Federal

Hearts and Minds

By Hollice Fisher — September 29, 2006 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Come election time, politicians love to talk about investing in children and making schools a priority. Rarely, though, do they delve beyond sound-bite promises into the nitty-gritty of education policy. There are exceptions, of course, and below are highlights from this season’s more substantive education debates:

A school-funding plan called the 65 percent solution will play a role in elections in at least half a dozen states, including Florida and Ohio. Promoted by Overstock.com chairman Patrick Byrne, the idea is to require that 65 cents of every dollar spent on education go directly to the classroom. Four states have already adopted a version of the measure. But opponents, including the NEA and the National PTA call it “the 65 percent deception” and claim it will hurt other important services, such as transportation and counseling.

See Also

See the related elections story,

Political Junkies

Last spring, Maryland nearly became the first state to seize control of academically troubled local schools under the No Child Left Behind Act. Now the man behind that attempted takeover—Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich—is defending his job against the man who helped thwart the move: Democratic Baltimore Mayor and gubernatorial nominee Martin O’Malley. Since the Free State’s one-year moratorium on such expropriations won’t expire until spring, the fate of the 11 Baltimore schools at issue may depend on who wins the November election. Or it may not, says Johns Hopkins University political science chairman Matthew Crenson. “If Ehrlich wins, there will be much more pressure for a takeover,” he notes. But while O’Malley, as governor, would be more likely to make a deal with the city’s Democratic leaders, he might also move forward with the very takeover he opposed as mayor. The situation calls to mind an old adage, Crenson adds: “Where you sit is where you stand.”

82%

of registered voters say education is a priority, making it the Number 1 issue nationwide.

SOURCE: The Pew Research Center, June 2006.

Vamos a Cuba, a 32-page children’s book, became a hot button this summer in a school board race in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the country’s fourth-largest district. When board chairman Agustin Barrera, who was born in Havana, voted against banning the book immediately from school libraries without following the standard process for such decisions, an outcry ensued from Cuban exiles who claim the book paints a misleading picture of life in their home country. But Barrera, who later voted to remove the book (and even supported appealing a court ruling that it must stay in schools), ended up retaining his spot on the board in the September election.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the October 01, 2006 edition of Teacher Magazine as Hearts and Minds

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Rethinking STEM Assessment: Strategies for Administrators
School and district leaders will explore strategies to enhance STEM assessment practices across their district, within schools and classrooms.
Content provided by Project Lead The Way
Federal Webinar Keeping Up with the Trump Administration's Latest K-12 Moves: Subscriber-Exclusive Quick Hit
EdWeek subscribers, join this 30-minute webinar to find out what the latest federal policy changes mean for K-12 education.
Artificial Intelligence Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: Math & Technology: Finding the Recipe for Student Success
How should we balance AI & math instruction? Join our discussion on preparing future-ready students.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Trump Admin. Pauses Ed. Dept. Layoffs After Judge's Order
The U.S. Department of Education is slowly complying with a federal court order to reinstate staff.
3 min read
Phil Rosenfelt, center, an attorney with the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Education, is greeted by supporters after retrieving personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025.
Phil Rosenfelt, center, an attorney with the office of general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education, is greeted by supporters after retrieving personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025, the last day of work for hundreds of agency employees. The Trump administration has had to bump back the day it planned to stop paying laid-off staff.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
Federal Tutoring, After-School, and Other Student Services at Risk as Trump Cuts AmeriCorps
Deep cuts to programs across the federal government have left students without programming they'd come to count on.
8 min read
Members of the City Year program work at Isaac Newton Middle School for Math and Science in East Harlem during the MLK Day of Service on Jan. 20, 2025, in New York City.
Members of the City Year program work at Isaac Newton Middle School for Math and Science in East Harlem during the MLK Day of Service on Jan. 20, 2025, in New York City. City Year places AmeriCorps volunteers in underserved schools, but cuts to the federal service agency have led City Year to scale back some of its AmeriCorps volunteer-powered programs.
Courtesy of City Year New York
Federal Republicans Press Top Ed. Dept. Nominees to Commit to Trump's Agenda
Penny Schwinn and Kimberly Richey appeared before lawmakers for leadership in the department.
6 min read
Deputy Secretary of Education nominee Penny Schwinn, left, and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights nominee Kimberly Richey prior to testifying before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee about their nominations for the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., on June 5, 2025.
Penny Schwinn, left, and Kimberly Richey speak prior to testifying before the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee in Washington on June 5, 2025. Schwinn is President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as deputy secretary in the U.S. Department of Education. Richey is Trump's nominee to lead the department's office for civil rights.
Jason Andrew for Education Week
Federal Opinion 'Narrower, Meaner, and More Loyal:' Trump’s Ed. Agenda Hurts Students Like Me
How President Trump is weaponizing education policy—and why it matters.
J.T. Vazquez
4 min read
A hand on the scale weighed against a pile of books.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty + Education Week