An Open Letter to Greg Toppo (USA TODAY)
October 16, 2008

Dear Greg,

A huge round of applause to you for covering the education views of the prospective next POTUS.  Your coverage of education is almost always on point with a keen distinction between rhetoric and reality.  This is why CER once gave you an award for excellence in journalism and has been an avid fan. 

But on your candidate coverage this week, it seems you confuse what the candidates believe with what others expect each candidate to believe and hence, there are a couple of phrases which seem loaded in one direction and not another.  In the interest of fairness, I’d like to point these assumptions out.

First, you say that the candidates have different visions, which is largely true.  “Obama focuses on improving teacher quality. McCain cites competition from taxpayer-supported private schools along with … charter schools.” You make it sound as if McCain puts support for school choice over teacher quality issues.

In reality, they both have talked about teacher quality and about charters, but from vastly different perspectives.

As our new federal Candidate Scorecard will point out, there’s a limited role the president can play in directing education policy.  When it comes to teachers, there can be incentives at the federal level for states and districts to take initiative, and there can be positive rhetoric to encourage them to do so, but they can offer little more than that. 

But both candidates have offered their vision of how they believe things should be and you missed some critical elements.  Obama actually applauded bonus-type incentives for teachers that are carefully designed and adopted within a school district contract.  McCain goes a little farther in supporting performance pay without mentioning deference to contracts, and as your article points out, he believes bad teachers should find other work.  Both candidates propose spending for various kinds of incentive programs.  But the bottom line is, Greg, I don’t think you can say one is necessarily more focused on teacher quality than another. They both are – but in wholly different ways.

The same is true for support of charter schools.  Obama appears to believe that more federal support for the long-standing program which subsidizes charter start-ups makes him a strong supporter.  In a speech earlier this fall in Ohio, he went one step further and qualified his support, saying he’d help open “responsible” charters, as if he believed Ohio Governor Ted Strickland’s ongoing assault against charters was somehow derived from an interest in quality, rather than a commitment to the unions who want to close down every charter in Ohio.  Obama also suggested in that speech that there is only one kind of responsible charter, and that is one run only by a non-profit.  Meanwhile, many high quality charters come from business partnerships.

McCain is very supportive of charter schools, coming from a state that not only took the early arrows for being among the first to have a very expansive law, but also having championed those schools around the state and nationally. Unlike Obama, McCain mentioned charters in his acceptance speech.  But you chose not to talk about that in your charter section.  Instead, you suggest that while McCain hasn’t “proposed a national voucher” he would expand the D.C. scholarship program as well as help grow virtual schools.  National voucher?  I don’t know of anyone in my 20 years in the business who has ever proposed such an animal.

School choice is definitely a dividing line for the candidates, but not because of true, F. Scott Fitzgerald in-the-darkness-of-your-soul opposition, but because of in-your-face union and other interest group opposition.  I’m sure, as my Democrats for Ed Reform (DFER) friends have told me, that Obama probably understands well the need for poor brown and black children to have choices that well-to-do families have. He’s in a tough spot, though, they tell me.  His base won’t accept that.

And so governing - it appears - really has less to do with what you believe and more to do with what others expect you to believe. 

There’s the rub, Greg, not just with these two guys but with scores of candidates like them nationwide.  When it comes to education, an NEA endorsement more or less seals your fate for four years, like it or not.  I’ve been there, seen it, and watched up close and personal as members of Congress and members of Administrations – of both parties – say one thing and do another because they owed it to someone.

When it comes to education, who’s willing to put obligation to children – not adults - first?  That’s the real question and campaign speeches and rhetoric aside, it doesn’t matter what party one leans toward to see where objective education reform might actually more freely see the light of day.  I hope that doesn’t make me partisan in your book.  I’ve financially supported candidates from both parties who have stuck their neck out for substantive education reform. That includes leading Democrats like Senator Mary Landrieu, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, Sacramento Mayorial candidate Kevin Johnson. These individuals – and many others like them – are unequivocal in their support for real opportunities for children.

I hope you’ll take a moment to add our additional insights to your coverage of the candidates before election day.  We’ve analyzed all the races for governor, state superintendent (there are five) and U.S. Senate and we’ve made some conclusions based on the issues, not on the parties. We’re hot on education as a solution to future economic woes.  Please take a minute to review our analysis and see why. 

All the best,

Jeanne

P.S. Since writing this piece yesterday, most of us saw the back and forth on education in last night’s debate.  Their prioritization of the issues and their rhetoric underscore the integrity of my comments.  I’ll be talking about that a little later at our new 2008 Education Reform Voter’s Blog.