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: BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog

Presidential Advisors face off in education debate

Finally, the two presumptive presidential nominees are talking about education! Maybe not the candidates themselves, not yet; but their senior advisors spent a couple of hours to talk exclusively about their respective candidates? education platforms. Representing the candidates are: Jeanne Century, director of science education from the University of Chicago for Sen. Obama (D-IL); and Lisa Graham Keegan, former Arizona superintendent of public instruction for Sen. McCain (R-AZ). While most of the discussions at Association of Education Publishers? conference were long on vision but short on details, it was refreshing to see that education was getting so much attention in those two hours. Hopefully this will energize the two nominees to start talking about their plans for education on the campaign trail. In response to a question about the candidates' views on merit pay for teachers and whether it should be based on test scores, Century carefully worded her response: ?Senator Obama is against the traditional merit pay tying individual teacher bonus to student outcome." But she declined to say whether the reward should be based in part on test scores. Instead the senator supports an "innovative compensation system" that rewards teachers based on "classroom excellence, " as defined by negotiation between the school and the teacher, she said. This doesn't really tell us whether Obama supports considering test score or not. On the other hand, Keegan is much clearer on McCain's stance: salary increase should be based on student achievmeent, not on negotiation between the school and the union.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on June 09, 2008 (boomark / email).