The debate will feature Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Barack Obama and Lisa Graham Keegan, education adviser to John McCain. The debate will be carried live via webcast by edweek.org from 7 – 9 pm EST.

We encourage all of you to watch this important event and share your thoughts about the candidates’ education policies here on our blog. Click here to register for the event.

MR. BROKAW: What’s not on the screen right now that concerns you that should be more prominent in the minds of the American people and the people running for president?

GEN. POWELL: I think the American people and the gentlemen running for president will have to, early on, focus on education more than we have seen in the campaign so far. America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don’t finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don’t finish high school. We’ve got to work on this, and my, my wife and I are leading a campaign with this purpose.

Powell walks the walk on the education issue. He and his wife founded America’s Promise Alliance dedicated to improving the well-being of America’s children. The non-profit organization’s mission centers around five promises to our nation’s children:

• Caring Adults 
• Safe Places 
• A Health Start 
• Effective Education 
• Opportunities to Help Others 

You should check out his organization. Regardless of who wins the election, we hope that General Powell can be a powerful voice for educational policy during the next administration and beyond.

Obama’s answer focused on three issues:

• Investment in early education
• Recruiting “an army” of teachers, supported with higher pay and professional development in exchange for higher standards and accountability; and,
• A tuition tax credit to make college more affordable

McCain’s answer focused on choice and competition in the K-12 system and making student loans more available and less of a burden to pay off: He also highlighted:

• Promoting charter schools and school vouchers
• Finding bad teachers “another line of work”
• Encouraging programs like Teach for America and Troops to Teachers

Schieffer also asked about increasing the federal role in schools through additional funding.

Obama used the opportunity to talk about the importance of local control and how “the money was left behind for No Child Left Behind.” Again, he mentioned early childhood education and providing teachers higher salaries. He agreed with McCain on charter schools and firing bad teachers, but disagreed on vouchers.

McCain used the opportunity to talk about the popularity among parents of the DC voucher model and the importance of allowing parents to choose where they send their children to school. McCain used Head Start as an example of more money not being the answer. He thinks the “Head Start program is a great program” that is not doing what it should do. “Let’s reform it and fund it.” McCain also pledged to spend money on research to find a cure for autism.

In order to remain competitive with our international peers, it is clear that a major paradigm shift is in order. What do you think of the candidates’ proposals to revamp our country’s education system?

On October 8th, the Texas Migrant Council and the National Council of La Raza hosted a roundtable discussion on the care of Latino infants and toddlers. The discussion focused around a report published by Miriam Calderon of La Raza, entitled, Buenos Principios: Latino Children in the Earliest Years of Life

One section of the report outlines the striking demographic changes occurring within the child population of the United States. Currently, nearly 25 percent of children under the age of five are Latino, and a quarter of these Latino children live in linguistically isolated households (where only Spanish is spoken). Within the educational community, it is the early childhood educator who is at the front lines of these changing demographics. They are the first contact that most children and families have with formal education. They work with children at vastly different developmental levels who have come to them from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. And it is their job to prepare these children for entry into the K-12 system. In essence, their job is to make the job of the teacher in the K-12 system easier. If it’s not the toughest job in America, it’s close. Are the candidates proposing enough to support them?  

According to the Associated Press’ fact checking report:

McCAIN: Said Obama supported a congressional earmark of “$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?”

THE FACTS: McCain’s phrase suggests Obama spent $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment that projects charts and text on a wall screen. In fact, the money was for an overhaul of the theater system that projects images of stars and planets for educational shows at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium. When he announced the $3 million earmark last year, Obama said the planetarium’s 40-year-old projection system “has begun to fail, leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience.”

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-fact-check08oct08,0,869491.story

What do you think? Are museums like the Adler Planetarium providing relevant learning opportunities for children to explore science outside the classroom? Is federal support of such projects important?

1. Research has shown that providing high quality early education is a crucial investment which produces high rates of return for not only young children and their families, but for society as a whole.  How do you propose to increase access to quality early childhood programs? 

2. Given the current state of our economy, how do you plan to ensure that we devote the appropriate resources to the elementary and high schools responsible for educating the next generation of leaders? 

3. Teachers are one of our country’s most valuable resources, and yet many of them feel underpaid and undervalued. How would you work to support teachers and improve the education workforce? 

4. How do you plan to fairly measure the impact that our education system is having on children and how would you use this information to improve the quality of education? 

5. The global economy is driven by continuing innovation in science and technology, making math and science skills critical to remaining competitive in the 21^st century, and yet the United States is losing its competitive edge in these areas. What would you do as President to help children develop the math and science skills they need to enter the workforce with these skills crucial for their personal success and the success of our country?

Here are more questions other members of the education community would like to see addressed in tonight’s debate: New America’s Campaign Watch: 5 Early Education Questions

We cannot slow up on education, because that’s the engine that is going to give us the economic growth and competitiveness that we need.

Education credit in American has been in some sense in some of our states just accepted to be a little bit lax and we have got to increase the standards. No Child Left Behind was implemented. It’s not doing the job though. We need flexibility in No Child Left Behind. We need to put more of an emphasis on the profession of teaching. We need to make sure that education in either one of our agendas, I think, absolute top of the line. My kids as public school participants right now, it’s near and dear to my heart. I’m very, very concerned about where we’re going with education and we have got to ramp it up and put more attention in that arena.

• Biden expressed to Ifill that he hoped they got back to the issue of education and said that John McCain is not in favor of supporting any education program, in particular, Biden mentioned McCain’s disregard for funding early education.  He also said that the reason that No Child Left Behind was left behind was because the money was left behind and questioned McCain’s “maverick” style when it came to deviating from the previous administration’s failed track record on education. 

Putting aside the current controversy surrounding Gwen Ifill’s new book, should educators expect to learn anything about how each administration might tackle the country’s pressing educational issues. If past history is any indication, the answer is no. As moderator of the 2004 Cheney-Edwards vice-presidential debate, Ifill did not ask a single question related to education. A question on war? Yes. A question on same-sex unions? Of course. A question on education? No.

Let’s just say a Google search for any reporting Gwen has done on education isn’t pretty. Her last piece on education appears to be back in 2000 when she moderated a discussion on the future of bilingual education in California. Come on, Gwen, surprise us! We know you have it in you.

I hope to eat my words tomorrow…

The issue was clearly the inability of policymakers to sell the proposal to the American people. Uninspiring leadership by the President and partisan battling in Congress clouded the message around why it is essential that the package pass. Erin Burnett did in 90 seconds on the Today Show what politicians couldn’t do in two weeks of press conferences. And she uses an example featuring education. Check it out: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/26954793#26954793.   

Her argument goes something like this: Why should you bail out the couple down the street who couldn’t pay their mortgage? If your neighbor’s house forecloses, the value of the house declines, dragging the other houses in the neighborhood with it. Communities, which rely at least in part on property taxes to fund services ranging from garbage collection to schools takes a hit, either forcing communities to raise the taxes among those who are left, or to cut services. Higher taxes and/or fewer services make the community a less attractive place to live, further lowering property values. The outcome is a downward spiral affecting housing prices and services like education.

Do you buy this argument? What talking points would you use to convince the American people to support this deal? Or, what aspects of the deal would you change so you could get more people to support it?