Learning is More Than A Test Score

This was the headline in an article I read earlier today which appeared earlier this summer in the Daily Telegraph. The comment is attributed to Winston Churchill. It is a central tension in the UK right now as well as here. The ending of last night’s final presidential gave us a hint of what we might see in either a McCain or an Obama administration.

Credit goes to moderator, Bob Shieffer, for raising the issue in the precious little time he had left given the amount of time wasted on “dirty campaign laundry”. Nonetheless, the responses to the two-pronged question did provide some useful insights for those of us who care deeply about education.

The moderator cited the fact that we in the US spend more than any other nation on education and in international comparisons the results are far from what we would hope for. How would each of them turn this around, he asked, and what in their view is the appropriate role for the federal government in education.

There were no new revelations really. Senator McCain ticked off the talking points from his stump speech: More competition, charter schools, vouchers, get rid of bad teachers. Remember that McCain since September has called for a freeze on spending so there was never a likelihood of more spending on education in his proposals.

Senator Obama immediately reminded the audience that No Child Left Behind left the funding behind as well. He went on to indicate the strategic importance of education to the recovery of the nation’s status and that it may well be the most important issue that his administration will need to deal with. He supports charter schools and public school choice. He supports some form of pay for performance established at the local district level. He cited the imperative to provide early childhood education for every child as a strategic investment for America’s future.

Considering the depth of the economic crisis we are confronted with and a long established pattern of how poorly local education funding fares in even moderate downturns in the business cycle, which of these candidates gets it? I think the answer is very clear. Barak Obama gets it. The open question is when he wakes up in the middle of that first night in the White House and realizes the seemingly insurmountable magnitude of the challenges that his administration will surely confront will he walk the walk for America’s children? Let’s hope Churchill was wrong.