It happened in a buffet line.
Arthur Levine, the president of Teachers College, Columbia University, had just finished giving a speech and was surveying his lunchtime options when the chairman of a legislative education committee introduced himself.
As Levine remembers it, the state lawmaker conceded that he didn’t know much about education. But he was sure that, with some expert advice, he could “ride the issue all the way to the governor’s mansion,” Levine says.
“Here I am about to eat lunch, and suddenly I figure I have about six minutes to educate this guy,” Levine says. “It was the scariest thing.”
Scary, but perhaps not surprising. In 1998, education has become a dominant theme on the state and federal campaign trail. The economy remains strong in most parts of the country, the Cold War is long over, and what political analysts call second-tier issues are in. And none, it appears, is hotter than education.
Democrats and Republicans alike are pitching school platforms with near-religious zeal and wooing the electorate through visions of a Promised Land with small classes, rigorous courses, qualified teachers, and new school facilities. Still, whether all the talk is good news or a mixed blessing remains to be seen.
“When education was outside the realm of politics, a lot of us said that in order to support and maintain public education, it must be a political priority,” says Arne F. Fege, a former government-relations director of the National PTA and the current president of a children’s advocacy organization. “Now that it is, are we liking what we see? Does this attention strengthen public education? I think the jury is still out.”
Margin of error: ± 3 percentage points
SOURCE: Kaiser/Harvard Survey of Americans’ Views on the Consumer Protection Debate
“Let’s be real. If the economy were on the skids, that would be at the top of the charts. But the economy is way, way down as an issue,” says Peter H. Fenn, the president of Fenn & King Communications, a Democratic media-consulting firm in Washington. “Education is the issue that fills the void.”
The way candidates fill that void is another matter. Many, it seems, are simply looking to convince voters that education matters to them.
For example, in one television advertisement, a deep-voiced narrator seeks to leave no doubt about the priorities held by U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga. The narrator intones: “Sen. Coverdell has done more to improve America’s schools than many senators do in a lifetime.”
And then there is Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat running for the U.S. Senate. In one of her television spots, she is shown listening to teachers in a classroom as they complain about working conditions. Lincoln concludes by declaring: “Our children are our greatest resource. ... It’s time we get serious about improving education.”
Ultimately, it’s always safe for candidates to be surrounded by children. Fenn says that just about all of the 15 candidates he is working with are airing television commercials dealing with education. “I have so many shots of candidates and kids, it will make your hair stand on end,” he says bluntly.
But creating just the right image is essential, says Paul Pelletier, a Republican campaign strategist and the president of Direct Campaign Solutions, a Florida-based political-consulting group. That is why, especially this year, ads may be short on detail, but full of warm and fuzzy visuals of politicians cozying up to kids and hunkering down in classrooms. “A large segment of people vote on image,” Pelletier says. “There’s a saying in politics that perception is reality. It might not be true, but if it is perceived, then it is in fact true.”
When platforms get specific, it tends to be on proposals and themes that have been blessed by candidates and potential voters alike. Some observers refer to these as “middle” issues on which both Republicans and Democrats can run safely.
That’s why this year scores of candidates at all levels are promising to lower class sizes--even though research is mixed on the results of such policies--to as few as 17 students per room. In Georgia, gubernatorial candidates Roy Barnes, a Democrat, and Guy Millner, a Republican, are both promising to shrink class sizes if elected.
Political hopefuls on both sides of the aisle are also promising to end social promotion, the practice of sending students to the next grade level before they are academically ready. And teachers likewise are getting a lot of attention.
California’s gubernatorial contenders--Democrat Gray Davis and Republican Daniel E. Lungren--both want competency testing for teachers. And, across the country, other candidates are promoting merit pay and other incentives as ways to recruit better-prepared teachers. “In a lot of races, it looks like candidates are cloning each other,” Fege, the former PTA lobbyist, quips.
Admittedly, says one political consultant, it is harder this year to earn the label of ''education candidate.’'
“It’s a little more difficult to distinguish yourself on the issue of education because you don’t have voters who are as polarized,” says Tom Russell, a Democratic media consultant for Murphy Putnam Media in Alexandria, Va. “Education is not an issue like gun control or abortion.”
One surefire defining issue, however, is school vouchers.
In Florida, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush gets glowing reviews from Pat Tornillo, the president of the Florida Education Association United, the state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. But the group is endorsing Democratic candidate Buddy MacKay, largely because of Bush’s proposal to create a limited voucher program for students in low-performing schools.
“A voucher is a voucher is a voucher,” Tornillo says. “Once you open the door a little, you provide an opening in the future for expansion.”
Other candidates deserve points for originality for some of their campaign promises. For example: Davis is promising Californians that, if elected governor, he will make parents sign contracts with schools committing them to help with homework, while in Massachusetts, Democrat Scott Harshbarger says he plans to serve simultaneously as the chairman of the state school board if voters make him governor.
Others are backing get-tough themes, for teachers and students, with specific ideas. In Georgia, millionaire businessman Millner wants teacher candidates to have a 3.0 grade point average in the subjects they plan to teach in order to be certified. Barnes, his opponent, wants to establish a 10 p.m. curfew for students on Sundays through Thursdays. And Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Frank Keating wants all high school students to complete four years of English, math, science, and social studies.
Mary Elizabeth Teasley, the director of government affairs for the 2.4 million-member National Education Association, says the campaigns are leaving voters with mixed impressions.
“It plays out differently, depending on how deep candidates go,” she says. “Based on our polling, the public is not seeing a difference. They see both candidates as pro-education. There’s not a one who is not talking about education.”
Not everyone is sure what to make of the rush to court the education vote. In fact, many observers are downright leery.
Levine of Teachers College says few of the politicians he has talked to are candid enough to say they don’t know enough about school issues.
“Assuming there are lots of people like me being called for [advice on] this stuff, in the short run, we could get a more educated government and get greater state action in education,” he says. “The bad part is that they feel they must do something--anything--and that might not be good.”
Fege, who is now the president of Public Advocacy for Kids, a consulting firm in Washington, is worried by what he sees as a debate being fought in 30-second sound bites.
“I don’t see the kind of constructive discussion where officials talk through issues with their electorate,” he says. “If we’re going to get 21st-century schools, we can’t get there with 20th-century politicians.”
Meanwhile, some candidates have actually alienated traditional allies with their proposals, while others are making new friends.
Some Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate--including Coverdell, the Georgia incumbent, and U.S. Rep. John Ensign, the challenger in Nevada--have drawn barbs from conservatives for platforms that support federal initiatives on matters such as teacher competency testing and merit pay.
“They’re talking about a new federal role at a time when lots of Republicans have talked about scaling back government,” says Nina Shokraii Rees, the education policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington.
On the other hand, the NEA, long a powerful friend of Democrats, has endorsed 18 Republican congressional candidates this year, up from just one in the last election cycle. In addition, the union’s state affiliates are backing the Republican gubernatorial contenders in Arizona, Illinois, and Kansas.
Come Election Day, of course, what counts is how people act once they step inside a voting booth. Will they, as they have told pollsters, choose candidates based on their education promises?
This year, predicting voter behavior may be tougher than ever. With impeachment talk swirling around President Clinton, analysts can’t decide whether voters will punish Democrats for the president’s behavior, lash out at Republicans for backing a House Judiciary Committee inquiry, or simply stay away from the polls altogether. Many candidates are just trying to get beyond the allegations of lying under oath and obstruction of justice stemming from the chief executive’s relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.
John Geer, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, asserts: “The Lewinsky stuff is everywhere, and candidates are dying out there because they can’t get any attention.”
In theory, if voters are as interested in education as they say they are, 1998 could be a banner year for Democrats. After all, voters traditionally accord more confidence to Democrats on school issues. Two years ago, 44 percent of 1,329 people surveyed in a Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll said Democrats were the party of education, compared with 27 percent who picked Republicans.
A follow-up poll this year by Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup suggested that voters may now be just slightly more willing to give Republicans a chance on school issues. Of the 1,151 people polled this year, 39 percent identified the Democratic Party as the party of education, and 28 percent gave the nod to the GOP. The proportion of respondents saying there was ''no difference’’ between the parties was 15 percent in 1996 and 18 percent this year. (The margin of error this year was 4 to 5 percentage points.)
Polls also show, however, that while Americans like their own children’s schools, they are less happy with the public schools in general. Because the public has generally linked Democrats to education issues, some analysts say Republicans can link Democrats with the status quo.
“If the [GOP] message can exploit the fact that the public believes schools are not working, it’s better for them as candidates,” says GOP strategist Pelletier of Direct Campaign Solutions. “I’d keep banging on that issue.”
Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Iowa and an expert on voting behavior, says that all the talk in the world about schools will do little to shape voter behavior.
“Education may be getting talked about more than ever before,” he says, “but in the end, Democrats will put trust in Democrats and Republicans will put trust in Republicans.”
Pelletier says that voters who truly consider education their No. 1 priority will cast a vote for the candidate who is most convincing on the subject. These voters, he adds, will research the issue and will not settle for, as he calls them, “one-note songs,” or simplistic promises.
“Insofar as most people are one-issue voters who have something that is really important to them, that’s how they’ll vote,” Pelletier says. With obvious displeasure, though, he points out that up to 5 percent of voters will pick the person whose name they recognize from an advertisement or a billboard they saw on their way to the polls.
Democratic consultant Russell says it is harder to get a voter to pick a candidate based on education than it is with an issue like abortion. But, he adds, the rewards can be greater.
“You can take a polarized issue [such as abortion] to 50 voters, and they are yours,” he says. “But you can take education positions to the entire universe of voters, and push the swing contingent.”
Sometimes, the best way to anticipate the future is to look to the past. A few years ago, candidates weren’t talking about schools--they were talking about crime. “Three strikes and you’re out” was the campaign-trail battle cry in 1994. Even before then, politicians from George Bush on down were making crime and punishment central campaign themes (although Bush also promised in his winning 1988 campaign to be the “education president”).
It’s no coincidence that, in recent years, government spending on prisons has climbed and more laws have been passed to toughen criminal sentences. Between 1987 and 1997, spending on corrections rose from 5 percent of state budgets to 7.1 percent. At the same time, aid to K-12 schools rose from 34.2 percent to 34.9 percent as a share of state budgets, and higher education’s share fell from 15.8 percent to 12.9.
But such changes may have done less to curb crime than the aging of male baby boomers in the high-crime group of 17- to 25-year-olds, argues Beth Carter, the national coordinator for the Washington-based Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy. The best law-enforcement policies, such as community-based policing, she adds, have filtered up from local communities.
Advocates of tougher sentencing laws say that such policies have helped lower crime rates nationwide. Carter, however, contends that “in the case of crime issues, the rhetoric that’s surrounded the issue hasn’t led to more effective policy.”
Other fulfilled political promises have their shortcomings as well.
Gerald Arenberg, the spokesman for the National Association of Chiefs of Police in Miami, says that police departments are struggling with a much-ballyhooed Clinton administration initiative to help communities hire 100,000 new police officers.
The $25,000 in annual federal funding for each officer falls short of the estimated $60,000 it takes annually to keep an officer on staff, Arenberg says. But if local police agencies lay off the new officers when funding expires, they must repay the federal government for all of the funding they have received under the program since it began three years ago.
“Police departments all over are wondering what to do when the money runs out,” he adds.
Carter, for one, is elated to see the political focus shift away from crime to education. The political spotlight is just one piece of the puzzle, she says.
“The critical issue is not just the attention, but what it leads to. Focus on issues such as best practices will pay off,” she says.
Travis Reindl, a policy analyst for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities in Washington is cautiously optimistic about what all the campaign attention will mean for higher education and K-12 schools. “But the deciding factor, especially in higher education, will be to what degree the economy holds up,” he says.
Levine of Teachers College has some closing thoughts of his own. Ultimately, he warns, “extreme views and extreme positions could hurt candidates. What voters are looking for most is an education platform and a candidate who’s ready to help our kids. That’s what voters want to see.”
