Neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton is defending one of President Barack Obama's most important legacies: education reform. Instead of taking on the teachers' unions, as the president did, both candidates offer an agenda that amounts to spending more and demanding less. It's not a winning combination.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama stuck out his neck to support merit pay for teachers. As president, he and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, created a program, Race to the Top, that gave states incentives to expand charter schools and hold teachers, principals and schools accountable for their performance. It was the most ambitious education agenda of any president in history, and union leaders hated most of it. In 2014, they even called for Duncan's resignation.
Republicans, too, have retreated from their commitment to accountability, albeit for different reasons. George Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, however flawed, established the principle that the federal government has a central role to play in holding states responsible for student achievement. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich have all rejected that basic idea.
The past two decades have produced some encouraging gains in student achievement. Teachers are vital to this progress. But they are not the only constituency, or even the most important one, whose interests candidates should consider. If this generation of children is to succeed in the global economy, and if the achievement gap between the haves and have-nots is to continue shrinking, voters will have to demand better.
Editorial on 04/26/2016