As more than 50,000 Democrats converge on the City of Brotherly Love this week to formally nominate Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominee, experts say education isn’t likely to take center stage at the Democratic National Convention.
“I would say that education is not functioning as a central issue among Democrats or Republicans,” says Dr. Barbara Stengel, Professor of the Practice and Director of the Secondary Education Department of Teaching and Learning at the Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University.
Still, Stengel—an expert on educational policy issues—says the decision by Democrats to invite Raumesh Akbari, a Tennessee legislator, who has put forth legislation calling for state-wide education reform, is “probably a signal among the Clinton crowd that they’re going to put on the brakes a little, on state takeovers and charter schools.”
Stengel says the selection of U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine as Clinton’s running mate is also telling, given that his wife, Anne Holton, is the Virginia Secretary of Education and an avid supporter of public schools.
“I don’t think education will be central to the convention, but these are two subtle signs that the Clinton administration won’t have the same enthusiasm as the Obama administration when it comes to testing and charter schools,” says Stengel. “It’s not anti-charter, but they are recalibrating the balance.”
Meanwhile, the decision to have Clinton’s Democratic rival U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders keynote the first night of the Convention may be an attempt to position Clinton more to the political left, even as she and Kaine are largely considered to be centrist Democrats.
During his primary run, Sanders called for free public college tuition. Initially, Clinton scoffed at the idea but has since changed her position, adding that she now supports eliminating tuition at in-state public colleges or universities for families earning up to $125,000 a year.
