Where Clinton and Trump Stand on Education - The Atlantic

Where Clinton and Trump Stand on Education - The Atlantic:

Where Clinton and Trump Stand on Education

The convention dust has settled, and it’s back to the chalkboard.

When compared to Donald Trump’s single education policy-related sentence in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Hillary Clinton’s remarks on the subject Thursday night were certainly more extensive, as she sought to emphasize a track record of making schools, teachers, families, and students her political—and personal—priorities.

In accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Clinton touched repeatedly on education, from her work years ago supporting legislation on educating students with disabilities to her recently announced plans to make college “tuition-free” for low- and middle-income families at public universities. She also vowed to work toward a future where “you can get a good job and send your kids to a good school no matter what zip code you live in.”

Trump said much less much about education in his Cleveland address, although he did manage to fit a handful of buzzwordsinto one sentence: “We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice,” he said.

How the Republican presidential nominee will accomplish this, or what he would use as the barometer for a failing school, isn’t clear. His campaign, so far, has been very short on policy details. (In the meantime, the Obama administration continues to work on regulations and guidance to flesh out the Every Student Succeeds Act, the legislative successor to No Child Left Behind.)

The Republican Party’s platform is more detailed on education. Politico’s Michael Stratford noted that it includes a direct rebuke of a recent White House directive urging states to uphold the civil rights of transgender students. (Republicans said they “salute the several states which have filed suit against it.”)

As Dana Goldstein wrote earlier this month for Slate, Hillary Clinton is reshaping the Democratic Party’s relationship with the so-called “school-reform” movement:

Following eight years of federally driven closures and turnarounds of schools with low test scores, which have put union jobs at risk, it was music to the [National Education Association’s] ears when the presumptive Democratic nominee promised to end “the education wars” and stop focusing only on quote, “failing schools.” Let’s focus on all our great schools, too.

At the same time, a common thread in media coverage of the National Education Association’s recent convention was the overall strong support for Clinton’s platform—and the boos that followed her brief, supportive remarks about charter schools.

For an update on where the two presidential candidates stand on education Where Clinton and Trump Stand on Education - The Atlantic: