Democratic Education Debate

Democratic candidates were asked only one direct question about education at Thursday night's debate.
Bill Richardson, who told the crowd he wanted to be the "education president," was one of four candidates asked if they supported merit pay for teachers.
Despite the chance to tell voters how he feels about the subject, one that is at the heart of education debates across the country, Richardson instead fell back on his worn-out and, depending on your point of view (see Jay Mathews' comments on a previous blog), not-so highly acclaimed ed platform.
He repeated his plan to pay teachers a minimum $40,000, start math and science academies, have universal preschool and exchange college tuition for national service. He also stuck with the one thing that really sets him apart from other candidates, getting rid of NCLB. But he failed to say anything about merit pay, too bad.
To find out what else Richardson and other candidates had to say, you can see the entire video at the NY Times Web site, along with a cool transcript analyzer that allows you to search for specific topics or key words.

Education Platforms

We've added many of the presidential candidates' positions on education to our righthand column under Education Platform. Some candidates have full-fledged education issues pages while others have only brief mentions of education and still others don't have an "education" issues page, but a "youth" page.

We didn't include a link to John McCain, because I couldn't find education among his issues. If anyone could offer one, I'd welcome a link.

Richardson and others trailing Colbert

How unimpressed are voters with Bill Richardson and other presidential candidates? Enough that more of them say they would vote for Stephen Colbert than Richardson and other Democratic runners. It seems ridiculous, but it's true. Take a look at this Washington Post blog to see how Colbert fared against all candidates in a poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm.
If nothing else, Colbert's decision to run is a welcome break from the same old stump speeches candidates continue to deliver all over the country.

Education roundup

Some of the news laid out in this Associated Press story by Holly Ramer is noted elsewhere on Education Election by our bloggers, but this is a good summary. Interesting to note the turn toward education issues among the Democrats. Especially interesting is the boost in tax credits for higher education proposed by Clinton. Again, she's targeting middle-income voters who could use the help both there and from universal preschool.

Richard Whitmire

Fred Thompson on NCLB, and an introduction

I'm Dakarai Aarons, an education reporter at The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, and I will be writing about former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson's positions on education as the campaign continues.

Education Week's David Hoff includes a presidential scorecard among his latest blogs on the No Child Left Behind law, currently up for Congressional reauthorization.

He notes that both Thompson, a Republican, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, have called for the elimination of NCLB, but for different reasons.

Hoff says: "Richardson is looking for the support of teachers' unions and other liberals who see the law as unworkable. Thompson is trying to reach the conservatives who see NCLB as an unnecessary intrusion on local decisions.

At the beginning of the year, Washington conventional wisdom said presidential politics would eventually interfere with NCLB reauthorization. As of now, it looks as the presidential field is reflecting the political alignment in Congress. We'll have to wait and see what happens once the field starts to narrow."

If you spot Thompson tidbits, shoot me a note at aarons@commercialappeal.com and let me know.

Sen. Richardson?

The big political news in New Mexico today is the announcement that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) will retire in 2008. Domenici is an institution in New Mexico and has garnered millions of dollars for various federal programs in the state, namely Los Alamos National Laboratory, since he was first elected in 1972.
Lately, though, his legacy has been somewhat tarnished because of his support of the Iraq war and his possible involvement in the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. Add to that failing health, and Domenici's day's were numbered. For anybody who's interested in Domenici, see this New Mexico blogger.
What does this have to do with education or the presidential election?
In the wake of the announcement, several names have been bantered about to replace Domenici. High on that list is Gov. Bill Richardson. Richardson's folks have already said he's running for president and isn't interested in the Senate seat. But with Domenici gone and Richardson's approval rating in New Mexico hovering upward of 70 percent, some think he'd be a shoe-in.
Meanwhile, Richardson continues to get attention for being the only Democratic candidate to call for the removal of all troops from Iraq, and now he is criticizing other Dems for not doing so.
Richardson started off strong when it came to education. Unfortunately, he's been somewhat mum on the subject lately. For anyone who's interested in a Richardson education refresher, you can see his main points here.

Governor Bill Richardson

Greetings everyone. I’m going to be blogging on New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s education agenda as he seeks the democratic presidential nomination.

This first entry is just introductory to get us acquainted with Richardson and his state. Future blogs will provide more details of his education policies and positions.

The one caveat is his stand on No Child Left Behind. Governor Richardson opposes it. "I would scrap it, it doesn’t work," he told a cheering audience at the CNN/YouTube debate (7/23/07) among Democratic presidential candidates. "It is not just an unfunded mandate but the one-size-fits-all doesn’t work. It doesn’t emphasize teacher training, it doesn’t emphasize disabled kids, English learning kids don’t get help. The worst thing it does is it takes districts and schools that are not doing well, takes their funds away, penalizes them. If a school is not doing well, we help that school."

First, a bit about the New Mexico Governor. He was born in November 1947 and has quite an impressive resume (with the exception of some confusion regarding his being drafted or merely scouted by the Kansas City A’s ball team as a young man). Voters in New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District sent him to Congress in 1983. He served seven terms and sat on the Interior Committee and the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Richardson also chaired the Hispanic Caucus (his mother is Mexican and Bill lived in Mexico City until high school). Former President Clinton appointed him as United States Ambassador to the UN in 1997. In 1998, Clinton tapped him to succeed Federico Peña as US Energy Secretary (Richardson’s Congressional district included Los Alamos National Lab). He ran for Governor of New Mexico in 2002 and was re-elected in 2006.

Now, here are a couple of fun facts about the man from which you can draw your own conclusions. He holds the Guinness Book of world records for the most handshakes in an eight hour period. This feat took place in 2002, in Albuquerque and involved 13,392 hands. Richardson has been a strong believer in this sort of grass roots, person-to-person campaigning since entering political life. The Governor, by the way, eschews hand sanitizers during these campaign events, something you may want to keep in mind when interviewing him since as many as 3,000 of those hands belonged to people didn’t wash after using the restroom according to the American Society for Microbiology.

Okay, now for some facts about the state population. New Mexico is a bit shy of 2 million residents, placing it 36th out the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of about 328,000 K-12 students, nearly 55 percent are Hispanic, 30 percent are white, and 11 percent are Native American; far above the national average of about one percent. More than half of all students are on free or reduced lunch.

State schools fared well in the most recent "Quality Counts" report by Education Week. New Mexico received an A in standards and accountability, the national average was "B-"; it earned a "B" in efforts to improve teacher quality, the nationwide average was "C+"; and it was one of the top states in resource equity with a "B+". It’s only below average grade was for school climate, where the state earned a "C". According to Ed Week, New Mexico "does not have laws in place to address school harassment or to enforce specific penalties for school violence."

New Mexico’s record in higher education is sketchier. The non-profit National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gave the state an "F" for affordability and preparation. And while the state received an "A" in participation, actual graduation rates earned it a grade of "D".

That’s it for this entry. Feel free to reach me at kbaron@kqed.org for now. I’m heading to UC Berkeley for a one-year fellowship, but will still be checking my KQED email.
--Kathy Baron

The public wants to know about education

The two-hour Democratic presidential debate last night didn't include the depth of questions posted to YouTube. It's a shame because obviously, the public wants to know the candidates' stands on education.

The first education question posed was a lighter one: who is your favorite teacher?


The next one asked the candidates about their position on No Child Left Behind, complete with musical score.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said he would scrap it. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said he thought the law was fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, none of the other candidates were asked about the law and neither of the two leading candidates, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama addressed it. Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, however, returned to the question later and said the law needs to be improved, not scrapped. "You measure growth in a child. You invest in failing schools. But I would not scrap it entirely. Accountability is very important in this country. We ought not to abandon that idea," he said.


The next questioner asked the candidates whether they sent their children to public or private school. Sen. Hillary Clinton pointed out that while Chelsea attended private school in Washington, D.C., she attended public ones in Arkansas.


Finally the candidates were asked about sex education and how early it should begin, perhaps because of the controversy over Illinois Senator Barack Obama's stance that sex education should begin early. Obama noted that it was important for children to learn that people should not touch them inappropriately.


Despite the number of submissions dealing with college affordability (see previous post), the subject was not raised at all. So even though education is on the public's mind, it doesn't seem to be on the minds of CNN officials screening the questions and very little pressure was put on the top Democratic candidates to address a key issue during the debate.