I’ve been arguing lately that John McCain needs to distance himself from NCLB, because it’s unpopular with his base and, increasingly, with the general public. Plus, as I told Education Week, everyone knows that the law needs some reworking. Without saying so, he cedes the “mend it, don’t end it” line to Barack Obama–who can claim to be anti-NCLB and pro-school reform at the same time.

Well, forget about that. At a reporter roundtable we hosted this morning,* McCain education advisor Lisa Graham Keegan offered a glimpse at the Senator’s nascent education plan. To my ears, it sounds like a major departure from No Child Left Behind as we know it. And I wasn’t the only one hearing that. Let me rely on the reporting of real journalists. First, Michelle McNeil at Education Week’s Campaign K12 blog:

McCain… wants to move away from sanctions and instead use tutoring and public school choice as “opportunities” for children and families rather than as punishments for schools. And perhaps more importantly, he wants to make the aid available to families immediately without waiting two or three years. And maintaining the current sanction of restructuring schools at five years if they are failing to meet adequate yearly progress isn’t a priority for him, either. In addition, McCain will work more closely with governors to come up with other options for addressing failing schools, [Keegan] said.

And Maria Glod at the Washington Post quoted Keegan thusly: “The federal government cannot position itself continually as the bully in this. No more will we say that’s what 50 states are going to do, because he doesn’t believe that’s our best hope for improvement.”

Keegan also mentioned McCain’s interest in a growth model that would provide incentives to accelerate the performance of high achieving students, and she wouldn’t commit to keeping the 2013-2014 deadline for getting all students to “proficiency.” All this adds up to a major shift in policy (not necessarily the shift I had in mind, but still). 

However, the details are quite sketchy. The reporters pressed Keegan on the absence of a formal plan from McCain. She promised one was forthcoming (by back-to-school) but she also turned the tables on Obama. Referring to his proposal, released last fall, she said, “It’s very easy to write a detailed program for an old system.”

* We plan to host these roundtables monthly with a variety of newsmakers in education. We’re working with the Obama campaign to schedule a session with one of their k-12 advisors in July.

No related posts.