They're talking about education!

Not really. But education advisers for the two campaigns, Melody Barnes for Barack Obama, and Lisa Graham Keegan for John McCain, spoke on the Diane Rehm show on NPR on Tuesday. Other education experts on the program included Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation and Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute. USA Today's education reporter, Greg Toppo, provided perspective. The big focus: What's the future of No Child Left Behind?

McCain lukewarm on NCLB?

That's what Alyson Klein at Education Week is reporting, and I agree. My betting is that McCain would be far more likely than Obama to let the air of No Child Left Behind's accountability system. Cracking the whip on states just isn't in McCain's heart.

Richard Whitmire

What if the unions endorsed the wrong guy?

Okay, I agree it sounds improbable, but give the logic a chance. Here's a commentary I wrote that was just published in Edweek.

Richard Whitmire

McCain's Ed Plan

Sen. John McCain, who just months ago didn't even list "education" on his list of issues on his web site, has finally unveiled his education plan.

In a speech today to the NAACP in Cincinnati, he hit on three big themes: school choice, technology, and teacher quality. (Read the transcript here). Education Week's Alyson Klein is in Cincinnati covering the speech, and I hope to include thoughts from her later. Here are highlights of his plan:

• On school choice—He wants to expand the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program from $13 million to $20 million, and allocate $500 million in existing federal funds to build new virtual schools and expand other online offerings for students. He wants to allow tutoring programs to bypass "local bureaucracy" for certification under No Child Left Behind and go straight to the even larger bureaucracy of the federal government for direct certification.
  
  
• On technology—He proposes a $250 million grant program to states who want to further expand online learning opportunities and another $250 million in scholarships for students who want to take advantage of online tutors or virtual schools.
  
  
• On teacher quality—McCain would dedicate 60 percent of the $3 billion under NCLB's Title II to incentive bonuses (not exactly merit pay) for teachers who teach in hard-to-staff schools or subjects, and who are highest achieving (which, to me, means their students make the biggest gains on tests.) He wants to devote 5 percent to recruit teachers who graduate in the top 25 percent of their class, and the remaining 35 percent of Title II money would go to professional development.
  

Notably, his plan offers very little detail about how he might approach the reauthorization of NCLB. His only specific plan is to open up tutoring programs to federal certification, but beyond that, his plan talks more about the "promise" of NCLB than the specifics. In fact, during his speech—according to the transcript as prepared for delivery—he didn't even mention the words "No Child Left Behind."

(This is cross-posted from my Campaign K-12 blog.)

On Funding NCLB, McCain's Advisers Can't Agree

A month ago, John McCain's top education advisor told a group of reporters that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee believes No Child Left Behind is "adequately funded." In fact, she was so clear in her statement that it became the headline for the blog item I wrote summarizing Lisa Graham Keegan's roundtable discussion with reporters.

But in a perplexing turn of events, another advisor said on Meet the Press this weekend that the senator wants to "fully fund" NCLB.

So which is it? Does he want to spend more money on NCLB or not?

One huge difference between the two presidential candidates is spending. Sen. Barack Obama wants to spend an additional $18 billion a year to improve education, while McCain has said he wants to get control of the federal budget by freezing discretionary spending (including on education programs) until the new administration can determine which programs work, and which don't.

Did McCain's advisor, Carly Fiorina, misspeak on Meet the Press when she was rattling off a list of changes the Arizona senator would like to see? Or, is McCain re-thinking his position on funding NCLB?

Stay tuned. Perhaps he'll bring this up at tomorrow's speech before the NAACP.

(This is cross-posted from my Campaign K-12 blog.)

How will Obama change NCLB?

I’ve noticed that a lot of people are speculating about the fate of No Child Left Behind come January when a new president is sworn in.

Karen Symms Gallagher, dean of the University of Southern California Rossier School, has some interesting thoughts about what will happen to the law under a McCain presidency and an Obama presidency, and she offers some insight on how education policy is shaped at the national level.

Gallagher also says she’s heard some names swirling around as potential Obama picks for Secretary of Education, including including a few school superintendents from major cities and Stanford University professor and Obama education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond.

How do you think the law will change?

You can clock her

I owe Alexander Russo again (the man is incredible about staying on top of every little story) for noting a Bloomberg piece on what the presidential candidates say on the trail, as opposed to what is reported in the news. You can read the piece, written by Kristin Jensen, here. She notes Clinton gets applause when denouncing No Child Left Behind -- the latest reauthorization of the Elementary And Secondary Education Act, which she supported as a member of the Senate education committee -- and usually devotes about a fifth of her 30-35 minute stump speeches to education. Jensen's story notes education took up 6 minutes of a recent speech.
We've heard much of it: she's for universal Pre-K. She's concerned about financial assistance for college students. We need better teachers in the classroom. But Jensen writes that Clinton also complains the feds don't provide enough funds for NCLB, not a new complaint by any means. And Clinton claims the law requires teachers to "teach to the test." No details or analysis about what that means, though, or explanations of how you gauge whether students have learned the info and skills in their state's math, reading and science standards (whether difficult, easy or dumbfounding).
If any of us has the chance to get in a few questions as this campaign continues its I'm-not-dead-yet psuh toward June, it would be good to dig under those sound bites and find out whether she's talking changes for the next reauthorization (and what those changes might be), or if she really wants to toss the law and come up with something completely new.
~ Cathy Grimes
Newport News Daily Press

Doing the NCLB 180

Huge thank you's to Alexander Russo for noting Hillary Clinton's 180 on NCLB. Alexander comments here, and leads you to David Nather's Beyond the Dome blog here. Richard Whitmire also has been terrific about posting leads on Clinton's education comments, which have been secondary to economy and war pronouncements.
Despite the new toss-the-baby-and-bathwater rhetoric, we're still not hearing much about what she would offer as a replacement to a multi-faceted law that began life as civil rights legislation (Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965) focused on closing an achievement gap.

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

McCain on Education: Where Art Thou?

In the latest Education Week Campaign '08 story, my colleague, David Hoff, unearthed everything he possibly could, within deadline constraints, on Sen. John McCain's views on education.

The conclusion: There's not much to find. Education just isn't his issue. At least, not right now.

This quote from Hoff's story pretty much says it all:

“I don’t think he has a strong track record of putting education at the top of his priorities,” said Frank Davidson, the superintendent of the 8,000-student Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Ariz.

It doesn't help that McCain's campaign office won't respond to requests for information either (as Hoff's story explains).

While Hoff's story notes that a federal hands-off approach may be appealing to some education advocates, it would still be nice if McCain would offer some more details on, at a minimum, what he would do with No Child Left Behind. Like it or not, if elected, McCain would have to deal with the law.

Voters want change

A survey of likely voters shows that they are concerned about education -- so why isn't it a topic of the presidential campaigns?

A press release issued by Lake Research Partners shows that the majority of voters surveyed believe that it is extremely important to have good public schools nationwide, but there is also concern that public education in the United States is behind what is offered to students in other parts of the world and that we devote less attention to developing the imagination, creative skills, and innovation than other nations.

And maybe candidates should consider these little tidbits from the poll, according to the press release:

• 56% of voters say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who came out
in support of more funding.
• The electorate is even more willing to punish a candidate who votes to cut funding
for building capacities of the imagination. 57% of voters say they would be less
likely to vote for such a candidate, and 36% percent of voters say they would be
much less likely. Independent voters prove especially reactive to a candidate’s
decision to cut funding for building the capacities of the imagination.

The poll was commissioned by a coalition of organizations that ranged from the National Education Association to the National Association of Manufacturers. The backers also include
the International Music Products Association, the Ford Foundation, the George Gund Foundation and the Arts Education Partnership, which represents more than 100
educational and arts related national organizations.

NCLB and the Presidential Candidates

None of the candidates were there but they overshadowed the hearing of the National Commission on No Child Left Behind in Washington, D.C.

The commission held the hearing to push Congress to pass the reauthorization of the Act. And the co-chairmen of the commission had some choice words about the election and the lack of an education theme.

"Why can't we get the candidates to talk about...issues that are important?" asked Tommy Thompson, former Wisconsin governor and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, who made a short run at the candidacy. "Maybe we can start a surge on No Child Left Behind."

And his co-chairman, former Georgia governor Roy Barnes, made similar pointed remarks. "Education should be the number one issue that should be discussed and it is not," he said. "This is about whether this is a competitive nation in a competitive world."

That led to some spontaneous applause from part of the overflow audience in the Caucus Room of the Senate's Russell Building.

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

Romney's "Excellence in Education" Agenda

On the same day we learned that voters in Utah decisively shot down the nation's first universal private-school voucher program, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney—who has significant ties to the state—reiterated today that he will promote school choice as part of his education agenda.

So where was Romney during the voucher fight in Utah? He pretty much kept quiet, despite pleas from voucher advocates to lend his political capital to the fight.

Yet school choice has a prominent role in his education agenda, which he discussed today in South Carolina, along with other hot-button issues, such as merit-pay for teachers and changing the No Child Left Behind act to focus more on individual student progress rather than school progress.

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.

NCLB politics

Just because NCLB hasn't emerged as a critical campaign issue doesn't mean the election won't have a big impact on President Bush's 'legacy' law. This article by Ledyard King from Gannett News Service lays out what might happen to the law, depending on who ends up winning.

Writes King: "If the next president is a Democrat, it's likelier the accountability-centered framework of No Child will remain but with perhaps less testing and more money for smaller classes and teacher retraining, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington think tank."

The Republicans are less predictable. "That's because the party is divided between the conservative base that makes up the majority of primary voters and wants state and local control of schools, and business interests that provide most of the campaign funding and believe No Child should not only be renewed but strengthened. "

King then walks us through what the Republicans have said to date.

Richard Whitmire

There is a plan somewhere

I'm back after a few weeks devoted to the great state AYP data dump/scramble (not to be confused with the coming state school accreditation data dump, which happens mid-month), the SAT scores release and the beginning of another school year. And we’ve been busy with higher ed issues, as well, including the Virginia Tech independent panel report and repercussions from same. It's been wild and crazy in my neck of the woods.

But, I have not forgotten Sen. Clinton, who has several education bills in play, which may move forward when Congress reconvenes this week. Back to juggling Senate responsibilities with a presidential campaign, an unenviable task.

Clinton recently picked up two major union endorsements, including The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which noted its decision was based in part on her focus on education, which a spokesman called "one of the bread and butter issues" of middle class American voters. (The United Transportation Union also endorsed her last week, for those keeping score).

Pundits and dedicated Washington watchers have been debating whether NCLB is likely to be reauthorized this year. It's almost as much fun as a football pool to guess on the potential for passage in 2007. It still sounds like a long shot given the other pressing issues, including the budget, but anything is possible.

So far, Rep. George Miller has come through, posting a draft reauthorization proposal on the House Education Committee Web site. Watch to see if Sen. Ted Kennedy introduces a Senate counterpart this month. Both have promised changes in terms of flexibility. But Kennedy has three presidential contenders on his committee, and none sounds too keen on championing the law without some serious changes. Not tweaks. Big changes. Clinton is among the trio and has said several times she has concerns about the testing provisions and feels the law is flawed. She also wants better pay for teachers and has been supportive of proposals to focus on science, technology, engineering and math.

Back to Clinton on the Campaign trail. Her husband has been with her in New Hampshire, warming up the crowd and introducing the candidate. In several appearances, he has noted that Clinton has a plan for fixing education. We haven't seen the actual plan yet, but stay tuned.

In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on the various bills with which she is affiliated and listen for comments and reaction on all things ed. As always, if I’m missing something, send a shout out to me at cgrimes@dailypress.com and I’ll make sure we get the news posted.

Do Romney and everyone else agree on testing?

It's no mystery that Mitt Romney likes states' rights. But how far would he go to hand over local control on NCLB's big testing requirements?

The law has always been problematic for conservatives, of course, and as this AP story relates, Romney on Wednesday said education is "an area in which states should have a strong voice." While he supports NCLB's role in fingering failing schools, he told an interviewer that he wants "greater state flexibility in the (student) testing process."

"We've suffered too many years of Washington politicians thinking they know the best for people of other states," he told the AP.

Flexibility in the testing process? Romney didn't elaborate, but it sounds an awful lot like what Margaret Spellings has been toying with for years. And it sounds like something we heard Rep. George Miller say a few weeks ago.

You may recall that Miller, the California Democrat, laid out his vision for the new NCLB at the National Press Club on July 30. Tests, he said, should "include multiple measures of success. These measures can no longer reflect just basic skills and memorization. Rather, they must reflect critical thinking skills and the ability to apply knowledge to new and challenging contexts."

Miller also said: "The legislation I will introduce will contain a growth model that gives credit to states and schools for the progress that their students make over time."

Then there's Joe Biden's website: "Biden has been a champion of educational reforms that include greater flexibility in evaluating performance."

A couple of presidential candidates, of course, have come out saying they'd trash NCLB, but does anybody disagree that these tweaks are necessary and (probably) forthcoming?

Heeere's .... Mitt Romney

Hello, EWA'ers -- it's Greg Toppo from USA Today. I've been asked to follow the Republicans' great-hair candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

So far it has been easy -- Romney doesn't have much to say about education, aside from a few predictable GOP positions. But he has great news potential, so stay tuned.

First a little background:
Willard Mitt Romney was born in Detroit on March 12, 1947, and attended private schools in Michigan. He attended Stanford for a semester, then spent two years as a Mormon missionary in France. He was BYU's valedictorian in 1971, and went on to earn MBA and law degrees from Harvard.

And yes, he's an Eagle Scout.

He's been married to the same woman, Ann Romney, since 1969 -- they have five sons and 10 grandchildren. Mrs. Romney was diagnosed with MS in 1998.

Business background: Management consultant, famously president of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games.

Political background: His father is George Romney, former Michigan governor and HUD secretary under Nixon.

Son Mitt ran unsuccessfully in 1994 for Ted Kennedy's senate seat, then successfully in 2002 for governor against state Treasurer Shannon O'Brien.

His education platform: Romney sorta likes No Child Left Behind (testing good, federal intrusion bad) and abstinence-only sex ed. He likes charters and vouchers and wants to give principals more control over their schools; he also likes pay-for-performance (and for advanced credentials) but isn't convinced that smaller class sizes matter. He worries that Asian kids are kicking our butts and wants immigrant kids to learn English.

In 2004, as governor, he vetoed a bill that would have given illegal immigrants who'd graduated from Mass. high schools in-state college tuition rates even if they promised to seek citizenship.
As has been pointed out previously in Ed Week, last May in one of the debates, Romney said he once wanted to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, but that as governor, he witnessed “the impact the federal government can have holding down the interest of teachers’ unions and instead putting the interest of parents and teachers first.”

Among his most interesting proposals as governor: mandatory parental preparation courses. That could be worth looking into.

He also made headlines in 2005 by proposing to spend $54 million to hand out laptops to half a million Massachusetts kids. (Mass. reporters -- did this die on the vine?)

Perusing www.mittromney.com, it's clear that, at least for now, he's not putting much energy into the issues that make EWA members sit up straight. Education doesn't appear at all on "The Romney Agenda," his four-point plan for America. Poke around his website and you'll find a few generic excerpts from speeches he gave as governor ("If we are going to compete in the global economy, we have to set our education goals higher") but little else.

His Feb. 13 announcement speech in Dearborn, Mich., features only cursory nods to education -- here's the most detailed reference (blink and you'll miss it):
"Look, America faces unprecedented challenges. We are under attack from jihadists, we face new competition from Asia unlike anything we have known before. We are spending too much money here, our schools are failing too many of our kids, forty-five million people don't have health insurance, we are using too much oil. And what does Washington do, it talks and debates and talks and kicks the ball down the field. It is time for less talk and more action in government."
He has said he wants to "raise the bar on education by making teaching a true profession," -- but few details so far -- and he wants to focus on math, science and parental involvement.

He believes, as I mentioned, that we're lagging in math and science -- last February he told the Detroit Economic Club: "Our schools are falling behind those of other nations -- you've seen that. It's true particularly in math and science. Our 15 year olds ranked 24th out of 29 OECD nations in math. 24th out of 29. Our high school seniors rank in the bottom 10% in math and the bottom 25% in science. How can you lead the world if the kids in the next generation are falling behind in the skills they need to innovate and create new enterprises?"

Romney's most interesting statement so far is this:
"We cannot continue to have an excellence gap with the rest of the world and intend to remain the economic superpower and military superpower of the planet. That's just not going to happen. We're in a position where unless we take action, we'll end up being the France of the 21st century: a lot of talk, but not a lot of strength behind it in terms of economic capability."

Never mind that French kids were up there with the Asians in math in the last round of PISA.

To be fair, Romney's website does feature a short (two-minute) video of an "Ask Mitt Anything" town hall meeting, in which a young girl stands before a microphone and asks, "What do plan to do to help schools?"

Good question, he says, then gives this lengthy reply:
"I generally like schools to be managed by local communities and states -- not the federal government. And I don't want the federal government telling people what to teach in schools and how to run schools. So I'm kind of hesitant to get the federal government too involved in education. But there are things that I think make a huge difference: I like choice -- I like parents being able to send their child to different schools, including charter schools, or to have vouchers to let them go to schools. I like English being taught in our schools. In my state as you know, we had a ballot initiative when I ran for governor that said that our kids should not be taught in bilingual classes, they should be taught in English. And I said, 'You know what, for our kids to be successful in America, they need to speak the language of America.' So I wanted that to be part of our system. (applause) Then we fought to make sure that we gave kids an incentive to do well in school -- and I was able to work with my counterparts in the legislature to get in place something known as the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship, and it says that if you graduate in the top quarter of your high school class, you're entitled to a four-year, tuition-free scholarship in higher education to our state university or state colleges. I want to make sure we make sure our kids know that if they're doing well in school we're going to stand with them and help them in education. (applause) So there are things we can do to encourage that. And I do know that I know some people are not that happy with the No Child Left Behind legislation, but I have to be honest with you -- I find the testing of our kids to be a good thing, to find out which schools are succeeding and which ones are failing. And to make sure that we provide the support to those that are failing and school choice to those that are failing, so kids in their schools have the kind of opportunities they need."

That's all for now -- I'll continue to come back to Romney whenever he makes news, so if you see something I don't (or need to correct something I flubbed), please e-mail me: gtoppo@usatoday.com.

Edited to Add: Caroline Grannan (in comments) correctly notes that many researchers -- Bracey included -- are skeptical of the unfavorable comparisons to U.S. kids' performance and that of kids in other nations.In my defense, though, I'd point out that a new NCES report found here -- http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007006_2.pdf -- suggests that the French kids may be taking August off, but they still get the job done ... -gt

Clinton on NCLB in Chicago

Thanks to Richard Whitmire for noting the ed nugget in last night's Democratic debate/forum sponsored by the AFL-CIO.
During the outdoor candidate confab in Chicago, Hillary Clinton fielded a citizen-generated question on No Child Left Behind. She called the law "a terrible imposition on teachers and school districts and families and students," partly because of funding and partly because of interpretation. Clinton said the law was an unfunded mandate and was not interpreted or enforced "the right way" by Bush and the Department of Education. She advocated growth models for students, broader curricula and "a total change in No Child Left Behind." The best sound bite: "We need to make sure when we look at our children, we don't just see a little walking test."
All quotes from the debate transcript, a link to which can be found on the NYT Web site.