Where Is Education in the 2008 Election?

What We Should Be Hearing From the Candidates, But Aren't

By David S. Seeley

So far, there has been little serious discussion of public education in the 2008 presidential campaigns. Maybe it’s just as well. Elections are not famous for developing bipartisan spirit, and that is what is needed for the substantial changes still required in American education. Cooperation between the parties is not required for all issues, but Americans of all parties, creeds, and backgrounds need to have confidence in their public schools.

There has, of course, been some discussion of the federal No Child Left Behind Act on the campaign trail. But most of it has consisted of little more than partisan jousting over whether President Bush should be praised or blamed for the program. People seem to forget that the No Child Left Behind legislation was developed and adopted with strong bipartisan support. The current, politically polarized debate obscures both the valuable aspects of that law and its most serious defects.

But NCLB—now marking its sixth anniversary—is not the real issue. The most important challenge facing public education today involves its systemic reform , and this need not be a partisan matter. The basic premise is that our more than century-old public education system is obsolete and in need of fundamental redesign, not just the piling of new programs and demands on top of an inadequate system never designed to produce the levels and breadth...