A lot of people, and not just Republicans, have been waiting for John McCain to unveil his thinking about education policy. While Barack Obama has made multiple speeches on the subject (most recently to both teacher union conferences) and has elaborate position papers on his campaign website, the Arizona senator said little, except for tantalizing bits about his own education. Last month, however, McCain advisor Lisa Graham Keegan predicted that he would soon address this issue. She was right. Today in Cincinnati, at the NAACP convention, McCain framed an ambitious and fairly comprehensive array of education reforms and asked civil rights leaders to join him in pressing for them. It included some familiar GOP refrains (school choice, especially) but also moved in such interesting new directions as virtual education, giving budgetary authority to school principals, alternative certification for teachers and several forms of differential pay, including more money for teachers who work in "troubled schools". It begins to look possible that education will turn into a bona fide election issue after all-and that differences between the presidential candidates in this sphere will actually prove interesting and salient.
Update: The text of his prepared speech is here.
Update II: Senator Obama spoke to the NAACP Monday night, and he also mentioned education in his speech, albeit less directly than McCain.
