Complete Coverage

K-12 Issues Will Await President

Victor Faces NCLB Rewrite, But Economy Claims Priority

At the end of a presidential campaign in which education received some attention but never emerged as a top-tier issue, analysts were trying to look beyond this week’s election to the K-12 issues awaiting the next president and gauge where they might fit as a new administration prepares to grapple with a global economic crisis.

“There can be a case to be made that education becomes the vehicle that helps fuel the economy,” said MaryEllen McGuire, the director of the education policy program of the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. “Education is the building block, and we can’t lose sight of that now.”

And while education never registered high in surveys assessing the issues that would sway voters in the 2008 election, the American public wants the country’s schools to improve and would rally around a president who set out to help them do...