Hard to label Obama when it comes to education

Is Barack Obama really a force for change, or is he just a traditional Democrat with a patina of postpartisan rhetoric?

That question is surprisingly hard to answer. When you listen to his best speeches, you see a person who really could herald a new political era. But when you look into his actual policies, you often find a list of orthodox liberal programs that no centrist or moderate conservative would have any reason to support.

To investigate this question, I looked more closely into Obama's education policies. Education is a good area to probe because Obama knows a lot about it, and because there are two education camps within the Democratic Party: a status quo camp and a reform camp. The two camps issued dueling strategy statements this week.

The status quo camp issued a statement organized by the Economic Policy Institute. This report argues that poverty and broad social factors drive high dropout rates and other bad outcomes. Schools alone can't combat that, so more money should go to health care programs, antipoverty initiatives and after-school and pre-K programs. When it comes to improving schools, the essential message is that we need to spend more on what we're already doing: smaller class sizes, better instruction, better teacher training.

The reformist camp, by contrast, issued a statement through the Education Equality Project, signed by school chiefs like Joel Klein of New York, Michelle Rhee of Washington, Andres Alonso of Baltimore as well as Al Sharpton, Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., and experts like Andrew Rotherham, the former Clinton official who now writes the Eduwonk blog.

The reformists also support after-school and pre-K initiatives. But they insist school reform alone can make a big difference, so they emphasize things the status quo camp doesn't: rigorous accountability and changing the fundamental structure of school systems.

Today's school systems aren't broken, the reformers argue. They were designed to meet the needs of teachers and adults first, and that's exactly what they are doing. It's time, though, to put the interests of students first.

The question of the week is: Which camp is Barack Obama in?

His advisers run the gamut, and the answer depends in part on what month it is. Back in October 2005, Obama gave a phenomenal education speech in which he seemed to ally with the reformers. Then, as the campaign heated up, he shifted over to pure union orthodoxy, ripping into accountability and testing in a speech in New Hampshire in a way that essentially gutted the reformist case. Then, on May 28 in Colorado, he delivered another major education speech in which he shifted back in a more ambiguous direction.

In that Colorado speech, he opened with a compelling indictment of America's school systems. Then he argued that the single most important factor in shaping student achievement is the quality of the teachers. This seemed to direct him in the reformist camp's direction, which has made them happy.

But when you look at the actual proposals Obama offers, he's doesn't really address the core issues. He's for the vast panoply of pre-K and after-school programs that most of us are for. But the crucial issues are: What do you do with teachers and administrators who are failing? How rigorously do you enforce accountability? Obama doesn't engage the thorny, substantive matters that separate the two camps.

He proposes dozens of programs to build on top of the current system, but it's not clear that he would challenge it. He's all carrot, no stick. He's politically astute -- giving everybody the impression he's on their side -- but substantively vague. Change just isn't that easy.

In Washington, Mayor Adrian Fenty has taken big risks in supporting a tenacious reformer like Rhee. Would President Obama likewise take on a key Democratic interest group in order to promote real reform? We can hope. But so far, hope is all we can be sure of.