Campaign 2008

New America is hosting a forum today on the 2008 Democratic Party Platform. You can check it out and watch live streaming video (or archived video after the event is over) here.

We had a chance to look at a draft of the platform, and found some exciting changes to the education section. Most importantly for early education, the platform gives increased prominence to early education. While the 2004 platform mentioned school readiness, preschool, and Head Start in passing, the 2008 platform has a section specifically focused on early childhood education:

Pre-school
We will make quality, affordable early childhood care and education available to every American child from the day he or she is born. Our Children's First Agenda, including increases in Head Start and Early Head Start and investments in high-quality Pre-K, will improve quality and provide learning and support to families with children ages zero to five. Our Presidential Early Learning Council will coordinate these efforts.

Why don't the presidential campaigns talk about workplace flexibility?  Work and life balance is a leading concern in most families.  According to the Attitudes in the American Workplace Survey conducted by the Marlin Company in 2004, 63 percent of Americans report that job pressure interferes with family life. MSNBC has reported that most workers (81 percent) said they were "unhappy with their work/life balance."  60 percent of Americans have reported feeling overworked, according to results from a Monster.com survey.  ComPsych Corporation's Stress Pulse Survey reports that 63 percent of workers say they are stressed to the point of "feeling extremely fatigued or out of control." Roughly two thirds of both men and women indicate that they would like to work fewer hours and this rises to three quarters among those reporting moderate to high levels of work-to-life conflict. 

There is a mismatch between the needs of workers and the structure of American workplaces today.  Businesses are already using flexibility to meet their recruitment and retention needs.  Policymakers are using creative incentives to encourage flexibility in the workplace.  There are solutions that can work for both businesses and workers.  The presidential candidate who articulates those solutions will reap a reward in November.

- David Gray

Early Ed Watch has written extensively about the presidential campaigns over the past several months, including the candidates' proposals for early education. On July 24, at 10:30 A.M. the New America Foundation will host a discussion of the candidates' education proposals with education experts who helped shape those agendas. Lisa Graham Keegan is former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction and education advisor to John McCain. Jon Schnur was Senior Advisor on Education to Vice President Al Gore and Special Assistant to U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, and has advised Barack Obama on education since he became a U.S. Senator. Keegan and Schnur will describe the candidates' education agendas, discuss the outlook for education policy in the next administration and congress, and respond to questions from a moderator and the audience. Come join us and ask your questions about the candidates' plans for early education!

For more details, or to register for the event, click here.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain used his speech today at the NAACP annual convention to flesh out an education policy agenda that has, to this point, been pretty amorphous. Early Ed Watch is disappointed, but not particularly surprised, to see no mention of early childhood education in McCain's speech. But the McCain campaign could easily integrate early education proposals into some of the ideas McCain laid out today. For example, McCain supports alternative certification--a good idea. Why not include investment in developing research-based alternate routes to early childhood educator certification? That would help states meet the growing demand for skilled pre-k teachers, and it would also provide more cost-effective ways to help people that currently lack a bachelor's degree to acquire the skills and knowledge to be effective pre-k teachers. And it would advance the cause of alternative certification. Similarly, McCain's speech expressed support for charter schools--why not propose new policies to increase the number of charter schools delivering high-quality early education programs?

As early education analysts, we DO NOT RECOMMEND this. But it is pretty funny. Based on our, admittedly nonscientific, survey of the available data, Sen. Obama seems to be winning the key demographic of people who put politically oriented videos of their babies on YouTube. Maybe if Sen. McCain outlined an early education agenda he'd get more support from the tech-savvy infant and toddler demographic.

In a major economic speech this Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama made clear that improving America's education system is one of his top economic priorities. The speech is noteworthy for the direct connection Obama drew between education and economic progress. Equally noteworthy, Obama laid out an education agenda that combines significant new investments--including a proposed $10 billion investment in early education programs--with reforms like charter schools and teacher pay for performance. Last week David Brooks criticized Obama for being "all carrot, no stick," talking in greater detail about the education investments than the reforms he'd support, and challenged Obama to support "real reform." In reality, as we discussed last week, improving education takes both investment and reform. We'd like to see more details about some of the reforms Obama discusses--particularly his proposals to hold education schools accountable and streamline certification, as well as how he would ensure quality and accountability for early educaiton programs he proposes investing in. But by spotlighting education reforms, along with investment, at the center of a major economic speech, Obama appears to be answering Brooks' challenge.

Last night, Senator Barack Obama earned a majority of Democratic delegates, clinching the Democratic presidential nomination for 2008. Last night’s end of the primary season also marked the start of the 2008 general election. Obama’s Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, kicked off his general election bid with a speech last night.

As we move into the general election campaign, expect to hear more from the candidates on education issues, including early education. During the Republican primary, McCain paid little attention to education issues, and he still hasn’t released any education proposals. But as he moves to appeal to independent and Democratic voters in the general election, he’s going to need to speak more to voters’ concerns about education—because Obama will be.

Prince Caspian, the much anticipated second movie based on the books of C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, opened earlier this month. It follows the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

As I watched Senator Clinton speak after the Montana and South Dakota primaries last evening, I can't help but think of that first Narnia book.

On first glace, John McCain would seem like the lion. Strong willed, sometimes to a fault, with a sturdy constitution that has withstood great pressure and pain. Lions lead battles. They are kings of the wild. In the books, the lion in Narnia has existed "since before the beginning of time." That is not far from the description Senator McCain uses for himself, "I'm older than dirt," and in the spirit in which the Senator from Illinois reminds Americans of every time he thanks Senator McCain for his "more than half century of service."

Senator Obama is like the wardrobe, something magical that helps bridge between two worlds. In the wardrobe's case, one in England and one of Narnia. People come in contact with the wardrobe and are transported to a new place in time. Obama's personal story, racial background and post-partisan outlook places him between two worlds. In the case of the Pevensie children in Lewis' books, the wardrobe helps take them from life as usual in war-time England to a new hopeful world of dreams. Obama's appeal, in part, is his ability to transport his audiences to a new place of possibility. Even dreams for some.

Today's final Democratic presidential primaries have focused public and media attention on South Dakota and Montana, two largely rural western states that get the last vote in the 2008 primary season. Here's something else these two states have in common: They're both early education laggards.

South Dakota and Montana are two of only 11 states without any kind of state pre-k program. (Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states comprise the majority of laggards here--North Dakota, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming also lack pre-k.) Nor are they among the 9 states that provide full-day kindergarten for all children. In fact, both states' finance systems actually create a disincentive for school districts to offer full-day kindergarten, because school districts receive the same money per kindergartener regardless of whether they offer half- or full-day kindergarten programs. South Dakota, however, provides the same amount of state funding for kindergarten as it does for other grades, while Montana provides school districts with only half as much money per kindergartener. And neither state rates well on the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies' ranking of state standards and oversight for childcare centers and family care homes.

Florida voters face a referendum this fall on whether or not to repeal the state’s Blaine Amendment, a state constitutional provision that prohibits direct state aid to religiously affiliated schools. All but 11 U.S. states have similar constitution al provisions (which are called “Blaine Amendments” after former Maine Senator James Blaine, who sought and failed to pass such an amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the 1870s). The Florida Supreme Court struck down a private school voucher program in 2004 because it violated the amendment, so school choice advocates are seeking to repeal the provision in order to clear the way for voucher programs in the state.

The Florida vote raises questions about the role of faith-based providers in publicly funded pre-k programs. Faith-based providers play a major role in delivering pre-k under Florida’s universal pre-k program, and Patricia Levesque, who pushed to put the Blaine referendum on the ballot this fall, has told reporters that the Blaine amendment could imperil these arrangements. Others, including the head of the Florida ACLU, disagree with this interpretation, however, saying that social service providers--including pre-k providers--who offer largely secular services in a nondiscriminatory fashion are legally in the clear. So far, no one has used the Blaine amendment to challenge Florida’s universal pre-k program, and such a challenge is highly unlikely.