Campaign K-12

What an election night! Two candidates who, at one point or another, were practically relegated to the political graveyard had big nights.

Some education highlights:

Alexander Russo wonders whether Sen. Barack Obama's wishy-washy stance on private school vouchers hurt him in Ohio, which is home both to powerful teachers' unions and a state-funded voucher program in Cleveland.

Obama, in his speech last night in Texas, pledges that no child should attend school where there are more rats than computers.

And finally, we must bid farewell to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the affable Republican who actually made education a campaign issue.

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If you could grade the presidential candidates on their education platforms, what would you give them?

Newsweek magazine did just that after getting the opinions of Education Sector's Thomas Toch and the Center for Education Reform's Jeanne Allen.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, fares the worst, earning a D+ in part because Arkansas' academic benchmarks are "the pits," according to Toch.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, a Democrat, earns a B- despite "currying favor" with the teachers' unions (in Allen's words), although Toch predicts she may embrace the idea of merit pay for teachers if she becomes the nominee.

Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and John McCain of Arizona tie for best grades, with each getting a B+. Obama, a Democrat, gets points for being "well intentioned" and talking about merit pay.

McCain, a Republican, gets high marks for his pro-charter school and pro-private school voucher stances. But Toch asks an important question regarding McCain's mention of improving high school graduation rates: "How exactly do you do that?"

Perhaps a more appropriate grade for McCain would be an "I" for incomplete. He's the candidate who has said the least, so far, about education.

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Ex-Bushie and Fordham Foundation VP Michael Petrilli has made me feel a little bit better about Arizona Sen. John McCain's fast-track pace to the Republican nomination.

To be sure, I'm not worried about a McCain nomination because of his politics, but from a pure education-blogging perspective. As Petrilli notes in his latest article for the National Review, McCain has "zero interest in education," which will make the jobs of edubloggers (and ED in '08) that much more difficult.

However, Petrilli notes that perhaps McCain will delegate the job of education policy to an education secretary who actually has a flair and passion for talking about curriculum, students, and teachers. Mike Huckabee, anyone?

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Not long after the 1998 school shootings at Jonesboro Middle School in Arkansas, which left three students and a teacher dead in what was then one of the worst acts of school violence in the country, then-Gov. Mike Huckabee signed a book deal for "Kids Who Kill," published that same year by B&H Publishing Group.

The book deal sparked criticism, fury, and resentment from families and other community members affected by the tragedy who claimed the governor was profiting from the violence. Ten years later, as Huckabee campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, the hard feelings haven't disappeared.

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Voters with education on their minds aren't concerned just about math and science—key areas of focus for politicians and policymakers—but with imaginination, innovation, and the arts as well.

That's according to a new poll, backed by education groups including the nation's largest teachers' union, the National Education Association, and (not surprising, given the results and subject of the poll) the Arts Education Partnership.

The poll seems tailor-made for Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, whose education agenda centers on advancing the arts in schools—what he calls "weapons of mass instruction." In fact, 56 percent of those polled said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports more arts funding.

More highlights from the poll: 69 percent of voters polled believe the U.S. is losing the imagination race—that schools here spend less time on the arts and fostering innovation than do schools in other countries. And, 63 percent said teaching the arts is as important as teaching the "basics"—such as reading and math.

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When is getting an education endorsement not a good thing?

When you're a Republican, and you get the approval of a state affiliate of the National Education Association.

About a month ago, my colleague and Campaign K-12 contributor Alyson Klein wondered whether Mike Huckabee's endorsement by the New Hampshire affiliate of the NEA would help him win his party's nomination.

Well, someone finally used it as ammunition in a debate.

Last night, at the South Carolina debate televised on Fox News, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson included that NEA endorsement in a list of other perceived Republican sins (like raising taxes) that Huckabee has supposedly committed. Sen. Thompson said: [Huckabee] has the endorsement of the National Education Association, and the NEA said it was because of his opposition to vouchers.”

Update: Read the transcript for yourself.

To clarify Sen. Thompson's comments, what Huckabee had was the endorsement of the New Hampshire affiliate—the granddaddy-of-them-all national NEA hasn't endorsed anyone in the presidential race yet. It's worth noting, again, that Huckabee was the only Republican candidate to even speak to the NEA convention last summer (video included below.)

Still, this debate would have been an excellent time for Huckabee to clarify his position on vouchers. But he didn't.

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The results from yesterday's Iowa caucuses make one thing very clear: these Midwestern voters are demanding change.

So they gave their votes to Republican Mike Huckabee, a likable, though sometimes gaffe-prone, bass-playing former Arkansas governor who has made arts education his big school initiative.

And to Democrat Barack Obama, an African-American candidate who has billed himself as a force for change, who has dared to broach the subject of merit pay for teachers and who hasn't been nearly as fierce in his opposition of No Child Left Behind as some of his opponents. (Democrat Hillary Clinton made a passing mention of the law in her speech last night after finishing a disappointing third.)

But this is what isn't clear: While voters wanted a change in this nation's leadership, will there be the same demand for change in the direction of education, especially when it comes to federal involvement?

The entrance and exit polling in Iowa sponsored by media outlets shed no light on how education may have influenced votes—because the issue probably didn't. The top issues for Democrats were the economy, Iraq, and health care, in that order. Republicans said illegal immigration, followed by Iraq, the economy, and terrorism were their top issues. Education didn't make either list.

Update: The education blogsphere is full of Iowa reactions. Read takes by Alexander Russo, the Education Writers Association Education Election bloggers, Joe Williams, and ED in '08's Roy Romer.

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who resisted efforts to bring vouchers to his home state when he was governor, is now trying to say he's a school-voucher champion. Except his record, and others, say differently.

First of all, the New Hampshire affiliate of the National Education Association thinks he's against vouchers, and used that rationale to explain why it endorsed him as the Republican choice in this early-voting state. Incidentally, Huckabee has not been out on the campaign trail, jumping up and down asserting that the NEA got it wrong.

Moreover, his record as governor in Arkansas shows just how skeptical (as the Heritage Foundation put it in 2000) Huckabee was of vouchers.

Here are just a few examples to illustrate this point:

"Huckabee questions value of vouchers in Arkansas". (Associated Press, Aug. 15, 2002). And from the story: "I'm not sure how practical they [vouchers] are. My primary focus is still on public education."

"Gov. Mike Huckabee says improving public schools is a better plan than issuing vouchers so parents can choose among schools." (AP, Oct. 1, 1998). That was in response to a recommendation (to enact vouchers in Arkansas) from a commission Huckabee established to study changes in education and other parts of state government.

And in this example, Huckabee actually corrects his opponent in the 1998 governors' race who overstated his support of vouchers. "Huckabee said his opponent incorrectly stated his position on vouchers. He said he had said in one campaign that he would be willing to test a voucher system on a limited basis, but he has concluded that vouchers are impractical for Arkansas." (AP, July 26, 1998).

This isn't the only issue on which Huckabee has found himself in hot water with conservatives. The Washington Post gave him three Pinocchios, their guidepost for measuring candidates' claims, for trying to backtrack on his support of in-state tuition for children of undocumented immigrants who otherwise meet residency requirements.

Huckabee's moderate views on such issues as school vouchers and immigration don't play well with conservatives or other Republican candidates, who maintain school choice is the answer and who think illegal immigrants shouldn't get any "special deals". But perhaps it's these moderate views and his plain-spoken, tell-it-like-it-is campaign style that are at least partially responsible for vaulting him to near the top in recent candidate polls.

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Not only is Republican Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, endearing himself to a growing mass of voters, but he's gaining the support of a subset of a politically powerful bunch: teachers.

Ex-Bushie, Hoover Institution fellow, and Fordham Foundation VP Michael J. Petrilli explores this phenomenon in a National Review piece.

Petrilli raises many good points, which have been echoed by the folks I've been talking to over the last few days for an upcoming story I'm working on about the presidential candidates who were, or are, governors. Democrats in Arkansas, who are the first to admit they don't see eye-to-eye with a lot of Huckabee's politics, seem to respect him for his education record. Specifically, they point to his support of tax increases early in his term to help resolve an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling declaring the state's school funding system unconstitutional. One state legislator, Sen. Jim Argue, a Democrat, even told me that that moment in Arkansas history in 2002 — when the state had to make big decisions about how to fund schools — reminded him of another pivotal moment in state history: the historic and turbulent integration of Little Rock's schools in 1957.

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Today, two news stories caught my attention that remind me of a potentially powerful political force in education politics:

"Home-schoolers rally to Huckabee," Los Angeles Times; and

"Homeschooler elected to chair state board of education," The State (Columbia, S.C.)

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In the last Republican presidential debate before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, two of the candidates, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, argued about which had the better education record as his state's governor.

You can read a transcript of the debate here, and you'll see that education was a hot topic—from Congressman Ron Paul's assertion that the major education problem is that judges have driven God out of schools to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's repeated assertion that school choice will result in an education "revolution."

But back to the issue of who's the best governor on education...There are three candidates with gubernatorial experience in the field—besides former governors Huckabee and Romney, there's current New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat.

In reponse to a question today about education, Huckabee declared that he had the "most impressive education record." He certainly has one of the longest ones—having served from 1996-2007 in Arkansas' highest office, when he presided over tumultous debates about rural school consolidation and a school funding system that had been ruled unconstitutional by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Romney retorted that he wasn't so sure that Huckabee should make that claim—and boasted of high test scores while he was governor in Massachusetts from 2003-2007.

Coincidentally, about that same time Romney was answering that question, I was talking to the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association about Romney for an upcoming story I'm working on for Education Week about the education records of the governors-turned-presidential-candidates. And although MTA President Anne Wass is a fierce opponent of Romney—who provoked the teachers' unions at nearly every turn with talk of merit pay and possible budget cuts to some education programs—she made a worthy point. Massachusetts, a high-income, high socioeconomic status state, had high test scores before Romney took office, while Romney was in office, and continues to have high test scores now that he's left office. (By the way, in the debate, Romney said the unions have been the "biggest obstacle" to education reform.)

But the larger question is, how much credit may a governor take—or how much blame should he get—for falling or rising test scores?

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While the topic of education may be taking a backseat to other important issues on the presidential campaign trail, it's getting some prominent attention in candidates' television ads. Here are a couple of the latest:

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who recently got the endorsement of the New Hampshire affiliate of the National Education Association in this early-voting state, talks of a "new beginning" and bashes the No Child Left Behind Act as an "unfunded mandate" that's been "difficult for so many." The ad started running yesterday in Iowa and New Hampshire.

And in this one, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, who nabbed the Republican endorsement of the New Hampshire-NEA, talks about giving children a "better America." The ad features a screen-shot listing "better schools" and "higher test scores" (I'm guessing he's referring to results from his time as Arkansas governor). The ad started airing today in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

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This dispatch comes from my colleague, Bess Keller, who covers the teacher beat, including the National Education Association:

Last summer I saw Mike Huckabee take the stage at the National Education Association’s annual meeting and asked myself: What kind of GOP presidential candidate bothers to join the NEA’s Parade of Hopefuls?

The nation’s largest union had invited both Democratic and Republican candidates to address the 7,000-plus delegates in Philadelphia, and, not surprisingly, given the NEA's links with the Democratic Party, all seven major Dems gave speeches. But Huckabee was the only Republican to accept.

Must be, I thought, desperate. Or goofy. And yet his speech was anything but. He managed to sound sincere and secure and to pluck strings almost guaranteed to win favorable responses from the educators, such as his push for more music and art in schools. He gave the impression of a guy who saw children in the round and the human face of schools, which teachers often think policymakers miss in their quest for higher test-scores.

Afterwards, when he met with reporters and was asked about the NEA no-no of pay for performance, he gave it a moderate endorsement. Such experiments were worth trying, he said. He also pointed out that all three of his children had attended public schools in Arkansas.

So I haven’t been completely surprised by Huckabee’s newfound popularity. But I was taken aback the other night, when my lifelong-Democrat, Brooklyn-born-and-raised husband turned over in bed and said he thought he might vote for the Arkansas pastor. He had heard Huckabee’s defense of granting in-state tuition to the children of immigrants. He murmured that it was the best political pronouncement he had heard in a long time and went peacefully back to sleep.

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is enjoying a surge in popularity and support, is apparently not enjoying the continued questions about his faith—and this time, he was asked about teaching creationism in schools.

According to an Associated Press story, he "bristled" when asked whether the theory of creationism, or intelligent design, should be taught in public schools alongside evolution. He proclaimed the question "irrelevant." Huckabee, a Republican, said: "I'm happy to answer what I believe, but what I believe is not what's going to be taught in 50 different states."

What he believes, by the way, according to the AP story, is that the theory of intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution as part of a broad curriculum.

While Huckabee is right—that the 50 states aren't necessarily going to follow his views on what should be taught in public schools—questions about his beliefs on evolution aren't that irrelevant. As we've seen with Reading First, which my colleague Kathleen Kennedy Manzo has documented, a president's administration can clearly have an impact on how subjects are taught.

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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:

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