The subject of public schools has been no more than an afterthought in the presidential election. For all the professed urgency about fixing our schools, the national air time for the topic has been pretty much limited to the last question of the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

But you wouldn't have known it from the crowd that turned out for a sanctioned campaign face-off last week at Columbia University's Teachers College that was devoted exclusively to the topic of education.
It wasn't the candidates going at it, but the next best thing: two of their top advisers on the subject, either one of whom could possibly be the next U.S. secretary of education.

For McCain, it was Lisa Graham Keegan, a former state superintendent in his home state of Arizona and a spirited voice in the school choice movement. Representing Obama was Linda Darling-Hammond, a respected Stanford University professor and guru of teacher quality.

And while the public may not be paying much attention, the nearly 600 people filling the university hall heard a spirited exchange that gave a good sense of what distinguishes not just the candidates but, maybe equally important, the people who advise them.

McCain has in Keegan a devoted cheerleader who has helped bring big changes to public education in Arizona. Central to that has been the boom in charter schools, now one in every four public schools in the state.

The state superintendent in Arizona is an elected political position, and Keegan's easy way with a big audience was on display. And like much of the conservative wing and increasingly some traditionally liberal voices, her focus was on accountability and providing alternatives to families, be it with charters or even a private education through school vouchers.

Support for vouchers continues to be a frequent refrain of the Republican Party, and Obama's opposition is equally predictable. In the debate, Keegan was quick to use Obama's own upbringing against him.

"It is disingenuous for Sen. Obama to have been the recipient of a scholarship of a private school and lecture people that going to a private school drains money from the public schools," Keegan said.

Darling-Hammond fit more the professorial role, ready with research on the effectiveness of everything from preschool to teacher mentoring. And she was no less loyal to her boss, listing details from Obama's education plank in his platform, ranging from universal preschool to $4,000 tax credits for college costs.

Obama has pressed hard for sizable new investment in education, especially in the poorest cities and towns, to help cure what Darling-Hammond called an "adhocracy" of schools.
"We don't have the capacity to ensure that everyone gets what is really the new civil right, access to a high quality education," she said.

A couple of times, the two were allowed to go back and forth for several minutes, a rare instance of dialogue in a formal debate. The differences were many, but in such a setting, agreements came out, too, including some consensus that the No Child Left Behind Act has its merits but clearly needs fixing.

New Jersey figured prominently when the talk turned to the fundamental question of how much money would be required. Sometimes we forget, but New Jersey public schools are often held up as a national example in education debate by supporters and critics alike.

Keegan would fall under the critic camp, and she pointed to New Jersey and Washington, D.C., as two of the highest-spending school systems that have little to show in overall achievement gains.

"If money were the answer, New Jersey and D.C. ought to be off the charts, and they're not," she said.

Darling-Hammond countered that New Jersey has everything to be proud of, including schools for which the courts have ordered big money for specific programs, resulting in some closing of the achievement gap between rich and poor.

"And they are in the top tier of states in achievement in the country, far above where Arizona is," Darling-Hammond said in one pointed moment.

Yet in the end, education is not an issue that makes many TV ads. The candidates are only partly to blame. McCain spent much of his GOP convention speech on the topic and gave another major speech to the Urban League this summer. Darling-Hammond said Obama has given a dozen speeches devoted to education.

Instead, both surrogates blamed the messenger. "The media in general are not understanding how important education is to the future of this country," Darling-Hammond said.

Education does fall victim to the national press's short attention span in elections, too often involving deep and complex problems that don't make for quick headlines. Add two wars and an economic crisis, and many issues, and their advocates, are fighting to get noticed this year.

Published Monday, Nov. 17, 2008