US News examines the issue of education and the campaign

They're like the kid in the back of the classroom with his hand raised, whom the teacher never gets to call on because the other students are shouting for attention. Education activists thought that the 2008 presidential campaign would be their opportunity to make progress on the multitude of troubles besieging the nation's schools: low test scores, high dropout rates, teen violence, skyrocketing college costs. Then along came the tumbling economy, climbing gas prices, continued problems in Iraq, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

So writes Dana Hawkins-Simons in US News and World Report about why education has not really taken off as an issue.

The magazine also gives a glimpse of the candidates' education advisers.

It also offers a capsule of each candidate's positions on education, including No Child Left Behind, teacher pay, and higher education affordability.

Clinton Weighs in on Tumult in Student-Loan Industry

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton last week unveiled a plan to ensure that students are not left without money for college as a result of the withdrawal over recent weeks of dozens of lenders from the guaranteed-student-loan program.

Her ideas, outlined in this news release, largely mirror action Congress is already taking or urging.

Here's a link to The Chronicle's Campaign U. blog item on Senator Clinton's plan.

Education an issue (sort of) in Pennsylvania

Stephen Colbert, the comic pundit of truthiness, has started a campaign in Pennsylvania that affects education -- and it's tied to the primary race between Obama and Clinton.

Supporters of the two candidates should contribute through DonorsChoose.org to help classrooms in Pennsylvania. Colbert showed pictures students from those classrooms drew in honor of Clinton and Obama, complete with his own unique interpretation of the children's illustrations Tuesday night.



Obama is winning by a landslide, by the way. And it takes a comedian to highlight education during this race?

Democrats drawing applause for attacking NCLB

In Pennsylvania, both Clinton and Obama appear to be picking up the pace of their attacks on No Child Left Behind -- rewarded by the applause they receive for the attacks. This article by Eleanor Chute of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette nicely sums up both the attacks and the most current education positions offered up by the campaigns.

Richard Whitmire

Is Obama for or against vouchers?

It seems that Barack Obama, who told the big national teachers unions last year that he opposed public financing of vouchers for students to attend private schools, has changed his tune.

Campaigning in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee's popular voucher program sends more than 15 percent of the city's school children to private schools, Obama told the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he is open to the idea of vouchers if studies end up proving they are effective in raising student achievement.

Obama said he remained a "skeptic" about vouchers, but would reconsider if the research showed otherwise. There has not been a conclusive longitudinal study of the effectiveness of Milwaukee's voucher program, although a new study is underway.

Rival Hillary Clinton has been highly critical of vouchers, even warning that widespread use of them could result in public financing for kids to attend schools that teach "jihad."

This Week in Education's Alexander Russo points out, however, that this isn't the first time Obama has spoken this way about vouchers and that he likes to use education as an example of his independence from Democratic orthodoxy.

I suppose it doesn't hurt to bring this up on the eve of Wisconsin's hotly contested primary.

This post also appears on my education blog Get on the Bus.

(Image: Obama with students at Northcentral Wisconsin Technical College. Credit: Wausau Daily Herald)

maybe next time

Thursday's debate offered a chance to compare and contrast Senators Clinton and Obama on several key issues. The economy? Check. Immigration? Check. Health care? Double check. The wars? Check.
Education? Maybe next debate.
While the cameras noted several celebrities in the audience and entertainment got a mention, the debate was not a fluff fest. But education was mentioned mostly in passing. For those who missed it, the transcript, available here, is worth a look as much that was said regarding the economy and immigration touches peripherally on education. Sounds like CNN is hoping for another one-on-one Democratic candidate debate at the end of the month, so we can hope it will include more focus on education. Keep an ear out for sound bites after Feb. 4's USED press conference on the President's proposed education budget. There may be fresh attacks regarding inadequate funding for NCLB and IDEA, and cuts in myriad programs.

~ Cathy Grimes

Students choose Clinton

While South Carolina voters cast their votes today, Virginia's Washington and Lee University -- a liberal arts college in Lexington, wrapped up a mock election and declared the next president. The students -- about 95 percent of whom work on the convention -- chose Hillary Clinton, despite popular sentiment favoring Sen. Obama, who came in second. You can read about it here in the Roanoke Times. According to the story, the students have a pretty good track record for predicting presidents, and do so based on research.
How good is the endorsement of about 1,900 students from a small college in Virginia? According to the story, in 100 years of holding conventions, they've only missed five times.
In the wake of some fierce politicking and debating, she also picked up a primary endorsement from the NYT, which had this to say about her views on education: "Mrs. Clinton also has good ideas about fixing the dysfunction in Mr. Bush’s No Child Left Behind education program." You can read the whole endorsement here.
More as the primary season gathers steam.
~ Cathy Grimes
The Daily Press

a matter of perspective: student loans

Must have been fun to hear Sec'y. Spellings' chat at the Press Club on Thursday. Evidently she and Sen. Clinton view the student loan industry's relationship with the current administration from different perspectives. The Chronicle of Higher Ed offers this on its News Blog. Clinton has been sharply critical of the student loan industry and introduced legislation last session addressing the scandal. She's also made it part of her education talking points, folding criticism of the loan industry with a call for better access and more affordability. Spellings evidently does not share her view and defended her department's oversight and investigation into allegations of abuse. When they see it, they investigate it.

Digging beneath the surface

Serious apologies for dropping off the face of the earth. Life has been more than a little insane. We shall hope that changes soon.

Anyway, to education, election and the fun associated with both.

Sam Dillon's NYT piece on Democrats' concerns about NCLB notes a Clinton campaign stop in which she said she will end NCLB. From Dillon's story:

"And at the elementary school in Waterloo, Mrs. Clinton said she would 'do everything I can as senator, but if we don’t get it done, then as president, to end the unfunded mandate known as No Child Left Behind.
'But she, too, added: 'We do need accountability.'”

You can read the whole story here.

The likelihood of NCLB being reauthorized before the next presidential election looks mighty slim, even though Kennedy and Miller have said it is a priority. But bear in mind that NCLB is a law that reaches back to the 1960s and is more than the Title I mandates related to standards, testing, accountability and teacher quality that candidates and most of the public say are flawed. We should be pressing our candidates to be specific about what they would replace the law with. And ask how they would beef up spending (referring to Clinton's comment, and the wide-spread belief that the law is an "unfunded mandate." ESEA originally was a civil rights law aimed at closing achievement gaps. It has been "overhauled" and expanded several times in its lifetime and includes a host of chapters few people know about. Worth thinking about as we chase our candidates, especially those who are on the education committees, like Clinton.

~ Cathy

Obama the Clear Favorite of Academic Donors

College administrators, faculty members, and other educators have donated just over $6.2-million to the presidential candidates so far this election season, with more than three-quarters of the donations going to Democrats.

A package of stories and graphics running in The Chronicle of Higher Education this week provides details about some of the top academic donors to the candidates and why they are giving.

Sen. Barack Obama is the clear favorite of college employees. The Democrat from Illinois has received about one-third of the total, or slightly more than $2.1-million, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based nonpartisan research group.

The amount donated to Mr. Obama is nearly 30 percent more than what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, of New York, has received. She ranked second with about $1.6-million.

Mitt Romney, the top Republican on the list, received less than one-third of the amount Mr. Obama got from academe. The former governor of Massachusetts raked in close to $564,000 from higher education.

By institution, the employees of Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia Universities top the list of total donations to presidential candidates. Harvard's employees were the top donors to Mr. Obama, Ms. Clinton, and Mr. Romney.

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.

Report highlights need for preschool access

A new report by The National Institute for Early Education Research likely gives Sen. Hillary Clinton added fuel for her universal preschool initiative. The report notes that minority children, and those from “low-income, poorly educated families” in the West and Midwest, have the least access to quality preschool programs.
Governors across the nation -- including my own state, Virginia -- are trotting out preschool expansion proposals. Presidential candidates are on the preschool bandwagon as well. Clinton is on record with a detailed proposal to provide universal access to preschool, which would reach students highlighted in the NIEER report. To check out the report, visit NIEER here.
~ Cathy

TIMSS makes the debate "lightning round"

Education was the subject of the lightning round question in the seventh Democratic presidential candidates debate. After parrying jabs from her fellow candidates all night, Clinton took on the question – with a 30 second time limit – but didn’t offer much that was new. Here’s the question, as posed by NBC’s Brian Williams, and her response (both taken from the debate transcript posted on the New York Times Web site):

WILLIAMS: We're going to introduce the concept of a lightning round here. Take one question; go down the line. 30 seconds each -- a time we're going to enforce. … This is about something called Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. It's called TIMSS. A number of overseas nations took part in it. It found that overseas students spend an average of 193 days annually in school. The deficit compared to the U.S., where it's 180 days -- over 12 years, that adds up to one-year gap between education in the U.S. and overseas. … Do you believe we in this country need to extend the school day and/or extend the school year? And will you commit to it?

CLINTON: Well, very quickly, I would start at the very beginning. We need to do more to help our families prepare their children. A family is a child's first school. The parents are a child's first teacher. This is something that I've worked on for many years.
We need to really support it through nurse visitation or social worker, child care. We need to do more with the pre-Kindergarten program that I have proposed.
In addition, though, this has to fit into an overall innovation agenda which I have also set forth because we can't just say go to school longer. We need to do what happened when I was in school and Sputnik went up and our teacher said, your president wants you study math and science. That's what I want kids today to feel, that it's part of making sure we maintain our quality of life and our standard of living.

~ Cathy Grimes

How Thompson's Past Affects His Views on Higher Education

As a young father, Fred Thompson worked his way through college, relying heavily on student loans. He has said the experience left him with the lasting belief that the federal government has a role to play in helping students afford college.

But aside from a few anecdotes like that, Mr. Thompson has been largely mum about his positions on higher education since he jumped into the presidential race in September. In the third in The Chronicle's series of profiles of the leading candidates, we sift through Mr. Thompson’s past, including his Senate career, to determine what a Thompson presidency might mean for colleges and universities.

On another front at our Campaign U. blog last week, we wrote about Hillary Rodham Clinton's flip flop on the federal guaranteed-loan program. First, she said she supported competition between the federal government’s direct-lending program and the Federal Family Education Loan Program, also known as FFELP.

But when Senator Clinton later unveiled her higher-education platform, she called for killing FFELP. Her plan would use the savings generated by abolishing the program to help finance an $8-billion expansion of aid to student and colleges.

Clinton launches new radio ad

Hillary Clinton's second radio ad in South Carolina builds on her first, emphasizing her concern about education. In the first ad, she noted the state's rural, economically depressed interstate-associated "Corridor of Shame." This time, she harks to familiar themes of universal pre-Kindergarten, college affordability and access. To read more, check the AP story here in the NYT.

~ Cathy

Clinton unveils higher ed affordability plan

Thursday Hillary Clinton unveiled an ambitious $8 billion plan to improve higher education affordability and push college accountability.
Speaking in New Hampshire, she harked to access, a theme she has turned to throughout her campaign. Her Web site contains details of the plan here.
The heart of the plan is an expansion of the Hope tax credit to $3,500, which includes a provision for what was dubbed "advanceability." In addition to increasing the credit from $1,650, she calls for making the first $1,000 in tuition costs fully deductible. The new credit will be partially refundable and will be "advanceable" so families can receive the tax credit when their tuition bills are due.
She took on Pell grants, too, saying she wants to adjust them annually so they keep pace with college costs. She wants colleges to establish multi-year tuition rates so families can better plan education costs, rather than waiting year to year to find out how much more they must shell out or borrow.
The plan includes $500 million in incentive grants to help community colleges make sure students complete degrees; the money also goes toward two-year/four-year institution partnerships to increase graduation rates and promote smooth transfers.
There is $250 million to help improve graduation rates from four-year colleges, too.
Worker training is addressed with $250 million for on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs.
Americorps also receives a boost in the Clinton proposal. She wants to double the education award associated with the two-year public service program, increasing it to $10,000.
For those tired of filling out FAFSA forms, whether online or in print, Clinton proposes a simpler way to apply for federal assistance: checking a box on the income tax return.
The accountability portion, which targets the institutions themselves, includes three components:
An online college cost calculator so people can figure out the amount of aid a student likely will receive, and how much he or she must pay with other funds, for the institution the student wants to attend.
A graduation and graduate-employment rate index, maintained by the Department of Education, for all colleges and universities. The employment index would include information on earnings, as well.
Multi-year tuition projections so students will know from the freshman year on how much they must pay over the course of their education at that institution.
According to her Web site, the massive plan won't increase the deficit. Clinton calls for eliminating the guaranteed student loan program and using a portion of the proceeds expected from freezing the estate tax at $7 million per couple.
There is sure to be skeptical response to the plan, but it touches almost all the higher education student constituencies, with the exception of graduate students.
So we're looking at universal pre-Kindergarten and more affordable and accessible higher education. Now we'll see what she proposes for the students in the middle.
~ Cathy Grimes

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

Ed funding talk on Thursday?

A Washington Post A-1 story today reports Hillary Clinton will discuss a new education funding formula during a campaign stop Thursday in New Hampshire. You can read the story here.
Education was not one of the main topics of the interview, but may well be a key element of Clinton campaign stories Thursday. Stay tuned.
FYI, if you haven't read the Chronicle of Higher Ed Clinton profile, it is worth a look. The story gives good perspective and education threads through the whole.

~ Cathy Grimes

Is that a fact?

John Edwards frequently talks about the need to improve rural schools. But are they as bad as he says they are?

Hillary Clinton signals her support for school accountability by talking about her key role in bringing Arkansas schools out of the dark ages in the 1980s. Does she overstate her case?

Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' new web site aimed at keeping the candidates honest, is starting to tackle education issues. The first forays focused on Edwards and Clinton. Take a peek at whether they tell the truth while on the stump.

How Clinton's College Years Shaped Her and Her Policies

As a college student in the 1960’s, Hillary Rodham Clinton developed a passion for social issues that continues to inform her approach to higher education.

In the second of our series of profiles of the leading presidential candidates, The Chronicle explores Ms. Clinton’s transformation from Goldwater Girl to antiwar Democrat and traces her emergence as a skilled negotiator. We also examine her Senate record, focusing on her twin passions of expanding college access to nontraditional students and of making student loans more borrower-friendly.

Our Campaign U. blog also contains the transcript of a Chronicle Q&A with Ms. Clinton about how her college experiences shaped her as a candidate and about her views on student-aid and other higher-education policies.

Another story that appears in our issue this week also takes a look at the changing role of presidential advisers and what scholars stand to gain and lose when they agree to help a candidate.