Most presidential hopefuls have yet to focus on education

Education has not been a major topic on the campaign trail and was not substantially addressed by the Republican nor Democratic candidates in the debates held in the last few weeks.

Eight Democrats and eight Republicans have officially announced their candidacy, and another six Republicans and one Democrat either have “exploratory committees” or are listed as “unofficial” candidates on the Washington Post website.

Among those in the presidential field, 10 are current members of Congress. Three of them -- Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) -- are among the 175 lawmakers who have signed NSBA’s Pledge to America’s Schoolchildren.

Senators and representatives who sign the pledge commit themselves to work in support of several broad principles, including improvements to No Child Left Behind, more funding for special education, and legislation targeting early education programs, highly qualified teachers, and 21st century skills.

While the key education issue in Congress is the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, few of the candidates have taken detailed positions on how they would like to see the law changed.

Clinton, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has criticized President Bush for failing to adequately fund NCLB. “You can’t just pass on mandates from on high. If they’re going to tell you what you ought to do, they better be there with a helping hand and the resources to get the job done,” Clinton said at an education forum in Ohio in May, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Obama and Dodd are also members of the HELP Committee.

Obama calls for “structural reform” of the nation’s school system along with additional funding. He has introduced legislation to award grants to 20 school districts that try new methods to improve student achievement and provide pay increases to high-performing teachers.

He co-sponsored legislation that was incorporated into the competitiveness bill passed by the Senate to provide expanded summer school programs aimed at helping disadvantaged children catch up with their more advantaged peers.

Dodd, the chair of the Children and Families Subcommittee, said he wants to improve the law so schools are held accountable for raising student achievement over time rather than relying on a single high-stakes test.

Dodd also wants to give schools more flexibility in directing resources to students who most need it and wants to allow states to adopt high education standards in exchange for more flexibility in NCLB and increased funding.

So far, none of the front-running Republican candidates have offered more than generalities on education.

The campaign website for Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, for example, states: “Today’s schools are falling further and further behind world standards. It is time to raise the bar on education by making teaching a true profession, measuring progress, providing a focus on math and science, and involving parents from the beginning of a child’s school career.”

In the past, Romney has proposed that principals be given more authority to manage their schools and has said “unequal education opportunity is the civil rights issue of our time.”

Rudy Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City, views school choice as “one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time,” according to his campaign website. He also touts his efforts to reform the New York City school system by increasing funding, ending social promotion, creating a charter school fund, and abolishing principal tenure.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.); Tommy Thompson, the former Republican governor of Wisconsin; and Rep. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) also tout their support for school choice. McCain was an original sponsor of legislation that created the school voucher program in Washington, D.C., the nation’s first federally funded voucher program.

In additional to Clinton, three other candidates -- Edwards, Dodd, and Kucinich -- have publicly announced their support for expanding pre­school programs.

Clinton’s proposal would serve all 4-year-olds whose parents want to participate. The program would cost $5 billion the first year and expand to $10 billion in five years. The cost of the program would be paid for by closing tax loopholes, ending the war in Iraq, and eliminating other programs.

Edwards, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2004, announced a College Opportunity Agenda at a campaign stop in North Carolina May 11.

He proposed an $8 billion “College for Everyone” initiative, which would pay for one year of tuition at a public college, along with fees and books “for any student who is willing to work hard and stay out of trouble.” The plan is based on a pilot program in Greene County, N.C., that helps pay for the first year of college for youths who agree to work at least 10 hours a week.

Edwards also wants to provide every low-income high school with a new college counselor to help students choose college-track courses and navigate the admissions and financial aid process.