Skip to main content
By America Forward on Wednesday, December 12, 2007

If our goal is equal access to the American Dream, there’s no more important issue than education. Many of the presidential candidates agree—Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney both call education, correctly, “one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time.” In a country where a significant number of African-American and Hispanic students lag far behind white students in virtually every measure of achievement—from math and reading test scores and high school completion rates, to college enrollment and college completion—it’s hard to imagine why education wouldn’t be at the top of every candidate’s list of priorities (although it’s not even on the “issues” drop-down menu on John McCain’s campaign website).

The candidates more or less agree that our system could stand some improvements. But that’s where the agreement ends. From tax credits for parents who home school their children proposed by Mitt Romney, to universal pre-kindergarten programs championed by Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and John Edwards, candidates are offering a wide range of solutions to what may be our country’s biggest challenge. Some of the more popular are:

  • Reforming No Child Left Behind (NCLB)—Sure, there are problems. Most Democratic candidates point to funding shortfalls as the main issue. Dennis Kucinich wants to eliminate it all together. But NCLB was an important first step toward holding schools accountable. We want to see it, and its accountability measures, strengthened, not eliminated.
  • Revamping teacher pay—We like what some candidates, like John Edwards, Mike Huckabee, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden are saying about paying teachers more to work in the most challenging schools.
  • Promoting charter schools—Charter laws and funding have paved the way for some of the most significant innovations in the last several decades. More is better, and Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton agree.

Several candidates’ individual proposals are worthy of discussion.

We wonder, why does John Edwards think we need a new Teacher University when we have the nonprofit Teach For America, with a proven track record, ready to expand and serve essentially the same purpose? The proposal is also reminiscent of the U.S. Public Service Academy idea developed by social entrepreneur Chris Myers Asch and championed by Hillary Clinton.

Mike Huckabee, as governor of Arkansas, pushed for a law that allows for the termination of poorly performing teachers. It’s not clear if this is relevant to his presidential campaign because he wants to set “a clear distinction between the federal role and the right of states to carry out the education programs for their students.” It seems likely that the hiring and firing of teachers wouldn’t fall on the federal side of that divide. But it’s hard to see how anyone who cares about the achievement gap wouldn’t want, as Huckabee did, to find ways to make sure incompetent teachers find new careers outside the classroom.

Finally, Barack Obama’s Innovation Districts and “What Works” fund take innovation in education seriously, proposing to double our national investment in education R&D. We hope the other candidates follow suit and show that they understand the central role that innovation plays in achieving better results, not just in business, science, and technology, but in schools and other social-sector fields.

Posted in Education, Innovation