How the Dems Lost on Education

I wrote an article for the new issue of The American Prospect titled "How the Dems Lost on Education." It's the story of how "Democrats have been stumbling on education policy for years, fracturing the progressive coalition, tainting the party brand, creating undeserved political opportunities for Republicans, and, worst of all, standing in the way of school reforms that primarily benefit low-income and minority children." You can read the whole thing here.

Because of the lead time involved in writing for a print magazine, I wrapped up the article in late July, about a week before Senator McCain decided to take to the pages of the New York Daily News and endorse the Klein / Sharpton Educational Equity Project. In one sense this was a bummer because it fit my thesis exactly and would have brought the story all the way up to the present moment, but now at least I can claim credit for prescience. 

I think it's fair to say that education policy has never been a priority for John McCain. He's taken highly public positions (and, lately, counter-positions, but that's another story) on a number of important issues: foreign policy, campaign finance reform, immigration, etc. But never education. Why, then, the sudden interest in what amounts to an intra-progressive dispute over the relative efficacy of education and social services for the poor?

Simple: it's good politics. McCain concludes his op-ed as follows:

I am proud to add my name to the growing list of those who support the Education Equality Project. But one name is still missing: Barack Obama. My opponent talks a great deal about hope and change, and education is an important test of his seriousness. The Education Equality Project is a practical plan for delivering change and restoring hope for children and parents who need a lot of both. And if Sen. Obama continues to defer to the teachers unions, instead of committing to real reform, then he should start looking for new slogans.

The aim here is not to win over people who care deeply about education to McCain's side. It's to muddy the larger waters by suggesting that, if elected, Obama will abandon the promise of his lofty rhetoric and sell out to the parochial concerns of traditional Democratic interest groups. Republicans have been using education this way for years, and not without some justification. Even without directly attacking their opponents, Republicans have also periodically seized the open ground of education reform to translate the public's justifiable dissatisfaction with public education into political gain. As the article notes, President Reagan and then-Governor Bush did this to great effect. The end goal isn't to make education a Republican issue per se but to neutralize it as a potent Democratic issue--which, given the party's ideological sympathy for egalitarian, public institutions like the schools and the nation's strong collective belief in education, it should be. 

If you want to hear more about this and comment / heckle in person, the Prospect and the New America Foundation are sponsoring an event on the topic this Friday at 11AM at 210 Cannon House Office Building, featuring Representative Artur Davis (D-Ala.) and yrs truly along with others with various interesting and alternative points of view.  You can sign up here.