Clinton, Obama, on Education

On the eve of the primary, it's worth examining how Obama and Clinton will approach education.

Both candidates have been critical of NCLB, with Clinton saying she wants to end it and Obama planning to return to the law's original intent of providing support for low-achieving schools. Both have terrific ideas for improving college graduation rates and improving access to college. Both are superior to the McCain approach, which is to ignore education and hope the issue goes away.

Obama has had some missteps on education that appear to be intended to prove his independence from the teachers' organizations. He's touched the third rail of vouchers, indicating a willingness to compromise on the issue. And he's flirted with the idea of merit pay, which I have written about frequently. But it's interesting that Obama hasn't made any concrete policy proposals in these areas, at least none that I've seen: just a willingness to explore proposals that the left has typically rejected. But it's hard to get too upset with his position when he expresses in sensible terms like these:

In interviews with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel prior to the Wisconsin primary, Clinton rejected private school choice outright, while Obama expressed some openness to private school vouchers -- if studies ever show they improve student achievement. Still, he made it clear that he's aware of the many problems with real-world voucher programs. "My view has been that you are not going to generate the supply of high-quality schools to meet the demand,” Obama said. “Instead, what you’re going to get is a few schools that cream the kids that are easiest to teach." That describes almost perfectly the problems with the Utah voucher proposal that voters in that state rejected last November.

Still he's been reliably liberal on issues like Head Start and college affordability.

Clinton has been more in tune with the unions on education issues which explains in part why she was able to secure the endorsement of the AFT. But, as my favorite education writer explains, the NEA endorsement is still up for grabs:

In a press release issued after Super Tuesday, NEA President Reg Weaver said neither Obama nor Clinton has made the case that would earn them the association's recommendation. "There have been dozens of debates but less than a handful of questions about the future role of the federal government in public education," says Weaver.

He continued: "If they haven't made education a central part of their campaigns, how can we feel confident that they will make education a central part of their administration?"

Here's a fuller comparison of their plans. I think it's safe to say that whether it's Obama or Clinton, education will receive more funding and more attention from the President than it has in the last seven years.