part of a broadly defined "portfolio"?)

Darling-Hammond addressed what Barnes said—and didn't say—on NPR directly:

She said in addition to standardized tests we need to look at other assessments. She did mention portfolios. They are used in the charter school she is on the board. ... And we have to get knowledgeable about what does go on in other countries. ... They routinely include elements like research products, they are scored, they are scored in consistent and reliable and valid ways.

In general, tonight's debate, co-sponsored by Education Week and its Web site, edweek.org, was vigorous, and pointed at times, and covered many of the same topics that have been chronicled here or discussed on the stump. (The archived Webcast should be available for viewing here as of noon Wednesday.)

The two advisers talked about teacher quality, the need for more research, whether money matters, and even whether either of them would like to be their nominee's secretary of education. (They each ducked that question).

Posted by Michele McNeil at 9:21 PM | Permalink | 6 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

During last night's debate, Barack Obama and John McCain held up the poor performance of the District of Columbia public schools to illustrate why education reform is needed. But they differed on whether vouchers are the answer—and they also differed on whether D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee thinks vouchers are the answer.

McCain said Rhee supports vouchers. Obama said she supports charters.

So which is it?

Last night, she and D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty issued this statement to the D.C. City Paper, which doesn't appear overly enthusiastic about vouchers:

Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee strongly believe that all families in the District of Columbia must have access to excellent public school options, and are committed to ensuring that students in every ward are afforded this opportunity. While Chancellor Rhee hasn’t taken a formal position on vouchers, she disagrees with the notion that vouchers are the remedy for repairing the city’s school system.

UPDATE: Rhee expands on her statement here, in an interview with Fast Company.

Both candidates took other liberties on the subject of education, too.

—Obama took too much credit for doubling the number of charter schools in Illinois, "despite some reservations from teachers' unions." The legislation he's referring to increased the cap on charter schools in Chicago, not Illinois. And my knowledge of government indicates that a lone state senator can't single-handedly do much of anything. What's more, the charter school cap was doubled only after the teachers' unions succeeded in getting many new restrictions on these nontraditional public schools.

—During the squabble over Bill Ayers, Obama pointed out that he served on an "education reform board" (the Chicago Annenberg Challenge) funded by "one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors." While Walter Annenberg and his wife were close friends of the Reagans, it was actually during the administration of President Richard M. Nixon that Mr. Annenberg served as the British Ambassador. His wife, Leonore, who has endorsed McCain, served in the Reagan White House where she was commissioned as an ambassador because of her role at the U.S. State Department.

—McCain declared that No Child Left Behind was "the first time we had looked at the issue of education in America from a nationwide perspective." Hardly. NCLB is the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which dates back to 1965.

—Over at the Teacher Beat blog, my colleague Vaishali Honawar points out McCain's double-speak on teacher certification and bad teachers.

—And, at On Special Education, Christina Samuels sheds some light whether McCain is really confusing Down syndrome, which his running mate Sarah Palin's son has, and autism.

Meanwhile, Flypaper declares that the real debate winner is...drumroll please...

ED in '08!

Posted by Michele McNeil at 1:28 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

For the first time in the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain and Barack Obama engaged in a sustained, serious discussion about education--something they've done via press releases, or through their advisers, but never face to face.

But even after moderator Bob Schieffer devoted the last question of the third and final presidential debate, at Hofstra University, to how to improve education, voters still don't have much of an idea of what either candidate would do with the central K-12 education policy of the federal government: the No Child Left Behind Act.

Instead, the two candidates hit highlights from their stump speeches. Obama talked of his support for early childhood education, a $4,000 college tuition tax credit, and parental responsibility. McCain talked about the importance of choice and competition, and the need for more alternative teacher-recruitment programs such as Teach for America.

You can read the transcript of their exchange here, including some brief references to NCLB. (Obama reiterated a popular phrase that it was the money "left behind," while McCain said it was a "great first beginning." He also said the law should be reauthorized.)

Some other highlights of their education answers:

--McCain focused mostly on his support for charter schools as he argued for school choice, and brought up private school vouchers only after Obama did. (McCain's school choice proposal is to expand the federal voucher program in the District of Columbia by $7 million.)

--The subject of vouchers elicited one of Obama's strongest lines: "The centerpiece of Sen. McCain's education policy is to increase the voucher program in D.C. by 2,000 slots. That leaves all of you who live in the other 50 states without an education reform policy from Sen. McCain."

--McCain emphasized his support of Head Start, saying "Let's reform it and fund it." His early education plan, though, is fairly limited and includes a Head Start provision that's already in law.

--Washington Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who is not the most popular with the teachers' union in the nation's capital right now for her support of a pay-for-performance plan, has a fan in Obama, who called her a wonderful, new superintendent. McCain said that Rhee supports the federal voucher program for her city, too.

--McCain talked a lot in the debate about autism awareness, emphasizing that his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, knows about that issue "better than most." But Palin's infant son, Trig, has Down syndrome, not autism.

--The premise of Schieffer's question deserves perspective. He talked of the country spending more than any other on education, but it's worth pointing out that many other countries have government health care, which means schools don't have to pay those costs on behalf of their teachers. If U.S. school districts didn't have to pay for escalating health care costs of their teachers, then funding comparisons might look different.

This question wasn't the only time during the debate that the candidates touched on education.

Earlier, the two squared off face-to-face about Bill Ayers, the Chicago education professor and 1960s-era radical whom the McCain campaign has sought to tie to Obama.

As promised, McCain engaged Obama in a verbal skirmish over the Ayers controversy. McCain reiterated that he doesn’t care about an “old, washed-up terrorist,” but said he does care about how forthcoming Obama has been about the facts. So Obama explained the facts this way:

Forty years ago, when I was 8 years old, he engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group. I have roundly condemned those acts. Ten years ago he served and I served on a school reform board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. Annenberg. Other members on that board were the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, the president of the Chicago Tribune, a Republican-leaning newspaper. Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House. So that's Mr. Ayers.

Perhaps more surprising is that Obama made his most high-profile statement yet in support of pay-for-performance for teachers. He invoked pay-for-performance (without specifying whether he would pay based on student test scores) as he tried to give examples of how he’s bucked his own party.

“I support charter schools and pay for performance for teachers. Doesn't make me popular with the teachers' union," Obama said.

The thing is, Obama and his advisers have consistently said he would support teacher-pay programs developed with teachers, and not imposed on them. That’s not exactly bucking his party. Also, while some Democratic interest groups may still oppose charter schools, there are a lot of Democratic leaders who embrace such independent public schools.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 11:43 PM | Permalink | 17 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

None of the undecided voters from Tennessee, nor moderator Tom Brokaw, using questions submitted over the Internet, chose to ask John McCain and Barack Obama about education during Tuesday night's town hall-style debate.

Obama did sneak in a mention of schools in a question from Brokaw about how his administration would prioritize energy, health care, or entitlement spending on Social Security and Medicare in its first two years. The Illinois senator and Democratic presidential nominee put energy first, health care second, and ignored the entitlement issue in favor of education.

"We've got to deal with education so that our young people are competitive in a global economy," Obama said during the 90-minute session at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.

On the same question, McCain, the Arizona senator and Republican nominee, said he thought that "you can work on all three at once," meaning energy, health care, and entitlements, not necessarily education.

Obama linked the troubled economy to college costs. He mentioned paying for tuition as one worry facing cash-strapped families.

"A lot of you I think are worried about your jobs, your pensions, your retirement accounts, your ability to send your child or your grandchild to college," he said.

And, in response to a question from the audience about whether voters can trust their leaders to deal with the shaken economy, Obama mentioned college affordability as one area that the government must in invest in.

McCain never raised education as an issue, as Obama did. Nor did the Republican use the debate to raise concerns about Obama's association with William Ayers, the Chicago education professor and member of the 1960s-era radical group the Weather Underground. Ayers and Obama worked together on a school reform project in their home city, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Ties between Ayers and the Democratic nominee have been highlighted in the past week by McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and some expected McCain to raise the issue. But the town hall format wasn't very conducive to such an attack.

Maybe a very illuminating question that would have gotten each candidate to give a detailed, insightful answer on education policy got cut for time?

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:15 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe tonight's presidential debate will finally be the one where school issues make more than a cameo appearance.

The format will be a town hall meeting at Belmont University, near Nashville. Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will field questions from undecided voters, mostly hailing from the surrounding area, although some questions will be submitted via the internet. The moderator is Tom Brokaw of NBC News.

Tennessee, which includes urban school districts such as Memphis and Nashville, as well as lots of small, rural districts, has grappled with education funding, curriculum issues, and implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act over the past year. (Thanks to my colleague, Dakarai I. Aarons, for filling me in on the issues in play there).

Just today, the largest newspaper in the state, The Tennessean, ran this story , which details how leadership issues helped spur a partial state takeover of the Metro Nashville school district. Neither candidate has been too specific about how his administration would help schools and districts that have continually failed to meet the achievement targets of the NCLB law. Tonight would be a good time to find out.

And earlier this year, the Tennessee state board of education voted for new high school graduation requirements that will get rid of current math and reading tests and replace them with end-of-course exams.

Both presidential candidates have voiced support for standards and accountability, but neither has talked much about whether they would seek a real change in the rigor of standards that states set for high school graduation. Again, something that undecided voters in Tennessee might want to press them on.

And Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, had hoped to boost spending for pre-kindergarten programs in the state, but the cloudy fiscal forecast has made that increasingly difficult.

Sen. Obama has said he'd like to spend $10 billion more a year on pre-kindergarten, some of it to help states develop programs for kids from birth to age 5. Sen. McCain hasn't talked about funding levels but he has said that he'd like to bring salaries for pre-K teachers closer in line with their K-12 counterparts. He hasn't said whether the federal government would help foot the bill.

Let's hope that at least one of these undecided voters is interested in hearing McCain and Obama address these questions.

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There wasn’t a single question on education during the vice presidential debate, but Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware managed to get some of their views on schools on the table anyway–-including a surprise comment from Palin saying that she wants to increase education funding.(UPDATE: Read the transcript here.)

“Our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding,” Palin said during the debate at Washington University in St. Louis. “Teachers need to be paid more.” And she said that states’ education standards have been “a little bit lax” and need to be raised.

That might be news to her running mate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has said that he wants to freeze most domestic discretionary spending, including for education, until he can conduct a top-to-bottom review of all federal programs.

Palin also gave voters a sense of where she stands on the No Child Left Behind Act, which neither presidential candidate has addressed much on the campaign trail. Palin said the law needs more “flexibility,” although she did not elaborate on what that would look like.

And she bemoaned the lack of attention education has received. “It’s near and dear to my heart,” she said.

But Biden pointed out that McCain hasn’t proposed increasing education spending. McCain has said he wants to freeze discretionary spending for most domestic programs, including education, until he can conduct a top-to-bottom review of all federal programs.

Biden cited lack of money as a reason that NCLB law hasn’t been a success.

“The reason No Child Left Behind was left behind, the money was left behind, we didn't fund it,” he said.

Biden said that he and his running mate, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, would not scale back their $18 billion education spending plan, despite the recent economic turmoil and a possible $700 billion federal assistance plan for the financial sector.

“We won’t slow up on education because that’s the engine that’s going to give us the economic growth and competitiveness we need,” Biden said.

Palin also gave a nod to the educators in her family – her father and brother are both teachers.

"I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her," Palin said to Biden. "Her reward is in heaven, right? I say, too, with education … I come from a house full of school teachers. My grandma was, my dad, who is in the audience today, he's a schoolteacher, had been for many years. My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher of the year. And here's a shout-out to all those 3rd graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate."

Biden and Palin weren’t given the opportunity to criticize their opponents’ records on schools, but Biden did get in a quick dig at Sen. McCain on the issue, saying that “he has not been a maverick when it comes to education.”

Posted by Alyson Klein at 11:36 PM | Permalink | 5 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

If moderator Gwen Ifill doesn't ask Republican Sarah Palin or Democrat Joe Biden a question about education during tonight's must-watch debate at 9 p.m., it won't be because no one tried.

The Education Equality Project folks are making their pitch to the debate honchos to ask an education question. A letter to the moderator, signed by New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and ED in '08 leaders, makes the case that the amount of time devoted to education during the presidential campaign has been "shockingly small." The letter goes on to say:

In fact, of 653 questions at 30 debates, only 20 questions addressed education—just 3%. The infrequency with which education is discussed at the debates can't be attributed to a focus on the economy and foreign policy. In the last Democratic debate in Cleveland, for instance, Senators Obama and Clinton spent more than 15 minutes discussing health care; no education questions were asked.

Meanwhile, late this afternoon a rally was scheduled at Washington University in St. Louis, where tonight's debate is to be held, to urge the candidates to focus on children's issues. Sponsored by the Every Child Matters Education Fund, the rally was expected to include children, parents, educators and child advocates in hopes of drawing the candidates' attention to education and social issues facing children.

Already, the National Education Association is weighing in on the debate, even before the first words are exchanged. In a press release that just hit my inbox, NEA Vice President Lily Eskelsen said: “Unless Gov. Palin offers a distinctly different vision from Sen. McCain on improving our nation’s public schools, she’s just more of the same. So far, she’s failed to do anything but offer blind support for the same bad policies of the past eight years." (UPDATE: I suddenly remembered that the NEA was far more impressed with Palin a few weeks ago when her selection was announced.)

It's entirely possible education will be an issue in the debate. Both Biden and Palin have teachers in their families. But even if it's not, you can get the kids' perspective on the debate by following the Scholastic Kids Press Corps here on Twitter.

If you’d like to do your own prep work before the debate, you can read up on Palin’s views on evolution vs. creationism and her record on special education funding in Alaska.

Regarding Joe Biden, read about his views on NCLB, merit pay, prekindergarten, and his education plan when he was running for president.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 5:08 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Two weeks before the election, edweek.org will broadcast a debate between top education advisers to Barack Obama and John McCain. Register now.

The live debate on Oct. 21 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time from Teachers College, Columbia University, will pit Linda Darling-Hammond, on behalf of Obama, against Lisa Graham Keegan, on behalf of McCain.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 8:30 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)