Who is better for Milwaukee education--Bush or Kerry?

While this blog is focused (obsessed perhaps) on education in Milwaukee , it may be wise to take a moment to observe that there is a national election this Tuesday. How will the outcome affect Milwaukee education? Or, to suspend reality for a moment, assume there is a voter who will decide solely on who will make Milwaukee schools better? How should that voter vote?

The No Child Left Behind Act has effectively neutralized those on the Milwaukee school board and outside it who would like to roll back the measurement of student outcomes. Bush, of course, put a major effort into passing this measure, and Kerry supports it. While Kerry has criticized the funding levels, there is every reason to believe he would continue to support the use of measurement. In fact, his proposals for teacher incentives make use of value-added measures of student achievement.

Milwaukee has been a leader in opening more alternatives for students, especially charter schools and the school choice program. Both Bush and Kerry are strong supporters of charter schools. Bush supports, while Kerry opposes, private school choice. The future of school choice in Milwaukee, however, will largely be decided by state politics, not national politics.

Thus on issues, Schools Now gives a slight advantage to Bush, both because of his support for private school choice and the political capital he was willing to invest in pushing the NCLB legislation.

A second question is political courage: how willing is the candidate to support reforms that may offend important parts of his base? While Bush's support for a more active federal role in education ran counter to those conservatives who would prefer to abolish the Department of Education, his support of school choice is practically risk free. Kerry, however, risks offending an important part of his base through his support of the NCLB, of teacher incentives, and of charter schools.

On political courage on education issues, then, Schools Now gives the edge to Kerry. The danger is that teachers' unions and others opposed to school reform may expect a president Kerry to show his gratitude for their support by backing down on his positions. Yet, having shown his willingness to buck them before the election, it would be puzzling if he buckled afterwards.

A final issue is the effect of the election on the political viability of reform in Milwaukee. NCLB was the one truly bi-partisan major legislative initiative of the Bush administration. Yet despite the active involvement of Democrats like Edward Kennedy, opponents of measurement and accountability have tried to paint this measure as a plot by conservative Republicans to destroy public education. Support from a president Kerry could restore a measure of bi-partisan support to the NCLB reforms and offer a dollop of succor to Milwaukee reformers not eager to be cast as conservatives or Republicans.

Likewise, Milwaukee's charter schools are placed at risk by WEAC's current campaign attacking Republicans for supporting them. Optimistically perhaps, having a Democratic president who supports charters might take some of the wind out of this campaign.

Finally, it seems unlikely that the election will have much effect either way on the present entanglement of the school choice program with state partisan politics. As I suggested earlier, this is likely to change only when choice supporters learn how to build a political base in the low-income areas where most of the families who benefit from the program live.

Thus, in terms of making support for reform easier in Milwaukee, Schools Now gives a strong advantage to Kerry.