Dive Brief:
- Education reform was a huge hallmark of the Obama presidency, but the conversation has been all but missing from the rhetoric surrounding this year's primary season.
- The Nation calls the amount of time candidates have spent talking about issues critical to education "pitiful," and many others have noted an unprecedented focus on social issues, but the conspicuous absence of education.
- New York Magazine called distancing from education reform "a predictable course of action for a Democrat facing a contested primary," in an effort to explain why Hillary Clinton has been seemingly mum on the conversation.
Dive Insight:
In an election season driven by absurdity, the biggest reason for the omission of education issues may be that "Education isn't sexy," said Former North Carolina Gov. Bev. Purdue said during a recent panel at ASU-GSV 2016. She said that omission from campaign rhetoric does not necessarily mean candidates don't have thoughts on a topic. Purdue added, however, that some presidential candidates may have learned from the backlash against No Child Left Behind and are leaving ed reform conversations to more local candidates.
"We saw No Child Left Behind really hated by many governors, Republican and Democrat. We didn't want the federal government telling us what to do," she said.
But Lanhee Chen, a professor of public policy at Stanford University and the former policy director for the Romney-Ryan campaign in 2012, said during the same panel education hasn't been more of a conversation because the American public has not forced it. People, he said, "don't necessarily make the connection that education is a top policy issue ... at the end of the day, it's very difficult for presidential campaigns to drive a discussion where the electorate doesn't want it to go already."