Tuesday’s results are not the only wake-up call. Here’s another one: Democrats are working hard to own this issue. Do they deserve the credit? Will they advance the movement? No, but President Obama and his party have vowed to make their party the party of education reform. A recent missive from the Democrats for Education Reform declared Obama “EdReformer in Chief.” He has done little to merit such a title.

We’ve praised Obama’s candor and vocalization of the problems facing American education. We’ve commended the power his Education secretary has wielded to talk about issues that most reformers embrace. But his Administration is conspicuously quiet on the issue of real school choice. And while they talk about ensuring real performance pay for teachers, underneath the talk, the teachers unions are still in charge.

Think about the Democratic Party and this bedrock constituency. Unions once helped those most in need, but today they are keeping those poorest children, those who cannot afford to change zip codes or pay tuition to escape, in failing schools.

President Obama and his majority at the national level continue to oppose attempts to give those students choices. Absent leadership, the nation sits quietly as we shutter hundreds of exceptional Catholic schools that have educated Black and Latino communities, and that educated the Greatest Generation prior to them.

And what were we treated to this election cycle? While Romney’s platform supported parents and students over union prerogatives, neither candidate ran on the issue of ensuring children are educated by whatever means necessary. It almost seems it’s not politically correct to acknowledge that Republicans do something about education reform, while Democrats are forced to negotiate with their supporters, always to reduced effect.

So now what? READ MORE

The White House — The top ticket is worth watching for education reformers, as candidates have different views on whether federal dollars should follow success or be awarded based on promises to pursue various initiatives.

Senate — These elections could bring about FOUR extremely pro-education reform candidates to the U.S Senate.

Governors — There are several gubernatorial candidates in the race this year who if elected would further enhance the pro-reform landscape. Perhaps most importantly, all these gubernatorial candidates are likely to stand up to teachers unions. READ MORE

Of the many surprises this election season, one surely was the number of times the issue of “education” came up in President Obama and Governor Romney’s third debate – a debate ostensibly about foreign policy.

It shouldn’t be such a shocker, though. Education issues are vital to our nation’s future and competitiveness. And when it comes to education, lot could hinge on Tuesday’s election outcome. It’s not just in the race for the White House, though there are differences between the candidates on K-12 education issues. The outcome of a number of Senate and gubernatorial races could also mean a sea change in education policy in the coming years.

So, education policy-watchers, if you’re wondering what Tuesday’s results might mean for education reform, here are some races to look out for:

The White House: The Obama Administration and its Education Secretary Arne Duncan deserve significant credit for reminding the nation of our serious problems with K-12 education, and for working energetically to spread the word and seek change. They have not stuck their heads in the sand, by any stretch of the imagination. But states and districts have learned they can earn federal dollars just by promising to pursue various initiatives. Results? Not so important. We believe we would see more results in a Romney Administration. Governor Romney has promised, in essence, to let a thousand flowers bloom. Rather than Washington dictating how money is spent, federal dollars will follow success. For ed reformers, therefore, the top of the ticket is worth watching.

Senate: We could see four extremely pro-education reform candidates elected to the U.S Senate. They are:

• Former Governor Tommy Thompson (R-Wisc.) the very first Governor to sign a voucher program into existence;
• U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the author of Arizona’s pioneering charter school law;
• Former Governor George Allen (R-Va.), who as Governor was a first-in-the-nation champion of standards; and
• Former TX Solicitor General Ted Cruz, part of the Texas “School Choice Mafia” (and we mean that in the nicest possible sense of the word.).

These four Senators could tip the balance of power in the Senate toward ensuring federal education dollars follow kids, and a federal government that tips back toward its proper role: support for effective state and local efforts, not regulation from on high.

Governors: We’ve seen the sort of rebalancing we mention above in recent gubernatorial elections, which have ushered in pro-education reform governors and leadership. It’s a new era of reform not unlike what we saw in the mid-1990s. There are several gubernatorial candidates in the race this year who if elected would further enhance the pro-reform landscape. Perhaps most importantly, all these gubernatorial candidates are likely to stand up to teachers unions. So which states are we watching?

Indiana may remain the “reformiest” state in the country if Congressman Mike Pence is elected Governor. Pence is an avid education reformer, and will build on the groundwork laid by Governor Daniels. Ovide Lamontagne (R-N.H.) was an ed reformer before ed reform was cool. As a New Hampshire State Board of Education member, he was an inaugural member of our organization’s Education Leader’s Council which brought together reform-minded school chiefs and state board members. If he is elected Governor, it will bring an end to moratoriums on charters in New Hampshire, as well as an end to teacher tenure. New Hampshire will finally see some real progress after years of poor results and educational and economic unrest. Another state where reform has been under siege is North Carolina. Union backed Governor Bev Perdue has been an iron fist for the unions, but a Governor Pat McGrory would bring real reform.

The Year of the Think Tank?: This could be the year that fresh ideas come roaring back in fashion! Several prominent candidates have ties to pro-education reform state think tanks. Ted Cruz was connected with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Jeff Flake with the Goldwater Institute and Mike Pence with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, of which he was Director.

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, there has been an irreversible change in American opinion about education issues. Parents have awakened to the fact that, despite an explosion in spending, too many children are stuck in failing schools. They have grown weary of the same, tired excuses. The question is not whether the status quo will finally collapse, but when. That said we’re still hoping Tuesday’s results will hasten its demise.

Some were confused that the presidential candidates in last night’s debate, ostensibly about foreign policy, pivoted so often to the education and the economy. I was surprised, too, but I didn’t share the view that these subjects were “off topic.” Both candidates recognize that for the U.S. to remain competitive abroad and safe at home, we must have a solid domestic foundation, including a robust education system that produces citizens who can compete in the global economy, and who are qualified to protect us.

Prior to the debate, I suggested there were two critical education reform questions that needed to be addressed – national security and competitiveness. I was pleasantly surprised that not only did the candidates address both, but that they went further, discussing the skills gap, teachers, and how education is a driver of economic success.

Some highlights:

• Governor Romney discussed the need to put parents, teachers, and kids first, and asserted that the teachers unions to get behind this principle.

• President Obama talked about the need for more math and science teachers, since American students lag many other developed nations in those subjects. He made the point that our success in these areas will determine whether we have the highly skilled workforce necessary for new business creation, and to make the U.S. attractive to investment.

• Romney talked about the lack of jobs for kids coming out of college and that we can’t fix the economy without fixing that.

• Obama said that if we don’t have the best education system in the world, we will lose our competitive edge over other countries. He argued that Romney’s budget would cut education and undermine that goal.

• Romney expresses pride in Massachusetts’ achievement record, asserting that the federal government didn’t help them get there.

Both candidates took the opportunity to press their now well-established positions – President Obama for teachers, class size and more money; and Governor Romney for standards, performance, and local control.

Whatever side of the issues you fall on, it’s a “win” when education reform enjoys such prominence in a presidential debate. Here’s hoping it stays in the forefront in the next four years.

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For more on where Romney and Obama camps stand on critical education issues, head over to our Education and the Presidential Candidates page.

The following are edited excerpts from telephone interviews and email exchanges with leading education analysts, writers and researchers regarding the policies and positions of the presidential candidates.

Michelle Rhee

Chief executive, StudentsFirst; former chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools

Both support expanding educational options for families. President Obama did this, for example, by encouraging states to get rid of unnecessary caps on public charter schools through Race to the Top [grants]. At the same time, Gov. Romney supports dramatically expanding choices parents can make about where to send their kids to school. But he doesn’t tie that increased flexibility to strong rules ensuring any school — private or public — that takes the public funds will be held accountable for student learning.

Jonathan Kozol

Author whose books about education include “Death at an Early Age” (1967) and “Savage Inequalities” (1991). His new book is “Fire in the Ashes.”

As we saw in Wisconsin, there is a constituency out there that would like to do away with public-sector unions. The teachers are the loudest of those unions. Romney could not do away with teachers unions, but I think he will do his very best to move us in that direction.

President Obama simply wants to challenge the teachers unions to be more flexible in their demands but obviously recognizes they have a useful role in our society.

I regret the President’s apparent willingness to continue relying on standardized exams in evaluating teachers because I think it’s a simplistic way of judging what happens in the classroom and excludes so many aspects of a good education that are not reduceable to numbers.

The President recognizes that a demoralized teaching force is not going to bring passionate determination to the education of children — no matter how you measure them, castigate them or properly criticize them.

Jeanne Allen

President, Center for Education Reform, based in Washington, D.C.

A Romney administration would likely leave the regulating to the states, where it belongs. This becomes the huge distinction between the candidates—on charters, on teacher issues, on testing. Obama believes government should lead, and if the states aren’t doing something he’ll step in.

Romney’s impact would be felt much bigger and broader than the current administration’s impact. Today you can get more money by promising to behave. Romney’s approach would likely be very different: his incentives for choice…; his fight with labor; his attempt to reopen the higher education lending market.

Obama should be calling the unions to the carpet, and instead [Education Secretary Arne] Duncan is sending platitudes about getting along and collaborating. That’s because they promised the unions they would work with them and need the unions. Romney has no such allegiance.

Gary Orfield

Professor, UCLA Graduate School of Education; co-director, the Civil Rights Project at UCLA

The Obama administration should have fought harder to continue the economic stimulus in education for at least another year or two. Without it things in schools and colleges would have been far worse.

My reading is that Romney is profoundly skeptical about the value of federal funds and thinks they do no good.

A Romney administration would obviously bring deep cutbacks in virtually all areas of domestic spending.

The Chicago teachers strike is a reflection of the fact that teachers have been pushed too far for too long and are particularly incensed on the overly assertive (and intellectually indefensible) use of test scores to evaluate individual teachers. Romney’s very hostile reaction toward the teachers and the Obama Administration’s straddle show the difference.

Diane Ravitch

Education historian and blogger whose books include “Death and Life of the Great American School System” (2010).

Both support charters, which is privatization, and which do not get better test scores than public schools.

Both support test-based evaluation of teachers, which has never been shown to accomplish anything other than to demoralize teachers.

Both support carrots (merit pay) and sticks (closing schools like shoe stores that don’t make a profit). Merit pay has been tried again and again for nearly a century. It never works.

Both emphasize test scores as the measure of good education, which they are not.

Neither talks about the impact that poverty has on children’s readiness to learn.

Three big differences:

1. Romney supports vouchers; Obama does not.

2. Romney embraces privatization; Obama has offered only half-hearted support via privately managed charters.

3. Romney wants to give the student loans back to the banks and provide no help for college students drowning in debt. Obama took the program away from the banks and understands that students need financial aid. All the talk about boosting college-going rates is hollow, if students can’t pay for it.

On education, President Obama correctly noted that his ideas for reform have been drawn from ideas championed by Democrats and Republicans, an overlap that also has drawn criticism in some quarters from allies of the president such as teacher unions.

Obama also said that his education reforms were “starting to show gains.” Such gains would be difficult to demonstrate. There are rising test scores in many states, but it’s difficult to link these to federal programs. The president has indeed favored aggressive reforms in education, but most of them are still in process as far as results.

Education historian Diane Ravitch, watching the debate, said in an email that the school-reform grants under Obama’s “Race to the Top” program have “thus far improved nothing.” (Ravitch is a disappointed Obama supporter who is strongly against Romney.) The Obama administration also has successfully pushed nearly all states to adopt year-by-year learning standards called the “common core.” The goal has been to raise academic standards and promote improved curricula nationwide, but little related to this effort has taken effect yet.

Mitt Romney spoke of education as part of his economic plan. The specifics he mentioned included simplifying the structure of the federal Department of Education. He complained that 47 training programs are housed in eight different agencies. For better or worse, job-training programs are, in fact, housed in multiple federal agencies.

He also spoke of sending education dollars “back to states,” which analysts from both parties have interpreted as a signal that he would reduce the budget and scope of the Department of Education.

Obama, in contrast, has sent education dollars from the federal government to the states via grants and direct aid, under the economic stimulus program, to save programs and jobs. Such programs have increased the federal deficit. The grants were frequently in exchange for adopting education reforms favored by the Obama administration.

Romney, in contrast, is suggesting that dollars would be returned to the states because they would not go to the federal government in the first place.

In criticizing Romney’s tax plan, the President emphasized repeatedly that his challenger’s plan would result in reduced funding for government programs, which, he said, would prove a burden for the middle class—either through more taxes or through cuts in services.

[For the Record, 7:58 p.m. PST Oct. 3: This post has been updated below following the conclusion of the debate.]

As an illustrative metaphor, Obama cited overcrowded classrooms and old, out-of-date textbooks. It’s accurate that his economic-stimulus dollars for education saved teachers’ jobs — which had the result of maintaining smaller classrooms in many places. The number of education jobs preserved is 160,000, according to the National School Boards Assn. The Obama administration puts the number three times higher.

Overall, however, the federal government provides only a small portion of the funds for public education nationwide. And the stimulus dollars were one-time assistance that could only maintain teaching jobs for about two years as a bridge to better economic conditions. This strategy worked in some states, but many teaching jobs were lost in California after the stimulus funds ran out.

This comment on the debate came by email from Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform in Washington, D.C. She has generally praised Romney’s approach to education as moving away from federal heavyhandedness (and some questionable policy directions) under Obama.

“So far I’ve heard they both want to improve skills—Romney wants to make schools better—his words—and Obama wants to invest, do more Race to the Top [grants], hire math and science [teachers]. Thousands of flowers blooming organically versus lots blooming in one growing field might be one way look at it,” she said.

The debate returned to education, just over an hour into the discussion, during the President’s response to a question about the proper role of government.

“We’ve got to reform schools that are not working,” Obama said. “We’ll give you money if you initiate reforms.”

Even critics would likely concede he was speaking accurately at this point, whether they support his policy priorities or not. This approach—providing incentives—was embodied in the administration’s Race to the Top grants and other programs. The President added: “Race to the Top was not a top-down approach.”

Here, some observers from both parties would disagree, arguing that the Obama administration expanded the federal role in a way that some find objectionable.

The president also talked of plans to hire more teachers and stated that his Republican challenger “doesn’t think we need more teachers. I do.”

That characterization does not represent Romney’s position, although it’s true that Romney has criticized the federal economic-stimulus program, which provided money to preserve teaching jobs for about two years during the recession. As far as hiring or retaining teachers, Romney has said that the funding of teachers should be a state and local decision.

The presidential candidates offered clashing views on education, with Republican Mitt Romney delivering some of his harshest judgments on teacher unions and President Barack Obama defending them.

Mr. Obama attacked Mr. Romney for wanting to cut education spending, while Mr. Romney said it’s wrong to saddle young people with more federal debt. The conflicting views came in separate interviews for NBC’s Education Nation summit, which covered a range of education topics.

“The teachers union has a responsibility to care for the interests of the teachers. And the head of the national teachers’ union said at one point, ‘We don’t care about kids. We care about the teachers.’ That’s their right,” Mr. Romney said.

He was referring to a 2009 speech by the National Education Association’s former general counsel, Bob Chanin, who was making a different point. He wasn’t suggesting that the union doesn’t care about children, but arguing that the NEA is an effective advocate for its point of view “not because we care about children” but because of the union’s political power.

Mr. Obama, in his interview taped over the weekend, said, “I think Gov. Romney and a number of folks try to politicize the issue and do a lot of teacher bashing.”

“When I meet teachers all across the country, they are so devoted, so dedicated to their kids,” he said.

The Obama administration has taken some heat from unions by pushing for more charter schools and seeking to tie compensation to student achievement. Mr. Obama described that as trying to “break through this left-right, conservative-liberal gridlock.”

Mr. Obama said that education reform isn’t enough, though, and must be accompanied by adequate public spending. On the campaign trail, he often mentions education as one of the areas where the nation should spend more to build for the future.

“This is a big argument and a big difference that I’ve got with Gov. Romney in this election, because they talk a good game about reform, but when you actually look at their budgets, they’re talking about slashing our investment in education by 20, 25%,” he said.

Mr. Romney didn’t dispute that he wants to limit government spending.

“I’m not looking for more federal spending. I mean, I know it is the nature of politics for someone in my position to promise more free stuff,” he said. But “I care so much about our kids that I don’t want to saddle them with trillions on trillions of dollars of debt.”

CER President Jeanne Allen says any president that doesn’t make education a central issue deserves a “C”.