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These days there’s a new energy around an old idea: bipartisan school reform.
Reviving this was the quaint but ascendant goal of a recent Washington D.C. event that I attended last month. The Bipartisan Policy Center convened a group of influential education leaders from both parties to sketch out a new agenda for school reform.
“The moment is now,” said former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings during the opening panel. “We have not recovered from COVID fully. We really need to light the fire of urgency.”
This was the sort of thinking that used to dominate Washington D.C. Presidents from both parties once insisted on a muscular federal role to hold schools and teachers accountable for raising test scores. These advocates have been on the outs politically for over a decade, but some see an opportunity to revive the old coalition. A flurry of reports, compacts, commissions, events, and essays have made the case that politicians of both parties need to come together to address the striking declines in student learning and center education as a national priority.
Whatever you think about this mini-resurgence, it’s worth paying attention to. Bipartisan school reform upended schools once before (with a much debated legacy). Could it happen again? Maybe. In many ways the ground is ripe, but it’s not clear advocates have a clear constituency or reform agenda.
Drawing from recent history, here are three reasons this particular brand of reform could return and three obstacles this effort faces.
Why bipartisan reform could be revived: There really is a learning crisis.
Modern bipartisan school reform has its roots in a 1983 report “A Nation at Risk,” which claimed (with disputed evidence) that the country’s schools were in dire shape. These days the data is clear: Test scores have been on an alarming trajectory for a decade. This has again led to widespread concerns among policymakers, academics, and journalists.
The aspiring reformers are driving the mainstream media narrative about education.
Centrist education advocates and politicians, like former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have offered a clear theory to explain these recent learning declines. Emanuel argues that Democrats deserve blame for backing COVID-era school building closures, focusing on culture war issues, and downplaying the importance of test scores. He says Democrats should look to Republican-led states in the South, like Mississippi.
A remarkable slew of articles have endorsed versions of this narrative. That includes several pieces in the New York Times. Not many other prominent Democrats are echoing Emanuel, but we can be sure they are reading the Times. Crucially, those Democrats more sympathetic to teachers unions and public education have not articulated a clear alternative theory to explain recent learning declines.
Both parties may have political incentives for moving to the center on education.
The prior iteration of bipartisan reform came at a moment where both parties used education as a strategy to appeal to centrist independent voters. Bill Clinton promised to be a different type of liberal who would take a tough-minded approach to schools, while George W. Bush pitched himself as a "compassionate conservative” who would champion the education of disadvantaged children.
Once again Democratic reformers say the party faces a similar political imperative. Emanuel and many others have claimed the party has lost its edge on education with voters. This isn’t true, according to the vast majority of recent surveys, but the talking point has nevertheless proven deeply influential at a moment when Democrats have been casting about for answers following Trump’s election in 2024.
Republicans are not at this soul-searching stage — they've leaned into school choice and parents’ rights. But Trump is quite unpopular at the moment, and so is his effort to close the Education Department. Depending on the midterm results, it’s possible that the GOP will make efforts to tack away from Trump’s combative approach to education.
Why bipartisan reform might not happen: Reformers don’t have a clear bumper sticker.
Although the centrist reformers are aligned on what’s gone wrong, their solutions are a bit less clear. This was apparent during a Bipartisan Policy Center panel on education, which I moderated. The group released a number of recommendations about improving schools. These ranged from broad goals (“reimagine the high school years”) to very specific policies (“require transparent, consistent annual reporting” on teacher pension plans). But there wasn’t an overarching idea or takeaway, as best I could tell.
So I asked each participant on the panel what their bumper-sticker pitch for school reform would be.
“Responsive systems and better information,” responded Andy Rotherham, the co-founder of Bellwether, an education consulting firm, and a former Clinton White House staffer.
“Locals lead; feds fund, measure, and evaluate,” said Tom Kane, a Harvard education professor.
“Education is the way out of your parents’ basement,” said Katie Jenner, the Indiana education secretary.
This range of responses is in contrast with the relatively clear bumper stickers from the political right and the left. (“More choice, less wokeness, no U.S. Department of Education,” on the right. “More money,” on the left.)
Without a snappy message for what bipartisan reformers want to do, I suspect advocates will struggle to coalesce policy elites or regular people around their ideas.
There is little clear grassroots demand for this sort of reform.
Indeed, the push to address learning declines has seemingly not broken through to voters. While Americans have an increasingly negative view of the quality of K-12 schools, very few rate education as a top issue. This is quite different than in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Remarkably, in the 2000 presidential campaign, voters sometimes ranked education as the top issue facing the country.
And despite years of headlines about bad test scores, most parents still give their child’s school relatively high marks.
Bipartisan reform may require presidential leadership
Starting with George H. W. Bush and continuing through Barack Obama there were four straight presidents who championed an overlapping agenda of school accountability and school choice. Each made education a central national issue. In a number of cases, these presidents brought along reluctant members of their own parties. The bipartisan coalition crucially depended on this presidential leadership. In turn, bipartisan school reform has collapsed under Trump and Biden since neither bought into this agenda.
To succeed, the bipartisan reformers may need a like-minded president. That could, of course, be tough to get. Right now, Rahm Emanuel is polling at 0%-1%. The question for these aspiring reformers is whether they can find other presidential candidates to carry their mantle.
This piece was about whether bipartisan school reform will return. It’s a different question than whether it should. What do you think? Share your thoughts with me at [email protected].
Thumbnail image by Getty Images