A sidebar to TIME?s latest cover story does a nice job of setting out the educational choices that lie before Barack Obama as president:
Obama is gifted at making people on both sides of a problem believe he is with them, and on few issues has this been more apparent than on education.Before he won the Democratic nomination, Obama gave education reformers reason to dream. ?
But in the campaign’s final stretch, Obama was much more muted on education; it was McCain who made the boldest case for reform. And Obama’s decision to elevate campaign adviser Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford education professor whose positions are often aligned with those of the unions, to lead his education transition team worries the reform community.
Even left-leaning national magazine columnists know that an education policy that doesn?t take on teachers? unions can?t produce real ?change.? If he?s truly committed to change and doesn?t want to follow the pattern of political pandering to a vocal interest group, the president-elect could pick up some good education ideas here.
