July 11, 2007
Have The Democrats Lost The MSM On Ed Issues?
The post- Pander-Palooza pile-on on the presidential candidates continues. Today it comes from San Diego Union Tribune columnist Ruben Navarette and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus. (Following, of course the initial blows from Richard Cohen and Marc Lampkin.)
Both columns are hard-hitting and thoughtful, but the larger significance seems to revolve around the fact that they were even written in the first place. A decade ago, when I used to cover the National Education Association's Representative Assembly, the stories reporters (there were only a few of us who joined Mike Antonucci in the press pit back then) filed with their newspapers tended to be buried back in the paper and read only by teachers union members and/or teachers union critics.
But now the opinion-shaping/opinion-reflecting columnists are starting to decend upon the embarrassed presidential candidates like vultures.
The world has changed. The public appears to be more fed up (with the state of education and the state of politics) and Internet features like You Tube allow the masses to see what presidential candidates look like when they go into a choir and preach/pander. It really is amazing how much has shifted.
Eduwonk notes this morning that these kinds of columns signal that the political landscape is shifting and the bar for Democrats on education policy proposals is getting higher. I think that is right. Finally. (Andy also makes the point that we're all now inadvertantly letting Republicans off-the-hook, but as the Dems move, the GOP will be forced to react too.)
Ruth Marcus does a pretty good job showing what the candidates have to deal with in terms of the thoughts/ideas of the teacher union delegates they have to face. But because the audience is much broader now than just button-wearing, worked-up teacher activists in the crowd, Marcus makes the case that the Democratic Party is more than just the unions.
The Democratic-oriented Hamilton Project has proposed assessing teachers after their first two years in the classroom and weeding out those at the bottom.
Strong American Schools, a nonpartisan group that has launched a $60 million effort to bring education issues to the forefront in the 2008 campaign, is pushing more rigorous education standards, more time in school for students and higher pay for better-performing teachers.
The Education Trust and the Aspen Institute have thoughtful proposals to improve No Child Left Behind, not gut it.
But so far, anyway, the Democrats who would be president are happy to propose more spending on education but are reluctant to impose any demands in return -- in other words, they are happy to sound like the same old Democratic Party, permissive and beholden.
Yes, teachers are an important Democratic constituency, but aren't parents Democratic voters, too -- parents who might welcome a message about accountability and expectations? If, that is, one of the candidates were willing to deliver it.
This is an interesting point, one that has everything to do with the reasons why Democrats for Education Reform exists. We believe strongly that there are plenty of candidates for office within our party who are dying to be bold, but they need the political cover to do so. You can help us with this!
