Funds to Push Education as Election Issue

Foundations unveil major campaign to raise topic’s profile in presidential race.

As education competes with a host of other issues for attention during the 2008 presidential-election season, two prominent foundations unveiled a plan last week to spend up to $60 million on an ambitious campaign to ensure strong billing for education, and to help shape debate on the subject.

The nonpartisan effort, backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, appears to be one of the most costly single-issue campaigns undertaken during a presidential race. The 18-month campaign was announced in Columbia, S.C., a day before Democratic presidential candidates met there for an April 26 debate.

The philanthropies have tapped political heavyweights from both major parties to help get the message across. Former Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, a Democrat, is the campaign’s chairman, and its executive director is Marc S. Lampkin, a Republican lobbyist who was deputy campaign director for George W. Bush...