This article reports on two national teachers' unions' different approaches to the 2008 U.S. election campaign. The National Education Association is ready to spend $40 million this election year, but it is not ready to endorse a candidate for president. The American Federation Teachers, by contrast, is working aggressively for U.S. Sen. Hillary…

Should schools be held primarily responsible for improving student achievement, or do they need help from health and social programs to ensure their students' success? Two sets of prominent educators and policy leaders released statements last June 2008 emphasizing different answers to that question. Both groups acted with the same purpose: to…

The No Child Left Behind Act has been the subject of intense debate in school board meetings, state legislatures, and Washington policy circles. Everywhere, it seems, but the presidential campaign--the winner of which may have the most important voice in reshaping the federal role in K-12 education. In their education proposals, Democratic Senator…

The campaigns of Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama engaged in a sharp and testy exchange on education last week, making the topic the center of debate for the first time since the long race for the presidency began. Neither candidate changed course on the policies he is promising to pursue. However, Obama sought to distinguish himself…

At the end of a presidential campaign in which education received some attention but never emerged as a top-tier issue, analysts were trying to look beyond the week's election to the K-12 issues awaiting the next president and gauge where they might fit as a new administration prepares to grapple with a global economic crisis. While education…

Every day, 14 retired teachers and other school employees arrive at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers' headquarters and go to work for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The retirees--working with volunteers and union staff members from as far away as Alaska--are working to inform teachers' union members why the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)…

The presumed November match-up produced by the long presidential-primary season offers contrasting approaches to K-12 policy, along with some common ground on the basics of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, his Democratic counterpart, both…

President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton have both enacted significant expansions in federal oversight of K-12 schools during their terms. In the combined 15 years of the Clinton and Bush presidencies so far, the federal government has required states to set academic goals for their students and has made schools and districts…