A lot of folks still seem not to understand that candidates’ views and positions are going to change,once we get out of this long, tiresome Democratic primary thing -- and it may be an unpleasant surprise for many educators. This seems especially likely for Obama, who’s already indicated some of his centrist (some would say conservative) views and ideas on schools, while Clinton has gone the safe (UPK) route and kept her mouth tightly shut on that front. (As I’ve noted in the past, Obama has already come out for charters, and has in the past said that he’s open to the idea of vouchers.) Some of the best tea leaves on Obama come from the recent New Yorker profile of him (The Conciliator), which among other things parses the differences between Obama’s voting record (liberal) and his rhetoric (conservative-ish): Obama “speaks about liberal goals in conservative language.” Indeed, in the article he’s quoted as saying that “the impact of parents and communities is at least as significant as the amount of money that’s put into education.”