Though education has played second fiddle so far to other domestic issues in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, the narrowing field includes GOP candidates with compatible views on scaling back the federal role in K-12, but big contrasts in policy specifics and experience. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, is expected to put a…

Ask Antonio White what he thinks of Race to the Top--President Barack Obama's signature K-12 initiative--and the Florida teacher will tell you the competitive-grant program is a "difficult pill to swallow." Merit pay for teachers based partly on student test scores is "a joke," he says. He's also not a fan of expanding charter…

It has become a familiar sight for education policy mavens this election season: panel discussions, in Washington and elsewhere, hashing out the presumptive presidential nominees' differences on performance pay for teachers, private school vouchers, and other reliable topics of debate. But the candidates themselves have not appeared at these…

The scene in Brian Griffin's bedroom looks like a cross between a charity telethon and an intense cramming session the night before a final exam. Mr. Griffin and about 10 of his classmates--fellow members of the Plainfield High School (Indiana) chapter of Students for Barack Obama--are sprawled around the room, cellphones in hand, studying voter…

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…

This article reports on a campaign, dubbed "ED in '08" and announced last spring, that was billed as an attempt to make K-12 education a top issue in the presidential election. So far, though, most analysts have seen little evidence that the ED in '08 campaign--financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation--is succeeding…

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…