Education in the Campaign

Alexander Russo has an uncharacteristically long post about why he doesn't think much of Eli Broad's and Bill Gates' efforts to make education a core issue in the 2008 campaign. I don't think his general point is totally crazy, but a lot of his analysis is off-base. For example, Alexander says:

But education has a long track record for being discussed only intermittently, and for being influential only in the rarest of circumstances. Nearly every candidate has an education plan but few races are influenced by education issues (unless you count social issues like prayer in the classroom, creationism, support for private and parochial schools, etc.)

True, presidential campaigns, even the unprecedented 2000 campaign in which education was a central issue, aren't won or lost on education as an issue per se. Having a better teacher performance pay plan probably isn't going to give one campaign a huge leg up on another, for example. But, as Andy and I have written previously, the way candidates choose to talk about education, and the proposals they make, have a symbolic value in shaping voters' perceptions of them as candidates and people that can impact the core dynamics of the race. Bush didn't win in 2000 because people thought the specific proposals in his education plan were awesome. But Bush's education plan in 2000, and the rhetoric it allowed him to employ about closing achievement gaps and helping disadvantaged kids, was critical to supporting his claims of being a "compassionate conservative" and convincing middle-class white women it was ok to vote for the guy because he wasn't a mean, Gingrich-style conservative. (Funny how that all ended up, eh? Not to mention that Gingrich himself is now seen in some corners as a viable '08 candidate, but I digress.) Similarly, Democrats who are willing to take on some of their own interest groups and make hard decisions on education can show they've got cojones in a way that doesn't involve treatening to attack other countries. Wonks have a tendency to think of education policy disputes as being about technical issues and competing interests, but we have to remember that at heart debates about education are debates about our deepest-held values and how we transmit them to the next generation. They're about the thing many voters love most--their children--so they have tremendous emotional power if they're deployed effectively.

There's a pretty wierd paradox operating here, though: Just as candidates can use the education issue to help define perceptions of themselves and their values, they can also use their prominence to fundamentally reshape the parameters of public debate around education, challenging old assumptions and putting new ideas on the table (this goes for other issues, too). But the federal government, including the president, actually has precious little real say in most of the really gritty education policy decisions that directly impact kids' lives. Federal policy does make a difference, and the presidential campaigns have an impact beyond simply the policies they might enact in office, because they shape public opinion and perceptions on the issue, but it's an oddly indirect kind of impact.

btw, check out Education Sector's "8 for 2008" for 8 (who'da thunk it?) education policy ideas we think would be smart for candidates to adopt in the 2008 campaign, both for what they'd say about the candidates and because they're substantively good ideas for kids and the country.