Eli Broad, Bill Gates and their spouses, endorsed by Bob Kerry and Lou Gerstner, have committed $60 million to a single issue intiative. The mission: making public education a serious issue in the 2008 presidential election. Former LAUSD schools chief and Colorado Governor Roy Romer and Mark Lampkin, former Deputy Campaign Manager for Bush II, will manage the effort.

According to New York Times reporter David Herszenhorn, Stong American Schools' positions include: "consistent curriculum standards nationwide; lengthening the school day and year; and improving teacher quality through merit pay and other measures."

The effort's budget is more than double what Swift Boats for Truth spent to attack John Kerry in 2004. What effect is it likely to have on the election, and especially on the school improvement industry? Your editor is inclined to believe it will raise the political profile of k-12 education in the presidential debates, but unless it can be influenced - it is very likely to be a negative for the industry.

When Bill Gates and Eli Broad spend $60 million asking candidates for their positions on public school reform, the press is going to keep asking the candidates for their programs, and is likely to delve a bit deeper into the details than they would otherwise. It is hard to say that's bad for American voters.

But NCLB authorization will probably still be in process. The issues here are technical, complex as a matters of public policy, and loaded with conflicting special interest/constituency politics. They are wonk issues that translate into spin very poorly. They lend themselves not to sound bites and nicely turned phrases, but entire speeches and position papers. They are more likely to work out for the best through legislative negotiation than dueling bumper stickers. 

However, the context of presidential campaigns demands simplification and sloganeering.

In short, whatever Strong American Schools does to raise concsiousness amomg voters, it is more likely than not that the Democrats will resort to being against privatization, and to cast Republicans as pro-voucher, and the Republicans will be against "the blob" and cast the Democrats as only wanting to spend more money.  Your editor expects the Gates, Broad efforts to turn up the volume of debate rather than encourage fine-tuning.

Democrats are already leaning in familiar directions:

Senator Clinton doesn't seem to have an education policy position on her website. But she has already equated SES providers to Halliburton before members of the New Hampshire teachers union.

John Edwards is a self-declared union man - and has done an admirable job of walking the talk with union organizing efforts. His site's education policies amount to two paragraphs - one for more attention to dropouts, and a second for more Head Start, higher teacher pay, smaller schools and a stronger high school curriculum. In any case, Edwards is hardly likey to break ranks with the teachers unions in their general opposition to the "privatization" of core teaching and learning activities.

So far, Senator Obama's k-12 positions are restricted to innovating teacher pay and summer learning opportunities. Maybe there is hope here, but can he afford education policies that separate himself from Edwards and Clinton - and leave them to split support in the teacher unions?

Governor Richardson has nothing about k-12 on his website, but said the right things about charter schools in his welcome letter to this week's National Charter School Conference in Albuquerque: "I am a strong supporter of charter schools in our state. I believe in their power to foster educational innovation, expand choices and engage communities in a way that benefits all our students." As a Governor he has a practical, operational view of the k-12 problem, but he is also for loosening accountability under NCLB. And he is a very long shot.

On the Republican side, there is no great champion of NCLB or the school improvement industry.  Local Republican's are not happy with a law that moves vast decision authority to Washington and casts schools doing well by state standards as failures under federal law.

Education doesn't even make Senator McCain's issue list as of April 25 - when he will formally announce his candidacy. 

Rudy Giuliani devotes a paragraph to the subject that implies he was tough on the city's school system and that he is inclined towards "choice" - which, in the Republican lexicon, implies vouchers.

Former Governor Mitt Romney's site suggests the most pragamatic view: "It's going to take teachers, superintendents and parents talking to their legislators saying yes, we want more money of course ... but we also want changes in the way our schools are managed. We want our principals to have the ability to manage their schools." But it's just three lines.

It says something about the lobbying efforts of school improvement industry trade groups that they have no clear allies among the presidential candidates of either party, and that the strongest supporters of an NCLB that favors the industry are two liberal Democrats - Edward Kennedy and George Miller. Putting all their eggs in the George Bush basket proved to be a strategic error of the first order. It will be almost impossible to repair by the 2008 elections.

As Edison's founder Chris Whittle points out in his recent WestEd policy paper: "During the past 15 years, state and federal legislation has played a crucial role in the school-reform/school-improvement movement.... Without legislative action, there would not be the constellation of entities that now makes up the school-reform/school-improvement community — entities with the capacity to be deployed by the government as a launching pad for things much greater.

In the two decades ahead, lawmakers will have an even more pivotal role. First, they must defend and improve laws already in place; the counterattack to undo, diminish, and water down these measures is well under way. If not properly countered, these reactionary moves will be damaging, perhaps mortally, to the cause of building schools of excellence. Second, and of perhaps greater importance, America needs a second wave of landmark legislation to complete the job intended by laws enacted in the past 20 years."

If this "third way" kind of thinking does not make its way into the Strong American Schools program, the presidential debate will be reduced "status quo v vouchers" on the campaign trail. The industry needs to work very hard indeed to make that case to the likes of Romer, Lampkin, Gaters and Broad. It is time to start looking around for same gray-haired, experienced, articulate spokeseople for the industry - your editor nominates Chris Whittle and Eduventures' founder Mike Sandler's to make the case for a results-driven system of public education fueled by school improvement providers who partner with classroom teachers to improve student and school performance.