Campaign K-12

From contributing blogger Alyson Klein:

The general election debate over education policy, that is. Federal reporter extraordinaire David Hoff and I will be attending a forum tomorrow sponsored by the Association of Educational Publishers. It's being billed as the first chance for some the education advisers of Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama to square off.

The representatives are:

Jeanne Century, Director of Science Education and the Director of Research and Evaluation
University of Chicago's Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education, representing Obama, and Lisa Graham Keegan, principal with the Keegan Company and former state schools superintendent in Arizona, representing Sen. McCain.

The moderator will be Frank Catalano, senior vice president of marketing for Pearson's U.S. K-12 education businesses

They'll have a panel of questioners that includes:

Sara Davis, manager of education resource development for USA Today; Neal Goff, president of the Weekly Reader Publishing Group; Margery Mayer, president of Scholastic Education; Joel Packer, the director of education policy and practice for the National Education Association; and Bernice Stafford, a consultant with the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. Here's a link to some of their bios.

And apparently, Century and Keegan will also be taking questions from the press. Can't make it to the forum, but have something you'd like us to ask them? Let us know in the comments section.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

If education voters were hoping that last night's Democratic debate on CNN might give Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois a chance to hash out their views on school choice, teacher pay, or any other hot button education issue ... they were sorely disappointed.

There wasn't a single question on education in the second-to-last scheduled debate between the two remaining Democratic contenders. Still, Obama did use one question as an opportunity to express his support for bilingual education - an issue that's likely to be important to the sizeable number of Hispanic voters who will be key to winning March 4 primary in Texas. And Obama managed to get in another dig on the No Child Left Behind Act, saying that the law's narrow focus on reading and math has edged out foriegn languages, and that he would "put more resources" into language study.

Posted by Alyson Klein at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was in South Carolina over the weekend, and got to experience life in a presidential primary state. Since I was visiting family, I was confined to watching the political developments as most voters do—through television and the newspapers. However, I attended part of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally at the South Carolina Statehouse on Monday, where ministers and activists with the NAACP addressed a crowd of thousands before the three Democratic presidential frontrunners spoke.

And it was here when it struck me: this is a state where education could be an issue that drives votes, especially African-American votes.

ED in '08 folks were there, spreading their message with stickers and signs that said "Education is a civil right" and some brief remarks by chairman and former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, who emphasized to the crowd that there is no freedom without equality, and no equality without education.

It was an especially powerful message to the crowd made up mostly of African-Americans, who are still fighting to have the Confederate flag—which was taken down from atop the Statehouse dome but flies elsewhere on the capitol grounds—banished entirely from the grounds.

The ministers spoke of still-segregated public schools, with crumbling buildings and even water and sewage running down the halls of the mostly black schools.

The African-American vote is big bloc for Democrats, who have their primary on Saturday. Education was barely an issue in this past Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina, which Sen. John McCain of Arizona won.

Although poverty was an issue in last night's CNN Democratic debate from Myrtle Beach, S.C., these substantive issues were often drowned out by heated, personal attacks traded by Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

But for the people at the Monday rally I attended, it's the substantive issues that matter. To them, education is the ticket out of poverty. To them, education is a civil right.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

During Tuesday's Democratic debate in Las Vegas, sponsored by MSNBC, the three front-runners were asked a very serious question about education.

To what do you attribute the high dropout rate among African-American students, and what would you do about it?

The question went to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama first, but eventually, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards answered it, too. Their proposed solutions were similar, and complementary: universal prekindergarten, after-school programs, "second-chance" schools for dropouts, promoting fatherhood, etc.

But did you notice something in common about their answers? In response to a question about kids who drop out of school, the candidates barely mentioned any thoughts they have on helping kids while they are actually in a school, during the traditional school day. After all, students are most at risk of dropping out during their freshman year of high school.

To be sure, the Democratic solutions can all be considered very important. In fact, I've blogged before about how fixing America's education crisis won't be accomplished just by fixing what goes on inside a school building.

But did Sen. Clinton forget that she's the only candidate who actually has a dropout plan that she maintains will cut the number of kids who leave school in half? She didn't even mention it.

Sen. Obama did mention paying teachers better and reforming No Child Left Behind (with little explanation), but he hung his answer on pre-k.

There's little doubt that high-quality prekindergarten is beneficial for students, particulary those at risk of failure in school. But there's also little doubt that prekindergarten programs need to be high quality. How would the next president ensure that funds are used on high-quality preschool programs, particularly for students who need help the most?

In addition, for the candidates who say pre-k will solve the dropout problem, I wonder how that helps the students who are in school now. Even if prekindergarten for every child was available this year, that does little to help the kindergarteners, and older students, who are in the system now, moving from grade to grade. Along the way, 1 million drop out each year. That's at least 12 million kids—the population of Ohio—dropping out over the next dozen years while the candidates pin their hopes on prekindergarten.

In the debate, when asked about the economic and mortgage crisis, Sen. Clinton said: "We need to move urgently. We have a lot of big agenda items ... universal health care, college affordability -- but we can't wait. We're going to lose another, you know, million Americans in home foreclosures."

What about the million students we lose every year from high schools? Does that require us to move urgently?

Posted by Michele McNeil at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Since I've already updated you on the education question that did get asked during Wednesday night's Republican CNN/YouTube debate, I thought I'd put together a collection of my favorite school-related questions submitted to YouTube that were not asked. These certainly would have sparked interesting responses.

Take this one: A 14-year-old from Traverse City, Mich., who declares that teen violence is actually caused by school, and "all the crap" students have to put up with there.

Or this one, from a Florida student who is using way too many big words for his age. Did someone do his homework?

Then there's this one, from a mom in Kentucky who assures the candidates that people in her state do, indeed, read.

And finally, this one, which in all seriousness, is a very good question from an African-American student in Washington, D.C., who wants to know what the candidates will do about a significant issue in this country: education equity.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Check out Michael J. Petrilli's thoughtful piece in the National Review that sizes up the education debate in the presidential campaigns.

Petrilli, a vice president of the Fordham Foundation and a former Bush administration education official, offers an important insight at the end of his article: That perhaps education is such a yawner issue in this election not because the public doesn't care, but because the candidates aren't offering anything bold or truly new to the debate.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night's CNN/YouTube Republican debate in Florida provided an opportunity for regular people to submit questions to the presidential questions via video through YouTube—and thousands did. As I scanned the questions beforehand, I found that hundreds dealt with education, from how the candidates would change No Child Left Behind and help students better afford college to where the candidates stand on evolution in the classroom and national standards.

But only one of the 33 questions asked during the debate even touched on the subject of education. Perhaps the producers could have swapped out the question about the Confederate flag for a weighty question about the future of K-12 education in this country.

The question that did prompt a discussion about education sparked an exchange between former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney over college tuition assistance for children of illegal immigrants. Romney, who is duking it out with Huckabee for a win in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus, is trying to paint the former Arkansas governor as a liberal for supporting a proposal several years ago in Arkansas that would have given the children of illegal immigrants the same chance at academic scholarships (if they meet other residency requirements) as other students. Romney argued that children of illegal immigrants were getting a "special deal," while Huckabee countered that children shouldn't be "punished" for illegal actions of their parents. Watch their exchange below:

Posted by Michele McNeil at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In last night's Democratic debate on CNN, the seven presidential candidates were asked whether they were in favor of the very controversial issue of merit pay for teachers, which is generally fiercely opposed by some of the Democrats' biggest supporters—the teachers' unions.

None of the candidates came out in favor of the kind of merit pay in which individual teachers are paid more based on their results in the classroom. Interestingly, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who is the only Democratic candidate to openly support and talk about merit pay for individual teachers on the campaign trail, didn't jump in to tackle the issue during last night's debate. You can read the transcript here.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton said she favors "school-based" merit pay, which would reward all teachers and staff members in a high-achieving school regardless of their individual abilities. That's very different than rewarding individual teachers for excelling in their jobs. "The school is a team, and I think it's important that we reward that collaboration," she said. When pressed about whether bad teachers in a school that is otherwise excelling should be given merit pay, she said those bad teachers should be "weed(ed) out." Opponents, of course, say that's easier said than done when teachers' contracts and unions make it very difficult for school districts to do just that.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, of Connecticut, the first to answer, said he would be in favor of a pay system for teachers who go into poor, rural, or difficult schools and make a difference—but didn't want a merit-pay system that rewarded teachers who taught in "better neighborhoods."

Sen. Joseph Biden, of Delaware, whose wife is a community college English instructor, said teachers should be judged and rewarded by what they do outside of the classroom — such as get advanced degrees.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson didn't really answer the question, but used his time to bash the No Child Left Behind Act and declare that he would be the next education president.

The general message from Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich is that, if he is elected, the teachers' unions would have a very good friend in the White House, which he said would be a "worker's White House." When asked whether he disagreed with the teachers' unions on any issue, he didn't name a single one.

Posted by Michele McNeil at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)