For the past quarter-century, schooling has played a significant symbolic role in presidential contests. In 2016, though, with the first votes due to be cast in Iowa in just a few weeks, it’s been almost entirely absent. Why is that?
Let’s start in 1988. Promising a “kinder, gentler” Republicanism, George H.W. Bush highlighted his promise to be the “education president.” In 1992, Bill Clinton put education at the heart of his “New Covenant” when insisting that he would fight for those who “worked hard and played by the rules.”
For Republicans, education has been a way to demonstrate sincerity when talking about an opportunity society. After all, if voters doubt that every American has a real chance to succeed, then talk of liberty and personal responsibility can ring hollow. Absent a commitment to equal opportunity, proposals to shrink government can feel mean-spirited and unprincipled. Thus, it was no coincidence that his pledge to leave “no child behind” became the signature of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” in 2000 – or that this appeal to moderates proved crucial in his razor-thin electoral win.
For Democrats, schooling helped mark a break with the tax-and-spend liberalism of the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s, Reagan Democrats were deeply suspicious of proposals to spend more on welfare, housing and other government programs. A focus on “investments” in schools, colleges, training programs and community programs allowed Democrats in the 1990s to argue that they were just making sure that hard-working Americans had a fair shot to succeed. By 2008, President Barack Obama’s support for merit pay and charter schools loomed large in defining his image as a pragmatic centrist.
Now, one might argue that it’s too early to tell if education will maintain its role this time around. After all, candidates don’t usually tack to the center until after the nomination is in hand. But that’s too simple a reading. Our last three presidents – Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama – had made their educational views integral to their public personas and world views well before the first primary votes were cast.
What’s changed?
One thing is the presence of Donald Trump. A dominant figure with no real ideological mooring, a can’t-look-away persona and a remarkable gift for tapping voter frustration, Trump has dragged the GOP primary far away from conventional policy debate. Indeed, talk about the particulars of social policy can sound dull and out-of-touch in the face of Trump’s eruptions. Just last week, in Vermont, Trump vowed to issue an executive order to prohibit states from making schools into gun-free zones. Next to that, particulars about teacher evaluation or college accreditation can seem like small beer.
But Trump has not emerged in a vacuum. More than a decade of aggressive federal education policy has compromised the easy appeal that education once enjoyed. On the left, the split between teachers unions and school reformers means that almost any substantive statement on accountability risks annoying a core constituency. On the right, backers of the No Child Left Behind Act have been eclipsed by those who think Republicans erred in ever supporting an expanded federal role.
The larger context, of course, is a polarized political environment where both sides eye each other with suspicion. In this environment, candidates are warily eyeing stances viewed as centrist because these can be taken as evidence of squishiness.
Even something as innocuous as free campus speech can be fraught for Democrats fearful of getting crosswise with college protesters. On the right, candidates feel great pressure to avoid anything that might imply an expanded federal role. Consider the plight of Jeb Bush. For two decades, school reform served as the organizing metaphor for his brand of politics. In this year’s race, however, his accomplishments were pooh-poohed while his support for the Common Core was a deal-breaker.
With a conservative base furious at Washington and distrustful of Republican leaders, there’s little room for candidates to propose much in the way of new policies without being labeled a sellout. On the left, the safe course is to champion more spending and offer free stuff – whether that’s college or pre-K – and leave it at that. In an era when the language of grievance is back in fashion, it’s unfashionable on the left to suggest that such proposals could stoke entitlement or fuel dependency.
What we’re seeing on the campaign trail isn’t just theater. It’s a preview of how a new president is likely to approach education in 2017 and beyond.
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