Rick Hess: Education and the Election

Feb 11, 2016 by Michael F. Shaughnessy EducationViews Senior Columnist

An Interview with Rick Hess: Education and the Election

1) In general, education has not been mentioned very much during the current Presidential contest. Could this be due to concern over illegal immigration, our porous borders, Syrian refuges or the bombastic, vitriolic Donald Trump??

For most people, education is not as urgent as national security and the economy. At times such as these, when headlines are filled with stories of terrorism and stagnant wages, education faces a stiff headwind. Gallup’s December 2015 poll found that education ranked 13th when Americans were asked about the most pressing problem facing the US today. Back in 2000, when things were quite a bit calmer, Gallup found that education ranked first among all issues.

The rise of Donald Trump also certainly contributes as well. A dominant figure with no real ideological mooring, a can’t-look-away persona and a remarkable gift for tapping voter frustration, Trump has dragged the GOP primary far away from conventional policy debate. Talk about the particulars of social policy can sound dull and out-of-touch in the face of Trump’s eruptions. In face of that, it’s no wonder education’s been pushed to the sidelines this election.....

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