Complete Coverage

The Next Education President?

The candidates for the 2008 presidential nominations have not been as detailed about education policy as in some recent elections. But that doesn’t mean the stakes of the Democratic and Republican races aren’t high for K-12 schools.

One year before the 2000 presidential election, the Republican front-runner had explained his education platform in three detailed policy speeches, describing how he would require states to assess student progress annually and hold schools responsible for making improvement.

Eight years before that, a top-tier Democratic candidate, stumping in early primary states, promised to be “a real education president” by building a system of standards and tests to measure schools’ effectiveness.

Both of those candidates—Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton—went on to win the White House and enact significant expansions in federal oversight of K-12 schools. In the combined 15 years of the Clinton and Bush presidencies so far, the federal government has required states to set academic goals for their students and has made schools and districts accountable...